Apple Introduced the Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro--$899 and $1,699, the First 2nm Mac, Shipping September 22

Apple introduced a new Mac mini on August 25, took pre-orders the same day, and says deliveries begin September 22. The M6 model is $899 ($799 for education) with a 12-core CPU, a 12-core GPU and 16GB of unified memory; the M5 Pro model is $1,699 ($1,599 for education) with a 15-core CPU, a 16-core GPU and 24GB. 9to5Mac calls the M6 Apple's first 2nm processor, both models cost $100 more than the machines they replace, and every speed number below is Apple's.

They share a case and split on ports

The M6 has a 12-core CPU (two super, four performance and six efficiency cores), a 12-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a dual 16-core Neural Engine. The tech specs page lists 16GB, 24GB or 32GB of memory, 256GB to 2TB of storage, 153GB/s of memory bandwidth at 16GB and 170GB/s above it, and three Thunderbolt 4 ports. It drives two displays at 6K and 60Hz or 4K and 165Hz, plus a third at 5K.

The M5 Pro model has a 15-core CPU, five super and ten performance cores, and a 16-core GPU with third-generation ray tracing; 18 CPU and 20 GPU cores are a $200 option. Memory is 24GB, 48GB or 64GB, storage 512GB to 8TB, bandwidth 307GB/s, and the three rear ports are Thunderbolt 5 at up to 120Gb/s. It drives one display at up to 8K and 60Hz, a second at 5K and 120Hz, and three in all.

Both share the 5-by-5-by-2-inch case (1.5 pounds for the M6, 1.6 for the M5 Pro), two front USB-C ports, HDMI, a high-impedance headphone jack, 2.5Gb Ethernet with 10Gb optional, and a 155W maximum draw. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 come from Apple's N1 chip, genlock over USB-C syncs a display and a camera, iPhone 17 Pro included, and Apple says both run the upcoming macOS 27, Golden Gate.

The prices rose before any benchmark ran

The $899 and $1,699 starting prices are each $100 above the $799 and $1,599 Apple had charged for the M4 and M4 Pro minis since June 26, 2026, when it raised them from $599 and $1,399, as TidBITS recounts; CNBC says Apple blamed that increase on memory costs. Against the 2024 launch prices of $599 and $1,399, each base model is up $300; Jason Snell at Six Colors puts the M6 model's rise at 50 percent in under two years for the same 16GB and 256GB. On the M5 Pro, 2TB of storage adds $1,000 and 4TB adds $1,800, and a maxed-out mini is $6,799, per MacRumors. The first Mac mini we reviewed in 2005 was $499.

Apple's comparisons for the M6 are against the M4 mini: up to 40 percent faster CPU performance, twice the graphics and storage speed, four times the AI performance, up to 4.8 times faster LLM prompt processing in LM Studio, and up to twice the gaming performance with ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition. For the M5 Pro against the M4 Pro: up to 4 times in LM Studio, 1.4 in Blender and 1.5 in Affinity. As of September 15 no mini has reached a customer, so there are no independent benchmarks: the MacRumors buyer's guide of September 3 carries no scores, and Macworld tells you to wait for them. Apple offers no M6-versus-M5 Pro comparison; TidBITS expects the Pro to win the multithreaded and GPU work even though the M6 is newer. We benchmarked the first Intel Mac mini in 2006 and will do the same here.

The guides send most buyers to the M6

Johny Srouji, Apple's chief hardware officer, calls the mini "our most versatile Mac," including "as an always-on agentic device"; CNBC notes that agent developers using tools like OpenClaw prefer a dedicated mini to the cloud. The guides agree on the split:

• The M6 for the web, office work, photo editing and coding when 32GB is enough; MacRumors calls it "the right choice" for most buyers, and Macworld says that even at $899 it "still delivers excellent performance per dollar."
• The M5 Pro if you need more than 32GB, do video rendering, 3D and VFX or large code builds, run larger local LLMs, or need Thunderbolt 5.
• Neither, if you own a 2024 mini and do not run AI models on it; MacRumors' 2024-versus-2026 guide says skip this generation unless you have a high-refresh-rate monitor stuck at 60Hz, since both new models add 4K at 165Hz.
• Wait, Macworld says, if you want independent benchmarks, a Prime Day discount in October or a Black Friday one in November, or a marked-down M4.

Our order would be the M6 with 24GB, for the extra memory bandwidth, and we would let the Pro buyers pay for the Thunderbolt 5 ports.