Apple has introduced new versions of the photographer's favorite Mac Mini featuring the new M6 and M5 Pro processors, while increasing prices significantly. At the same time the premium Mac Studio has seen the arrival of the new chips too.
Apple's M-series processors (based on ARM architecture) are divided into the generation, e.g. M5, M6 etc. while the more powerful versions of each chip feature the suffix 'Pro' and 'Ultra', each offering more cores and bandwidth.
The M6 features 12 cores (six 'efficiency' cores, four 'performance' and two to manage the system) as well as a 12-core GPU. In addition it has a 16-core 'Neural Engine' to help with on-board AI and push memory bandwidth to 153 GB/s, plus a built in 'Media Engine' for accelerated encoding and decoding in H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW.
The M5 Pro might start with an earlier sounding name, but takes all this a step further with 307 GB/s memory bandwidth from either 15 CPU and 16 GPU cores, or 18 CPU and 20 GPU cores.
The M6 can handle RAM options of 16GB, 24GB or 32GB, while – even in the Mac Mini – the Pro also supports 48GB and 64GB options.
In terms of storage, the cheapest M6 starts at just 256GB, expandable up to 2TB; the M5 Pro versions start at 512GB and rise to 8TB.
You can connect up to three external displays (if you can find the ports!)
The price of entry has changed quite significantly, though. The previous Mac Mini (16GB RAM, 256 storage) launched at $599 (though was pushed up to $799 in Apple's May price rises). The new M6 with the same memory and storage configuration is $899 / £799.
Depending on how you look at that, the price of the new Mac Mini is 50% again on top of the price just a year ago, or 12.5% more than you'd have paid for the basic model last week.
In exchange for that Apple says you are looking at a "20 percent more multithreaded performance," on its new 2nm chip process (M5 and before are 3nm).
I have to say that certainly wouldn't be enough for me to upgrade from an M6 or even an M4 Mac Mini. Similarly, the 10% improvement in memory bandwidth doesn't seem a phenomenal leap, so while it's great news Apple can improve efficiency with tiny transistors, and creators can still love the Mac Mini, it's an incremental improvement that Apple is charging you for.
That said, some with heavy video processing tasks might see it differently; Apple has tests that find it "up to 4.8x faster than M4" in certain processing contexts. The flip side is that, since the Mac Mini is the entry point for the Mac range, the company has also effectively made it harder for those who don't need that power to choose Mac.
Will it be the right choice? Can it remain the best desktop computer for photo editing? I'm not certain. The Mac Neo laptop is now the cheapest entry-level Mac.
The new Mac Mini and Mac Studio (with M5 Max and M5 Ultra) models are now available for pre-order, and will ship on September 22.
This will be CEO Tim Cook's last product announcement; the new iPhones (with their own price hikes) are expected to be unveiled by incoming CEO John Ternus in two weeks.
