Apple is announcing a new generation of the Mac Mini, once again offering two models: one with a new M6 chip and a higher-end model with the M5 Pro found in this year’s MacBook Pro. The new Minis have the same tiny design and footprint as the 2024 M4 / M4 Pro models, but with upgraded internals, faster performance, and speedier ethernet ports.
The M6 Mac Mini starts at $899, while the M5 Pro model starts at $1,699. Both cost $100 more than the most recent starting prices of the M4 generation. And while preorders start today, the new Mac Minis won’t ship until September 22nd — hopefully enough time for Apple to stock up on inventory, as the last-gen models became scarce due to higher than expected demand for running AI agents.
Like last generation, the new entry-level Mac Mini with an M6 chip starts with 16GB of unified memory and 256GB of storage, and the M5 Pro Mac Mini starts with a 24GB / 512GB configuration. But the storage in all of these models is now twice as fast, just like the recent crop of MacBooks Air and Pro. In addition to the double-speed storage, both M6 and M5 Pro Mac Minis now sport 2.5 gigabit ethernet ports (with the same optional upgrade to 10 gigabit) and they use Apple’s N1 chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support.
The M6 Mac Mini now has a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU along with 170GBps of memory bandwidth compared to the M4’s 10-core / 10-core setup and memory bandwidth of 120GBps. Its CPU consists of two super cores (a naming convention that began with the M5 Pro / Max chips), four performance cores, and six efficiency cores — and it’s Apple’s first chip on a 2nm process. Apple claims the M6’s more, faster cores lead to a 40 percent uplift in CPU performance over the M4 generation, and the new 12-core GPU with neural accelerators is up to twice as fast at graphics rendering with ray tracing than the M4 in some games.
The M5 Pro of the new Mac Mini is configurable, much like it is on the MacBook Pro: it can be had with up to 18 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores, and it has the same 307GBps of memory bandwidth. Apple claims the Mac Mini with an M5 Pro has significant gains in AI compute and graphics over the outgoing M4 Pro model, thanks in part to the neural accelerator in each GPU core. This should permit heavier AI workloads, including photo and video upscaling, and running larger diffusion models.
Some key things haven’t changed on the new Mac Minis — most notably, all the ports besides the upgraded ethernet. Both Minis maintain two front-facing 10Gbps USB-C ports and the three on the rear of the M6 are faster Thunderbolt 4, while the rear three of the M5 Pro are even speedier Thunderbolt 5 ports. But both the M6 and M5 Pro Mac Minis will ship with macOS 27 Golden Gate preloaded out of the box, offering full compatibility with Apple’s new Siri AI and new Apple Intelligence features.
There’s no official launch date for the final public release of macOS 27, but with today’s Mac announcements, it should arrive no later than their September 22nd ship date.
