Apple Launches New Mac Mini and Mac Studio with M6 and M5 Ultra Chips

Apple has announced new versions of its Mac Mini and Mac Studio desktops, featuring the advanced M6 and M5 Ultra chips, aiming to enhance performance especially for AI workloads and professional computing.

The Mac Mini now includes the M6 chip, Apple’s first 2-nanometer chip with a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, providing up to four times faster AI performance and double the graphics speed compared to previous models, according to Apple. The Mac Studio is updated with the M5 Ultra chip, Apple’s most powerful processor to date, designed for demanding tasks like 3D rendering and large AI model processing.

Apple’s M6 chip in the Mac Mini includes two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores. It also features a Dual 16-core Neural Engine and up to 170GB/s of unified memory bandwidth, supporting up to 32GB of unified memory. The new chip offers world’s fastest single-threaded performance and up to 1.2 times faster multithreaded performance compared to its predecessor, the M5.

"Today, we’re debuting the next giant leap in performance and AI compute for Apple silicon with the incredibly advanced M6 and the most powerful M-series chip yet, M5 Ultra," said Sri Santhanam, Apple’s vice president of Silicon Engineering Group.

Apple describes the M5 Ultra as a quad-die architecture connecting two dual-die M5 Max chips using next-generation UltraFusion technology, which increases inter-die bandwidth to over 4.4TB/s. This chip features up to 36 CPU cores, including 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, and up to 80 GPU cores with Neural Accelerators in each core.

"Built using the cutting-edge 2 nm process, M6 combines a new CPU complex, two additional CPU and GPU cores, a Dual 16-core Neural Engine, and more unified memory bandwidth to power through workloads with amazing energy efficiency," Santhanam added.

The M5 Ultra supports up to 512GB of unified memory with 1.2TB/s memory bandwidth, 50 percent more than the previous M3 Ultra. Apple claims it delivers up to 40 percent faster graphics performance and 4.5 times the peak AI compute compared to the M3 Ultra. The chip also features hardware-accelerated ray tracing and an enhanced Media Engine for high-resolution video editing.

The Mac Mini starts at $899 for the M6 model with 16GB of unified memory, while an M5 Pro version is also available starting at $1,699. The Mac Studio with the M5 Max begins at $2,499, and the M5 Ultra model starts at $5,499. Both desktops support Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and upgraded Ethernet, with multiple Thunderbolt ports depending on the model.

These new Macs come preinstalled with macOS 27 Golden Gate and are available for preorder as of August 25, with shipments scheduled for September 22. The M5 Ultra Mac Studio targets professionals needing extreme processing power for AI and creative workflows, while the M6 Mac Mini aims to serve everyday users and AI enthusiasts.