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Apple's New Mac Mini M6 Offers Major Upgrades, But At A Higher Price
Developing
In Short: Despite the price increase, reviewers agree that the new Mac mini offers substantial technological advancements over its predecessor.
Ars Technica and Press Start Australia have reviewed Apple's new Mac mini featuring the M6 chip, highlighting significant performance improvements alongside a notable price hike.
The new Mac mini starts at $899, a $300 increase from the previous model with the same memory and storage specs, which was priced at $599 in 2024.
Press Start Australia noted that the M6 Mac mini offers a 12-core CPU and GPU, doubling the SSD performance and increasing memory bandwidth.
The new Mac mini also supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, thanks to the Apple N1 chip, improving connectivity and stability.
The M6 Mac mini can support up to three external monitors, with two at 6K resolution and one at 5K, making it a versatile choice for professional use.
Despite the price increase, reviewers agree that the new Mac mini offers substantial technological advancements over its predecessor.
Ars Technica noted that these updates are typical for Apple, providing a year or two's worth of technological improvements for the same price as the older version.
Press Start Australia concluded that the Mac mini remains a compact and powerful option for those seeking a reliable desktop computer that can last for years.
What this adds
The price increase is a significant factor, but the enhanced features and performance justify the higher cost for many users.
The new Mac mini retains the same design as the previous model, with no major changes to its physical appearance.
Background
Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh, a reference to the McIntosh apple.
What's still developing
- Apple’s first M6-series chip is making its debut in the humble Mac mini, and the chip looks like the biggest upgrade Apple’s lower-end chip has gotten since the M4 generation added extra efficiency cores.
- The headliner is the presence of two of Apple’s so-called “Super” cores, Apple’s nomenclature for P-cores that are even faster than its typical P-cores.
- To get around the awkwardness this might create at the CPU scheduler level, the built-in powermetrics tool suggests that Apple is still treating the M6 like a chip with just two types of cores.
- The new Mac mini is the kind of Mac upgrade Apple has done a million times.
- The M4 Mac mini was a great general-purpose desktop computer and one of the best values Apple had ever offered in a desktop Mac.
- Note that this review is specifically for the M6 version of the Mac mini.
- We didn’t get an M5 Pro Mac mini to review, but we’ll talk more about how its pricing and performance fits in for our Mac Studio review.
- The M4 Mac minis gave the computers their first full redesigns in nearly 15 years, so it’s not too surprising that the new Mac minis don’t change anything.
- The system is actively cooled, with a fan vent on the bottom to make sure that whatever chip is inside can run at high sustained clock speeds (passively cooled Apple Silicon Macs like the MacBook Air have always been a bit slower than actively cooled Macs with the same chip).
- All Mac minis have two 10 Gbps USB-C ports and a headphone jack on the front, and a 2.5 Gbps (default) or 10 Gbps (optional) Ethernet port and HDMI port on the back.
- I reviewed the Mac Mini with M4 two years ago, and it was a hugely impressive redesign cutting down the size footprint of the device by half, and two years later with the new Mac Mini with M6 chip I’m equally impressed at the amount of power that Apple is getting out of such a small device.
- Apple Silicon is getting so far beyond what most people will ever need in terms of speed, but it’s so exciting to keep pushing it forward.