Apple has announced new versions of the Mac mini and Mac Studio, available for pre-order starting August 25 in 30 countries and regions, with units shipping September 22. The Mac mini now comes with a choice of the all-new M6 chip or the M5 Pro chip, while the Mac Studio can be configured with an M5 Max or M5 Ultra chip. According to Wccftech, the M6 is Apple's first chip built on a 2-nanometer process and the industry's first commercially available 2nm chip from TSMC.
On the chip side, the M6 features a 12-core CPU (two "super" cores, four performance cores and six efficiency cores), a 12-core GPU with Neural Accelerators in each core, a new dual 16-core Neural Engine, up to 32GB of unified memory and up to 170GB/s of memory bandwidth. Apple claims the M6 delivers up to 4x faster AI performance, 2x faster storage and graphics, and 40% faster CPU performance versus the M4, and roughly 20% faster multithreaded performance than the M5. The M5 Pro option pushes further, with up to an 18-core CPU, 20-core GPU, up to 64GB of memory and 307GB/s of bandwidth. On the Mac Studio, the M5 Ultra uses Apple's UltraFusion technology to join two M5 Max dies into a quad-die design with up to a 36-core CPU, 80-core GPU, a 32-core Neural Engine and 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth. Sources differ on the Mac Studio's maximum memory: Tom's Hardware's chip coverage cites up to 512GB of unified memory, while a separate Tom's Hardware pricing report describes 96GB as standard with a 256GB upgrade option.
Both new Mac mini models add Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and 2.5Gb Ethernet (with a 10Gb option), plus genlock support via USB-C for syncing displays and cameras, including the iPhone 17 Pro. The M6 mini retains three rear Thunderbolt 4 ports, while the M5 Pro mini steps up to three Thunderbolt 5 ports, which Apple says also allows clustering multiple Mac minis to run large AI models locally. The Mac Studio gains up to six Thunderbolt 5 ports supporting as many as eight displays and Apple's N1 chip. Design-wise, both machines keep the form factor introduced with the M4-generation Mac mini. All new models ship with macOS 27 Golden Gate, which introduces Siri AI and updates to the Liquid Glass interface.
Pricing has risen across the board. The Mac mini with M6 starts at $899 ($799 for education), up from the M4 mini's original $599 launch price, according to multiple outlets. Tom's Hardware's pricing coverage adds that the M5 mini had already been raised to $799 in a late-June price adjustment before the M6 model launched at $899, a step not mentioned by other outlets, which instead compare the M6 price directly to the original $599 M4 price. The Mac mini with M5 Pro starts at $1,699 ($1,599 for education), up from $1,599 for the prior M4 Pro configuration in June and $1,399 earlier in the year, per Tom's Hardware. The Mac Studio starts at $2,499 for the M5 Max configuration — unchanged from its prior base price despite new hardware — while the M5 Ultra model starts at $5,499 ($5,099 for education).
Beyond base prices, memory and storage upgrades on the new machines are costly. Tom's Hardware reports that boosting the M6 Mac mini's memory from 16GB to 24GB costs $200, with 32GB costing an extra $400, while storage upgrades range from $200 for 512GB up to $1,000 for 2TB; a maxed-out M6 mini reaches $2,229. On the M5 Pro mini, memory upgrades cost as much as $1,000 for 64GB, and storage can reach $3,800 for 8TB, with a fully loaded configuration priced at $6,699. On the Mac Studio, Tom's Hardware notes the upgraded M5 Max GPU option adds $300, while stepping up to the M5 Ultra's larger CPU/GPU configuration adds $1,300, and memory or storage upgrades can add thousands more, with 16TB storage listed at $7,500. Tom's Hardware frames these increases as part of a broader wave of Apple price hikes since late June tied to industry-wide memory and storage shortages, noting that iPhones and AirPods have been the only Apple product lines left untouched by the increases.