Apple targets developer AI performance gains with new M6 Mac Mini and M5 Ultra Mac Studio devices

Apple has unveiled new Mac Mini and Mac Studio models, boasting an “extraordinary leap in performance and AI capabilities”.

The new devices wil be equipped with Apple’s M6 and M5 Ultra chips, the latter of which is described as its most powerful to date.

“Today we’re debuting the next giant leap in performance and AI compute for Apple silicon with the incredibly advanced M6 and the most powerful M-series chip yet,” M5 Ultra,” said Sri Santhanam, Apple’s vice president of Silicon Engineering Group.

The move by Apple comes amidst a sharpened focus on local, on-device AI capabilities for developers globally. The Mac Mini, for example, has emerged as a go-to option on this front, enabling users to run agentic workflows locally.

Santhanam said the new Mac Studio M5 Ultra, for example, will provide the “ultimate desktop performance and the ability to run massive AI models” on the device.

Under the hood of the M6 Mac Mini

The new Mac Mini will feature Apple’s M6 chip, which is built using a 2-nanometer process. This will boast a 12-core GPU, two more than the M5, along with a neural accelerator in each core.

Using this design, Apple said this will deliver a near 30% increase in GPU performance for AI compared to the M5, and more than eight-times compared to the M1.

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“The super cores blaze through single-threaded workloads, the performance cores use less power and join the super cores to run demanding multithreaded workloads, and the efficiency cores handle everyday background tasks — all with industry-leading performance per watt,” Apple said in a blog post.

Elsewhere, the Mac Mini M6 will support up to 32GB of unified memory, along with 170GB/s of unified memory bandwidth. The firm said this marks a 10% increase over the M5 and will help users run LLMs on the device more efficiently.

The M5 Pro Mac Mini

Alongside the new M6 range, Apple also unveiled the Mac Mini equipped with an M5 Pro chip. This will boast a CPU ranging up to 18-cores alongside a 20-core GPU, and is catered specifically for complex tasks such as 3D design, VFX, and game development.

The device also supports up to 64GB of unified memory, alongside 307GB/s of unified memory bandwidth. Once again, Apple touted the device's capabilities in terms of local AI orchestration.

"With industry-leading performance per watt, Mac mini with M5 Pro is quiet, efficient, and ideal as an always-on desktop for AI agents or creative workflows," the company said in a blog post.

What to expect with the M5 Ultra Mac Studio

According to Apple, the new Mac Studio featuring the M5 Ultra chip is the “ultimate powerhouse for pro workflows” - again placing a strong emphasis on local AI capabilities.

The M5 boasts a next-gen GPU with up to 80 cores, with each also boasting a neural accelerator to provide up to 4.5-times the GPU performance compared to the M3 Ultra chip, and over six-times that of the M1 Ultra.

“The GPU includes Apple’s latest shader core with second-generation Dynamic Caching, as well as hardware-accelerated mesh shading and third-generation ray tracing, delivering up to 40 percent faster graphics performance than M3 Ultra,” the company said in a blog post.

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On the memory front, the new device also boasts significant improvements, featuring up to 512GB of unified memory and 1.2TB/s of unified memory bandwidth.

Apple said this will enable users to “store huge datasets entirely in local memory” and run LLMs ranging in the hundreds of billions of parameters locally.

What to expect with pricing

Customers looking to get their hands on the Mac Mini with M6 or M5 Pro chips can pre-order today (25 August), although the devices will set you back.

In terms of pricing, the Mac Mini with M6 will start at $899 in the US, although users in education can get it for a reduced price of $799. The Mac Mini with M5 Pro, meanwhile, starts at $1,699 and $1,599 for education.

Elsewhere, the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra starts at a whopping $5,499 and $5,099 for education.

Designed for devs

Notably, Apple’s various developer frameworks and tools, such as Core AI, Core ML, and Xcode, will “tap directly” into both chips.

This offers marked advantages in terms of local AI orchestration, the company said.

“With these frameworks and new chips, developers can run and fine-tune large AI models locally on their Mac,” Apple said in a blog post.

“Apple’s developer tools and frameworks automatically optimize performance across the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine, and give developers the ability to use Apple Foundation Models, App Intents to tap into Apple Intelligence features, or their own proprietary AI models to build and run powerful AI workloads entirely on device.”

Another pint-sized powerhouse

Bobby Hellard

Apple’s pint-sized powerhouse, the Mac Mini, is back with an M6 chip – and it comes at a time when mini PCs are having their moment.

Smaller players from China such as Geekom and Beelink are finding more and more markets with their innovative and powerful desktop boxes, but they will struggle to match the pulling power of Apple.

And they won’t be anywhere near as adorable as the Mac Mini.

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