New Mac mini and Mac Studio With M6 and M5 Ultra Hit Stores Today

Apple’s latest desktop powerhouses are no longer preorder-only. Starting September 22, the new Mac mini with M6 or M5 Pro and the Mac Studio with M5 Max or M5 Ultra are available at Apple Stores, online, and through authorized resellers.

The update arrives just two weeks after the big September hardware event that introduced the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro lineup. While phones and watches grabbed most of the headlines, the desktops quietly deliver some of the most meaningful performance jumps of the year for creators, developers, and anyone running heavy AI workloads on-device.

What Arrived

Mac mini starts at $899 with the brand-new M6 chip — Apple’s first 2-nanometer processor. It packs a 12-core CPU (including two “super cores”), a 12-core GPU with Neural Accelerators in every core, and a dual 16-core Neural Engine. Apple claims up to 4x faster AI performance, 2x faster graphics and storage, and 40 percent faster CPU performance compared with the previous generation.

Step up to the M5 Pro configuration at $1,699 and you get an up-to-18-core CPU, up-to-20-core GPU, and support for as much as 64GB of unified memory. Both models keep the familiar 5-by-5-inch chassis, add Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and default 2.5Gb Ethernet (with a 10Gb option).

Mac Studio pushes further. The M5 Max model starts at $2,499 with an 18-core CPU and up to 40-core GPU. The flagship M5 Ultra configuration, priced from $5,499, uses Apple’s first quad-die UltraFusion design: up to 36-core CPU, up to 80-core GPU, and a staggering 512GB of unified memory with 1.2TB/s bandwidth. That is enough memory to run large language models entirely on-device.

Why It Matters

These machines land at a moment when on-device AI is becoming practical rather than theoretical. Combined with macOS 27 and the new Siri AI, the desktops can handle agentic workflows, local LLM inference, and heavy creative tasks without constantly shipping data to the cloud. For video editors working in 8K, 3D artists, and developers training or running models locally, the memory ceiling and bandwidth on the Ultra model remove previous bottlenecks.

Pricing is higher than the previous generation — Mac mini starts $100 above the last base model — reflecting both the advanced process node and the broader industry pressure on memory and silicon costs. Education pricing softens the impact for students and schools.

What to Watch Next

Supply of the highest-memory Mac Studio configurations may remain limited into late October. Early independent benchmarks will show how real-world AI and creative workloads scale against the M4 and M5 generations. The bigger strategic question is whether Apple’s continued push into desktop AI compute can keep the Mac relevant for professionals who have been eyeing Windows or Linux machines with high-end GPUs.

For most buyers the decision is simpler: if you need a quiet, compact, highly efficient machine that can run the latest Apple Intelligence features and still compile code or edit video all day, the new mini and Studio are available today.