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Well, that was a bit of a surprise, wasn’t it?
Just a couple of weeks before we expect to see the latest iPhone lineup, Apple has launched new desktop Macs. And the news is big for several reasons.
The new Mac mini and Mac Studio were released without stage-led fanfare. These were what’s known as ‘press release releases’, accompanied by some very cool stop-animation-based social media marketing videos.
The headlines are pretty simple. The brilliant Mac mini (arguably Apple’s best Mac) is the first to get the latest Apple Silicon chip, the price has increased to £899/$899, and the Mac Studio is now available with the bonkers-spec M5 Ultra.
There’s a bit more to it, though.
Hello, new desktop Macs!
There were three press releases from Apple this week. The first covered the new Mac mini, which comes with the M6 chip or the M5 Pro chip. The M4 generation has vanished from the Apple Store, unless you head into the refurb area.
The second press release revealed an upgraded Mac Studio, which now comes in two flavours – either the M5 Max or the M5 Ultra. And as for the third press release, well, that dug into the detail around these new chips, which is all very interesting, but once again proves that we have reached ludicrous levels of performance-per-GBP when it comes to modern Macs. What a world we live in, eh?
The designs of both Macs are unchanged. Which is fine – they were already spot on.
The numbers that separate the various configurations between these desktop Macs, however, are utterly bonkers. The entry-level Mac mini comes with a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, while the maxed-out Mac Studio packs in a 36-core CPU and a frankly comical 80-core GPU. The price difference? The Mac mini starts at £899/$899, and the most you can spend on a Mac Studio is £18,299/$18,299.
You read those last numbers right. And, yes, the Mac Pro is no more. Obviously.
However, as is so often the case, the more interesting story is told at the slightly less biblical end of the spectrum. The M6 Mac mini is considerably more expensive than the M4 Mac mini was at launch (£599/$599 in 2024), but it’s also rather more powerful and is the first Mac to receive a 2nm chip.
This, of course, raises lots of questions.
M6 Mac mini at a Glance
The M6 Mac mini starts at £899/$899 with a 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU, 16GB unified memory, and 256GB storage. It’s the first Mac to feature Apple’s 2nm chip.
What you get
The M6 chip in the Mac mini comes with a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, which is up two cores on the M4 version in both instances. Apple is also claiming that the single-threaded performance is the “world’s fastest”.
If you weren’t aware, GPUs do the heavy lifting when it comes to AI, which is why Apple is making such a big deal about the M6’s GPU having neural accelerators in every core (a first for the Mac mini). And on the subject of AI, the M6 features a dual 16-core neural engine which theoretically offers up to twice the AI performance of the previous generation.
AI is, clearly, a big focus for Apple with these refreshed Mac minis. They know how many people and businesses are buying them (by the bucketload) for that purpose, and it stands to reason that the latest one is going to see the most gains in that area.
The M6 Mac mini comes with 16GB of unified memory as standard and starts at 256GB of storage (it goes up to 32GB and 2TB, respectively). It has the same port setup as the M4 version but now comes with 2.5GB Ethernet as standard (it was 1GB in the M4 version).
Wondering how the M4 Mac mini held up in the real world? Check out our MacBook Neo review for a look at how Apple Silicon performs across the Mac lineup.
M6 Mac mini vs M4 Mac mini
According to Apple, the M6 Mac mini has a 40% faster CPU than the previous generation, twice as fast graphics and storage, and up to four times faster AI performance.
In their own benchmarking, this resulted in 4.8 times faster LLM prompting in LM Studio, 1.5 times faster Excel stuff, and Cyberpunk 2077 running at twice the speed. Compare it against the M1 Mac mini, and the jump in LLM prompt processing is 13.5x. Excel? That’ll apparently be over two times faster on the M6 Mac mini if you currently have the M1 version.
These aren’t insignificant numbers if any of those tasks are your bread and butter. The M6 Mac mini is unlikely to feel much different in day-to-day usage but, clearly, when you start getting a little more fruity with your AI-driven tasks, number crunching, and gaming, it should be a noticeably more capable machine.
How does this translate to the real world? I’ll let you know – stay tuned.
M6 vs M1 Mac mini: The AI Leap
Apple claims the M6 Mac mini is 13.5x faster than the M1 at LLM prompt processing. If you’re still on an M1, the performance jump is substantial – especially for AI workloads.
The price
This is grabbing most of the headlines, because of course it is. The new Mac mini starts at £899/$899, which is a fair uplift over the £599/$599 starting price of the then entirely new M4 Mac mini in 2024.
We should remember, however, that the M4 Mac mini received a price hike back in June when Apple finally succumbed to the increased component costs for memory and raised their own RRPs. So, it’s been a steady, if still frustrating climb to where we are now.
It is what it is. It won’t go backwards. We are where we are. And there’s nothing any of us can do about it.
But with a secondhand and refurbished market now rampant with extremely tempting examples of the M4 Mac mini, this does beg one very important question.
Not sure which Mac to pick? We’ve put together a definitive Mac buying guide to help you decide.
Who is the M6 Mac mini for?
If you have an M1 Mac mini and you’ve got a decent budget, the M6 Mac mini is a massive upgrade. You’ll get the latest chassis and design, and a whopping dollop of extra performance that’ll set you up nicely for the next few years.
If you want the best base model Mac mini on the market and hate the feeling you’re buying the last generation, the M6 Mac mini will make you very happy indeed.
If AI is something you’re investing increasing time in and you view it as something that could gradually become a significant part of your work, income, or hobby, the M6 Mac mini is arguably the best starting point.
If none of that matches who you are and what you need, the M4 Mac mini is now an absolute bargain.
Simple!
Should You Buy the M4 Instead?
With the M4 Mac mini now available secondhand and refurbished at much lower prices, it remains an excellent choice for everyday users who don’t need cutting-edge AI performance.
Wrapping up
The Mac mini is no longer the budget desktop Mac. The sheer power available from that M6 chip – and, if that isn’t enough, the monstrous M5 Pro – makes it a small desktop computer that is capable of more than most of us realise (or need).
Apple is focusing hard on continually improving the AI capabilities of these diminutive Macs, and for good reason. That’s the era we’re living in now, and there has never been a better time to buy a Mac mini for that reason.
Or for any reason, to be honest.
1 Comment
Nice article! The M6 Mac mini looks impressive, but £899 is steep. I always use a mini PC price comparison table to compare specs and prices before upgrading. It really puts things in perspective.