Apple Unveils M6 & M5 Ultra 2nm Chips Alongside Upgraded Mac Mini

by Aaron Leong — Wednesday, August 26, 2026, 11:01 AM EDT

Apple has refreshed its desktop lineup with the launch of the all-new M6 chip and the powerhouse M5 Ultra, both of which are expected to marginally boost the Mac mini and Mac Studio in performance and in price.

First up is the M6, which is Apple’s first 2-nanometer processor: it debuts inside the Mac mini, and sports a redesigned 12-core CPU (combining two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores) that Cupertino claims offers the world's fastest single-threaded performance. Graphically, the 12-core GPU receives an upgrade by embedding neural accelerators into each GPU core for the very first time on a Mac mini. Coupled with a dual 16-core Neural Engine and up to 170GB/s of memory bandwidth, the M6 Mac mini delivers up to four times faster AI performance and double the graphics speed compared to its predecessor, Apple says.

For professionals who want even more oomph, there's also the Mac mini with the M5 Pro, which packs up to an 18-core CPU, a 20-core GPU, and support for 64GB of unified RAM with 307GB/s bandwidth. The M5 Pro ought to be a champ at accelerating local LLMs, video editing, and complex 3D rendering.

In terms of connectivity, both Mac mini variants feature front-facing USB-C ports, upgraded 2.5Gbps Ethernet, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 6. The M5 Pro model adds three rear Thunderbolt 5 ports, allowing users to cluster multiple Mac mini units together to run massive AI models on-device.

M5 Ultra-powered Mac Studio - Image: Apple

For the ultimate of the trio, we have the M5 Ultra making its debut inside the redesigned Mac Studio. Built using Apple’s first quad-die architecture, the M5 Ultra leverages an UltraFusion interconnect with over 4.4TB/s of inter-die bandwidth. With up to 36 CPU cores (12 of which are super cores) the M5 Ultra can deliver up to 1.3 times higher multithreaded performance than the M3 Ultra, so modest gains, then.

In its press release, Apple also talked about its developer framework and tools like Core AI, Core ML, Metal, and Xcode tapping directly into the advanced hardware of both new chips.

"Developers can leverage the Dual 16-core Neural Engine in M6, and the Neural Accelerators in the GPU with the massive 512GB unified memory pool and faster 1.2TB/s of unified memory bandwidth in M5 Ultra, to provide incredible AI compute capabilities," Apple says.

Preorders are now open and shipping is set to begin on September 22. The entry-level M6 Mac mini starts at $899, while the M5 Pro begins at $1,699. Meanwhile, the M5 Ultra Mac Studio sits at the top tier of Apple's pro desktop lineup starting at $5,499. Considering the state of computer prices lately, Apple has kept the MSRP creep in check, with both Mac mini only going up by $100 and the M5 Ultra Mac Studio only jumping $200 over the previous generation.