Apple Unveils New Mac Mini and Mac Studio with Advanced AI Chips and Higher Prices

Apple has announced new versions of its Mac Mini and Mac Studio desktop computers, featuring the latest Apple Silicon chips with significant performance and AI enhancements. The new Mac Mini offers two chip options: the M6 with a 12-core CPU and GPU, and the more powerful M5 Pro with up to 18 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores. Both chips include advanced neural engines and AI accelerators integrated into the GPU cores, enabling up to four times faster AI processing compared to previous models. Memory bandwidth has also increased, with the M6 supporting up to 170GB/s and the M5 Pro up to 307GB/s. Standard memory starts at 16GB for the M6 and can be upgraded to 32GB, while the M5 Pro supports up to 64GB. Storage options range from 256GB to 8TB SSD.

Externally, the Mac Mini retains its previous silver design and port layout, including USB-C, Thunderbolt (now Thunderbolt 4 or 5 depending on the model), HDMI, and Ethernet with speeds upgraded to 2.5Gbps by default. Wireless connectivity has been enhanced to Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. However, these hardware improvements come with a price increase: the base M6 Mac Mini starts at $899, up $300 from the original M4 model's launch price, while the M5 Pro version begins at $1,699.

Alongside the Mac Mini, Apple introduced a new Mac Studio aimed at professional users requiring extreme computing power. The Mac Studio is available with the M5 Max or the new M5 Ultra chip, the latter boasting up to 36 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores, a 32-core neural engine, and 1.2TB/s memory bandwidth. It supports up to 512GB of unified memory, facilitating the running of large AI language models locally. Apple highlights the M5 Ultra's AI performance as up to 4.3 times faster than the previous M3 Ultra and nearly 10 times faster than the M1 Ultra. The Mac Studio also features Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thunderbolt 5, with the ability to link multiple units for distributed AI workloads.

The Mac Studio pricing starts at $2,499 for the M5 Max model and $5,499 for the M5 Ultra. Apple positions these machines as powerful tools for AI developers, researchers, and creators working with demanding workloads. The announcements reflect Apple's strategic focus on integrating AI capabilities directly into its hardware, preparing for a future where more AI tasks run locally rather than relying on cloud servers.