Apple has refreshed the Mac Mini and Mac Studio desktops with two new chips — the M6 and M5 Ultra — according to WIRED. The desktops, which WIRED reported had been "difficult to buy for most of this year," are returning to stock. The update also marks the debut of the M6 chip, which WIRED expects to appear in future MacBooks. Both desktops go on preorder today with macOS 27 Golden Gate preinstalled, but they won't ship until September 22.
M6 chip: 2-nanometer process, 12-core CPU, first Neural Accelerators in Mac Mini
The Mac Mini skips the M5 entirely, WIRED reported, and now comes in two flavors: the M6 and the M5 Pro. The M5 Pro is the same chip currently found in the MacBook Pro. The M6 is the first Apple Silicon part built on 2-nanometer process technology, and the first Apple chip to use a 12-core CPU broken into two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores. Apple says the new performance cores speed up multithreaded tasks while preserving efficiency, and claims the M6 is 20 percent faster than the M5 in multithreaded performance and 40 percent faster than the M4.
The GPU gains two cores for a total of 12. The M6 Mac Mini is also the first Mac Mini to include Neural Accelerators, a feature that launched in the M5 chip last year, according to WIRED. Apple says the M6 Mac Mini is twice as fast as the M4 Mac Mini. It also adds what Apple calls a "dual 16-core Neural Engine," which doubles peak AI performance.
| Specification | M6 (Mac Mini) | M5 Ultra (Mac Studio) |
|---|---|---|
| CPU cores | 12 (2 super, 4 performance, 6 efficiency) | 36 |
| GPU cores | 12 | 80 |
| Architecture | First 2-nanometer Apple Silicon | First "quad-die" Apple chip |
| AI features | Dual 16-core Neural Engine, Neural Accelerators | M5-specific GPU improvements |
| Starting price (Mac Mini) | $899 | Not disclosed |
The M6 Mac Mini starts at $899 for the model with 16 GB of unified memory — a $200 price increase over the previous generation. It can still be configured with up to 32 GB of unified memory, and Apple says memory bandwidth is now up to 170 GB per second.
M5 Ultra: Apple's most powerful chip with quad-die architecture
The Mac Studio, in its fourth generation, comes in two flavors: the M5 Max and the new M5 Ultra. The previous generation, the M3 Ultra and M3 Max, launched in early 2025. Apple claims the M5 Ultra is its most powerful chip ever, and the first to use a "quad-die" architecture. WIRED explained that Ultra chips have traditionally connected two Max dies using the UltraFusion high-speed interconnect. Because the M5 Max already has two dies, the M5 Ultra combines four dies, and the updated UltraFusion interconnect delivers over 4.4 TB/s of inter-die bandwidth, making the whole array function as a single CPU.
Apple claims the M5 Ultra is Apple's most powerful chip ever, and the first to use a "quad-die" architecture.
The M5 Ultra Mac Studio adds four CPU cores for a total of 36. It retains 80 GPU cores — the same count as on the M3 Ultra — but Apple says M5-specific GPU improvements apply for better overall performance.
Trillion-parameter LLMs over Thunderbolt 5
In a briefing on the Mac Studio, Apple discussed connecting multiple Mac Studios together over Thunderbolt 5 to run frontier-level LLMs with over a trillion parameters locally, according to WIRED. Four Mac Studios can share memory in this configuration, and Apple said they can run over a standard wall outlet. That scenario would let teams run models locally that previously required far larger infrastructure.
Availability and shipping
Both the Mac Mini and Mac Studio are available for preorder starting today, with macOS 27 Golden Gate preinstalled. Systems ship September 22. Apple said the delay would not be reflective of shipping times for the new systems, according to WIRED — a detail to track alongside the earlier stock shortage as teams plan hardware refreshes.
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