Apple Launches New Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro Chips; India Price Starts at Rs. 99,900

Apple has officially launched its latest Mac mini lineup, powered by the new M6 and high-performance M5 Pro chips globally, including India. The refreshed compact desktops bring significant improvements in processing power, graphics performance, and on-device AI capabilities, along with upgraded wired and wireless connectivity.

Running on macOS 27, the new Mac mini models feature enhanced Apple Intelligence and integrated Siri AI capabilities. They are designed to handle everyday productivity, professional creative workloads, and demanding local agentic AI applications.

Mac mini with M6: Architecture and Performance

The entry-level Mac mini is powered by Apple's M6 chip, which brings increased core counts and dedicated on-chip acceleration for machine learning workloads.

• Core Architecture: The M6 features a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU. Each GPU core includes dedicated Neural Accelerators, delivering up to 4x faster AI performance and up to 2x faster graphics processing compared to the M4 generation.
• Neural Engine & Memory: A dual 16-core Neural Engine delivers twice the throughput of the previous generation. Unified memory starts at 16GB and can be configured up to 32GB, with memory bandwidth reaching 170GB/s.
• Storage & CPU Performance: The new model offers up to 40% faster CPU performance and up to 2x faster storage speeds compared with earlier-generation systems.

Performance Benchmarks

• LLM Processing: LM Studio delivers up to 13.5x faster prompt processing compared with M1-based models and up to 4.8x faster performance than the M4.
• Productivity: Microsoft Excel spreadsheet calculations can be up to 2.3x faster than on M1, while offering up to 1.5x faster performance compared with M4.
• Gaming & Graphics: Ray-traced gaming performance can be up to 2x faster in titles such as Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition compared with the M4.

Mac mini with M5 Pro: High-End Performance

The M5 Pro-powered Mac mini is aimed at demanding professional applications such as 3D animation, game development, and local AI model fine-tuning. It significantly increases the system's parallel processing capabilities.

• Compute & Graphics: The M5 Pro configuration can be equipped with up to an 18-core CPU and a 20-core GPU. It also features third-generation hardware ray tracing, enhanced shader cores, and dedicated Neural Accelerators on each GPU core.
• Memory Capacity: The system supports up to 64GB of unified memory with bandwidth of up to 307GB/s, making it suitable for large datasets, complex 3D scenes, and locally running diffusion models.

Performance Benchmarks

LLM Prompt Execution: LM Studio performance is up to 8.5x faster than the M2 Pro and up to 4x faster than the M4 Pro.

• 3D Rendering: Ray-traced rendering in Blender can be up to 4.5x faster than the M2 Pro and up to 1.4x faster than the M4 Pro.
• Image Processing: Affinity workflows can be up to 2.1x faster compared with the M2 Pro and up to 1.5x faster than the M4 Pro.

I/O and Connectivity

The Thunderbolt 5 connectivity on the M5 Pro model supports clustering, enabling multiple Mac mini systems to be connected for running large AI models locally. Genlock support through USB-C also provides hardware-level frame synchronization between compatible external displays and camera systems, including the iPhone 17 Pro.

Pricing and Availability

• M6/12-core CPU/12-core GPU/16GB Unified Memory/256GB SSD – Rs. 99,900 ($899 in the US)
• M5 Pro/15-core CPU/16-core GPU/24GB Unified Memory/512GB SSD – Rs. 2,09,900 ($1,699 in the US)
• M5 Pro/18-core CPU/20-core GPU/24GB Unified Memory/512GB SSD – Rs. 2,33,900 ($1,899 in the US)

Pre-orders are now open across 30 countries and regions, with retail availability scheduled to begin on September 22.