Yes, that’s the M6! Apple released it today. Price increase and the typical - and better! - M series chip improvements, especially in AI performance:
The M6 Mac mini moves to the 2-nanometer M6 chip, which is a major change for the compact computer. It’s the first model to ship under the new chip generation.
This time, Apple has a 12-core CPU running the show, consisting of two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores. As usual, Apple says the new chip has better cores, this time with the “world’s fastest single-threaded performance.”
There’s also more cores in the now 12-core GPU, but the bigger change is the inclusion of Neural Accelerators in each core. This was a change in the M5 generation, which helped significantly bump performance for machine learning or AI tasks.
Apple claims the M6 GPU delivers up to four times the peak AI compute of the M4, and 2x faster graphics.
The Neural Engine has also been given a change this time. While before it was a 16-core design in the M4, the M6 now uses a Dual 16-core Neural Engine.
As for how fast the dual version can be, Apple says the Neural Engine will deliver twice the performance than the previous generation. It’s an easy thing to claim, since it’s twice the core count.
Apple’s press release claims a 4.8x speed improvement on LLM prompt processing in LM Studio over the M4, when taking into account the accelerators.
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It may be a big improvement over my M2 Mac Mini, but so far I’m not ready to dive into this…
Also out, orderable today…
Ars Technica on the new Mini and Studio:
There aren’t any major new features for either machine. This is just a specs bump. But based on how Apple is presenting these refreshes, they’re leaning hard into those [AI] use cases, which weren’t even a thought when earlier iterations were first engineered.
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Spotted this video on the M-series chips… Interesting…
https://fb.watch/JfpDcg3zL5/
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I finally ordered an M5 Pro Mac mini to replace my 2019 27" Retina 5K iMac (with 3.6 GHz Core i9). I’d been waiting for the M5 Pro to come to the mini, and I’ve given up on another 27" iMac years ago.
I also splurged on a Studio Display. I’ll miss the iMac display.
The display arrived today, but the mini won’t arrive til next month.
I’m looking forward to the upgrade, but I’m dreading the migration process. Luckily, I took Notes for past migrations.
-awlabrador
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Should be great! I read something earlier that some who ordered M4 Mini’s may get an M6 as this rolls out, but it didn’t cay an M5 might get bumped up…
I’m actually using a Dell 32" monitor, but have hung onto my wife’s old 27" iMac, thinking I might want to see about converting it to a monitor, it’s screen is so great, hate to just trash it, but I’m bad about not toss several old Macs her, the Mac Pro, MacBooks, iBooks, various vintages, family is all caught up, kids out of college, so nobody to pass them along to… Hate to just scrap 'em… So the numbers grow… Sell Your Mac, maybe I should call them.. Shipping is a pain, tho…
Anyway, enjoy!!
