Apple Announces New Mac Mini With M6 and M5 Pro Chips (macrumors.com)
- Reference: 0185151034
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/08/25/1553245/apple-announces-new-mac-mini-with-m6-and-m5-pro-chips
- Source link: https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/25/apple-announces-2026-mac-mini/
> The M6 chip is equipped with a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU, up from a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU in the M5 chip. In addition, the M6 chip features the first-ever dual Neural Engine with two 16-core engines, up from one in previous chips. The M6 chip has up to 170GB/s memory bandwidth, up from 153GB/s for the M5 chip.
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> Apple said the Mac mini with the M6 chip delivers up to 40% faster CPU performance, up to 4x faster performance for AI tasks in particular, up to 2x faster graphics performance, and up to 2x faster storage speeds compared to the previous-generation model with the 10-core M4 chip, 32GB of unified memory, and 2TB of storage.
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> There are two M5 Pro configurations available, including one with a 15-core CPU and a 16-core GPU, and another with an 18-core CPU and a 20-core GPU. Both of these models are equipped with a single 16-core Neural Engine for AI tasks. For both the M6 and M5 Pro configurations, Apple said the Mac mini now includes Neural Accelerators in each GPU core for the first time.
[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-unveils-a-more-powerful-mac-mini-featuring-the-all-new-m6-and-m5-pro/
[2] https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/25/apple-announces-2026-mac-mini/
Expensive AF (Score:2)
So much for the Mac Mini having a 'mini' price.
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It's Apple.
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> It's Apple.
Nice try troll. But this is nothing to do with Apple. Every PC and device manufacturer has raised prices significantly. In fact you could argue that Apple has tried to beat the game with the Macbook Neo. So stick a fork in false narratives.
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I was in the market for a tablet a couple of months ago because I needed something for reading sheet music.
Cheapest 13" Apple Tablet: [1]$949 [apple.com]
The generic Android tablet I bought instead: [2]$179.99 [amazon.com]
I'm not saying they aren't being impact by memory prices, but they're either incompetent at supply chain management or they're milking this for much higher profits. Either way, there's a reason why this Mac and iPhone user uses 4 Android tablets and zero Apple tablets.
At this point, if I weren't locked into the Apple
[1] https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-ipad/ipad-air/13-inch-display-128gb-space-gray-wifi
[2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GLFT7XBR
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The BOM of the iPad Pro 13" is around $550US. The BOM cost of that Android is closer to $65. Quite objectively that Android tablet is marking up the price quite a lot more.
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Even when it was $500 with the wink-wink, nudge-nudge education discount, the Mac Mini still felt like a bit of raw deal for an incomplete desktop computer.
But starting at $900? I can see why they recently partnered with that scummy "pay later" company to offer a leasing option.
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What do you mean by incomplete?
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> What do you mean by incomplete?
It still doesn't include a monitor, keyboard and mouse. The original assumption was you'd just use the peripherals from your previous machine, but macOS doesn't support subpixel font rendering, so text looks pretty bad on 1080p monitors (which are still surprisingly common). Then there's the keyboard, which unless your previous machine was a mac, you'll probably need a new one of those, too. That just leaves the mouse, which kind of seems like punishing yourself if you've replaced everything else.
I reali
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You don't know what you're talking about. Text and graphics look fine on my 1080p monitor (although I'm keeping an eye out for a small and cheap 4k tv to replace it) and my Logitech keyboard and mouse also work great. The windows key is the command key and I'm reasonably sure any other keys could be remapped. The only accessory I did buy was a $25 thunderbolt hub to gain an additional hdmi port and also plug in the keyboard and mouse.
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I noticed the lack of subpixel rendering right away when docking my MacBook Neo and thought I'd overlooked a setting somewhere. The text rendering is pretty bad if you're otherwise accustomed to looking at high DPI displays. The solution I'd found online literally is "get a better monitor" .
At any rate, what I'm pointing out is that the out-of-the-box experience with hand-me-down peripherals can often be sub par. Some fuzzy text and having to remember your function keys are remapped might be a bitter pill
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You are 100% correct. Grocery prices spiked because of legitimate supply issues during covid. They figured people didn't starve to death then so they kept inflating. But eventually the shit is going to hit the fan. [1]https://www.wsj.com/business/r... [wsj.com]
[1] https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/kraft-heinz-ceo-pushes-value-consumers-are-literally-running-out-of-money-72b9b50f
Re:New higher price (Score:4, Insightful)
> which Apple blames on higher component costs due to the current AI bubble.... which Apple is itself contributing to.
