Apple unveiled some big upgrades coming to its Mac mini and Studio computers, including new chip options and the debut of the company’s M6 processor.
Across both new Macs, Apple is hammering performance gains for AI tasks — hardly surprising given how popular the Mac mini and Studio are for AI workloads.
First up is the Mac mini, which is getting upgraded with both the new M6 chip and an M5 Pro chip option, faster memory, and more.
M6 is a beast for AI
The 2nm M6 chip boasts the first 12-core CPU in an Apple M-series chip, comprised of two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores. The chip sports a Dual 16-core Neural Engine boasting up to 2x peak compute over the previous gen for AI workloads. Moreover, both engines can be used simultaneously.
On the GPU side, M6 also boasts two more cores than the M5 chip at 12 total. Further, each core sports a Neural Accelerator. The design delivers a nearly 30 per cent increase in peak GPU compute for AI compared to the M5. The changes significantly boost on-device processing for large language models (LLMs).
However, Apple also touted other updates that enable the M6 to offer faster rendering and higher frame rates, making it better for gaming as well.
On the memory side, the M6 chip supports up to 32GB of unified memory with up to 170GB/s of memory bandwidth.
Other upgrades to the Mac mini include support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and a 2.5Gb Ethernet port (with 10Gb options available). The M5 Pro variant of Mac mini also sports three Thunderbolt 5 ports, allowing users to cluster multiple Mac minis together to run large AI models locally.
New chips for Mac Studio boost performance
As for the Mac Studio, it’s now available with M5 Max and Ultra chips, bringing a major leap in performance. We already saw the M5 Max arrive alongside a MacBook Pro upgrade earlier this year, but the M5 Ultra is new.
Apple touted the M5 Ultra as sporting 4.3x faster AI performance, up to 2x faster storage, up to 1.8x faster graphics, and up to 1.3x faster CPU speeds. The M5 Ultra boasts up to 36 CPU cores, up to 80 GPU cores, and up to 512GB of unified memory, enabling users to run massive AI models entirely on-device.
Like the Mac mini, the Mac Studio is getting Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and Thunderbolt 5.
Both the new Mac mini and Studio will run macOS 27 with tons of new AI and Apple Intelligence features.
Canadian pricing for the new Macs
Here’s the Canadian pricing for the new Mac mini and Mac Studio:
- Mac mini with M6 – starts at $1,249 ($1,109 for education)
- Mac mini with M5 Pro – starts at $2,399 ($2,259 for education)
- Mac Studio with M5 Max – starts at $3,499 ($3,219 for education)
- Mac Studio with M5 Ultra – starts at $7,799 ($7,229 for education)
Notably, Apple raised prices on several Mac products in June, though the Mac mini dodged a price increase at the time. Unfortunately, the new M6 version starts at a higher price than the current $1,099 Mac mini with M4.
The Mac Studio, however, did see a price hike in June — the M4 Max variant jumped from $2,699 to $3,499 in Canada. So the new M5 Max version doesn’t come with a price increase.
Both the Mac mini and Mac Studio will be available to pre-order starting on Aug. 25, and will ship on Sept. 22. However, the Mac Studio with 512GB RAM won’t be available until late October.
Images credit: Apple
