Mac mini M6 and M5 Pro: More power, less bargain

Apple's Mac mini gains M6 and M5 Pro chips with major performance gains, but the entry-level price jumps 50% to $899 for the base model.

Apple dropped four new M-series chips and two new Mac models yesterday out of the blue. The new chips were the M6, M5 Pro, M5 Max and M5 Ultra, spread across new versions of the Mac mini and Mac Studio. You can read about the new Mac Studio here. Here’s everything relevant about the latest Mac mini.

There was a time, actually at the launch of the previous generation Mac mini models, when they represented a serious bargain. Their relationship with the iMac range is always quite loosely coupled, and they cycle between being relatively cheap and relatively expensive given that you also have to fork out for everything you need to turn them into working computers.

With these new releases, they’re unfortunately in that latter part of their cycle now, with the entry-level Mac mini in particular being the first Apple machine to get the new M6 chip. Yes, you get a seriously souped-up performance, but you also get a seriously souped-up price, a 50% climb to a starting $899 (though at least the entry level machines are available again, after the M4 versions disappeared in May).

As with the Mac Studio, we have an intergenerational comparison chart below.

It’s a shame that Apple doesn’t run different generations together more often to give consumers more choice. But AI is everything now, RAMageddon is all too real, they need the parts for the new models, and here we are. Onwards.

The new M6 entry-level

The M6 model has a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU with Neural Accelerators built into each core, paired with a dual 16-core Neural Engine. It ships with 16 GB of unified memory as standard, configurable to 32 GB, with memory bandwidth up to 170 GB/s. Ports are two USB-C (USB 3) and a headphone jack on the front, with three Thunderbolt 4, HDMI and Ethernet on the back.

Apple says the M6 is up to 4x faster for AI workloads, up to 40% faster on CPU tasks, and up to 2x faster for graphics and storage compared with the M4.

The M5 Pro version

The M5 Pro configuration steps up to an 18-core CPU and a GPU with up to 20 cores, adding third-generation ray tracing. Unified memory goes up to 64 GB, with bandwidth of 307 GB/s, and the back panel carries three Thunderbolt 5 ports alongside HDMI and Ethernet. Apple claims up to 4x faster LLM processing, up to 1.5x faster image processing, and up to 1.4x ray tracing in Blender for the M5 Pro versus the M4 Pro.

Both configurations include WiFi 7, Bluetooth 6 and 2.5 Gb Ethernet as standard, with 10 Gb Ethernet available as an option. Interestingly, newly added genlock support through USB-C enables precise synchronization between a display and camera, including the iPhone 17 Pro (and presumably the forthcoming 18 Pro).

Pricing and availability

The M6 Mac mini starts at $899 ($799 for education), and the M5 Pro model starts at $1699 ($1599 for education). Both are available to preorder now, with shipping September 22, 2026.

Mac mini: M4 to M6

Mac mini: M4 Pro to M5 Pro