I thought it was mostly Nvidia making the hardware for AI data centers? Yeah, Apple has leaned into AI on the consumer side of things (and supposedly some people were buying up all the Mac Minis to run OpenClaw), but I doubt they're the driving force behind the RAMpocalypse.
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Apple is integrating AIshit into all their products like everyone else, so yes they are formally and willfully contributing to the AIpocalypse. They are prioritizing on-device models more than most others, but a) this will eventually be a losing proposition for them because it's limiting so they will switch to using more cloud models and b) all AI product advertising increases demand for all AI products because while there is some market differentiation between AI products, the average person has no clue ab
Needs an official Linux boot camp (Score:4, Interesting)
Especially with AI and ARM64 server development. Having to go through brew, containers and Apple's notarization process makes MacOS not a serious platform compared to bare metal Linux. In a twist of fate it is MacOS that is not ready for the AI desktop. Asahi is stuck on M1 and M2 so can't help you with M6 Macs.
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> Especially with AI and ARM64 server development. Having to go through brew, containers and Apple's notarization process makes MacOS not a serious platform compared to bare metal Linux. In a twist of fate it is MacOS that is not ready for the AI desktop. Asahi is stuck on M1 and M2 so can't help you with M6 Macs.
Err...actually, OSX, so far in my experience is quite adapted to local AI.
Brew? What's wrong with that...pretty much the equivalent of of apt-get on some Linux installs, or whatever package manage
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Notarization is Apple's strict code signing process, which makes it hard for non paying and anonymous developers to distribute third party Mac software. Linux lets you run unsigned software without compromise.
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> Notarization is Apple's strict code signing process, which makes it hard for non paying and anonymous developers to distribute third party Mac software. Linux lets you run unsigned software without compromise.
Thanks for the definition.
So far, I've not run into a problem with this....
And with specific regard to my local AI and OpenClaw experiments and tools required for that....haven't run into a problem at all yet.
So, not a barrier of merit.
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What's wrong with using a package manager that has always been reliable on macOS?
Local AI and ARM64 run exactly the same in Linux as on macOS: install ollama, pull a model, tune a modelfile, create your tuned model, start throwing queries at it.
Literally the only problem Apple is suffering from is memory bandwidth and token rate from not having as much processing grunt as a discrete RTX variant.
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Nobody cares about Linux on Macs. It's not going to really change.
Absolutely tons of Linux and AI development takes place on Macs. Guess which companies are buying absolutely huge truckloads of Macs?
Those guys will against be buying up all the 256 and 512GB Mac Studios.
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Why would you pay extra for Mac hardware and then install linux?
Everyone has forgotten... (Score:2)
...the poor crews of the Excalibur and the Lexington.
Progress marches on, I guess.
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... the Terror and the Erebus? Crews lost due to mismanagement rather than hostile actions.
So one could say... (Score:3)
[1]Apple Jacks up the Price of the New Mac Mini [imgur.com]
Yes, I realize the hypocrisy of using AI to criticize market conditions resulting from AI. The way I see it, might as well get a laugh out of this whole situation, because I sure as hell ain't getting cheaper hardware anytime soon.
[1] https://imgur.com/a/MXYxRxn
Absurd pricing (Score:2)
900$ for a base model with 256GB SSD is pathetic.
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So is $80 for an echo dot but here we are.
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Except that Amazon absolutely flooded the market with those things. If you really don't want to pay $80 for one, they're going for quite a bit less on eBay all day long.
Although, if your argument is that this is just a shiny bauble that one can do without if the price isn't acceptable, I'll give you that. There's plenty of cheaper options in the SFF PC market if you're flexible on the "Runs macOS" aspect.
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The point is that the price of computers (and computing devices) has gone up substantially. Everybody knows this, not addressing common knowledge is making an argument in bad faith.
But yeah you can get an underpowered mini PC for $300 if that's all you need or can afford.
Re: Absurd pricing (Score:2)
The underpowered MiniPC I bought for $300 before Donnie Dipshit fucked with Iran and before tech bros decided to replace everyone especially them is now worth $600
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> 900$ for a base model with 256GB SSD is pathetic.
The market for used minis, especially the 2024 version, is likely going to love this new price increase...mine is probably worth more now than when I bought it two years ago...I would think of selling it, but what would I replace it with?
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Absurd pricing describes literally everything in the past 5 years. Set the scale to 10 years [1]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se... [stlouisfed.org]
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIUFDSL