The Mac mini has become one of Apple’s more sought-after computers, to the point that it became difficult to find as developers and tech enthusiasts began using the compact desktop to run AI workloads and agents locally.
If you’re one of those people, Apple’s latest announcement should be interesting. The company has introduced new Mac mini and Mac Studio models with faster chips, more AI-focused performance and, unfortunately for buyers, higher prices.
The M6 Mac mini and M5 Ultra Mac Studio are here, and Apple is clearly positioning both around the growing demand for local AI computing.
Louis Eriakha
The Mac mini: What’s new?
The Mac mini now comes in two versions: the M6 and M5 Pro.
The M6 is Apple’s first chip built on a 2nm process. It has a 12-core CPU made up of two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores. Apple claims it is 20% faster than the M5 and 40% faster than the M4. The M6 also gets a 12-core GPU and a dual 16-core Neural Engine, which should help with on-device AI workloads.
For people who need more power, the M5 Pro Mac mini can be configured with up to 18 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores, alongside 307GB/s of memory bandwidth.
The Mac Studio gets the M5 Ultra
The Mac Studio is also getting a major upgrade, with the M5 Max and M5 Ultra now available. The M5 Ultra is Apple’s most powerful chip yet and uses a “quad-die” architecture, connecting four chip dies through UltraFusion technology with more than 4.4TB/s of inter-die bandwidth.
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