Apple refreshes Mac mini with new M6 chip: Check India price, offers
Apple has refreshed the Mac mini after two years with the M6 chip, its first product to use the new 2nm silicon, promising faster performance, graphics and on-device AI
 "Apple refreshes Mac mini with new M6 chip: Check India price, offers")
Apple has refreshed its compact desktop lineup with a new Mac mini powered by the new M6 chip, while also giving users the option to choose the M5 Pro variant. The company is positioning the new Mac mini as a small desktop for everyday computing as well as demanding creative and AI workloads. With the M6, Apple claims up to 4x faster AI performance, up to 2x faster graphics and storage, and 40 per cent faster CPU performance compared with the previous generation.
Apple has refreshed the Mac mini after two years with the new M6 chip, making it the first Mac to feature the company’s latest silicon.
Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro: India price and availability
- Mac mini with M6: starts at Rs 99,900
- Mac mini with M5 Pro: starts at Rs 2,09,900
According to the Apple Store, the Mac mini with M6 has memory options ranging from 16GB to 64GB whereas the Storage options range from 256GB to 8TB.
The M5 Pro version of the Mac mini comes with two processor configurations. The base option features a 15-core CPU and 26-core GPU, while the higher-end configuration gets an 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU. The latter costs an additional Rs 24,000 on Apple’s India store.
The Mac mini with M5 Pro is available with memory options ranging from 24GB to 64GB, while storage options range from 512GB up to 8TB.
Apple has opened pre-orders for the new Mac mini in India from August 25 through its online store and Apple Store app. Delivery starts September 22.
The Education pricing starts at Rs 88,900 for the M6 model and Rs 1,97,900 for the M5 Pro variant. Apple is also offering up to six months of no-interest EMI and up to Rs 5,000 instant cashback on Mac Studio with eligible American Express, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank cards. The cashback offer is subject to Apple's terms and eligibility conditions.
Mac mini with M6: Details
The M6 model comes with 16GB of unified memory as standard and can be configured with up to 32GB. Memory bandwidth has also increased to up to 170GB/s.
The new Mac mini retains its small desktop form factor while Apple is shifting more of its focus towards on-device AI. The company says the M6 model can handle tasks such as running local AI models, applying AI effects to photos and creating AI agents for automated tasks.
Apple has also positioned the M5 Pro version as an always-on desktop for AI agents and professional workflows, with its higher memory capacity and bandwidth aimed at users running larger models and demanding applications.
The M6-powered Mac mini gets a 12-core CPU, two more cores than the previous generation. Apple says it offers faster single-threaded performance, while the 12-core GPU also gains two additional cores.
For the first time on Mac mini, each GPU core includes a Neural Accelerator. Apple says this helps deliver up to 4x faster AI performance and up to 2x faster graphics compared with the M4-powered Mac mini. The M6 also includes a new dual 16-core Neural Engine, which Apple says is up to twice as fast as the previous generation.
Apple says the new Mac mini can process LLM prompts in LM Studio up to 13.5 times faster than the M1 version and up to 4.8 times faster than the M4 model. Spreadsheet calculations in Microsoft Excel can be up to 2.3 times faster than the M1 version, while gaming performance with ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition can be up to twice as fast as the M4 model.
The latest Mac mini variants support Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, along with 2.5Gb Ethernet. Users can configure the desktop with 10Gb Ethernet.
The front of the Mac mini gets two USB-C ports supporting USB 3 and a headphone jack with support for high-impedance headphones. The M6 model has three Thunderbolt 4 ports at the back.
The new Mac mini is designed to work with macOS 27, which brings Apple's next-generation Apple Intelligence features and the new Siri AI experience. Siri AI can use personal context across messages, emails and photos, answer questions and perform tasks across apps. It is also integrated into Spotlight and systemwide context menus. Users can use Visual Intelligence to ask Siri about content on their display and use Siri for writing and editing across apps.
Apple Intelligence also brings new features to apps such as Safari, Shortcuts and Photos, while macOS 27 includes changes to the interface and window management.
The new Mac mini is also made using 50 per cent recycled material overall, including recycled aluminium in the enclosure and recycled rare earth elements in its magnets, according to Apple.
Apple launches M6 chip
Apple has also introduced the M6, its first chip built on a 2-nanometre process, which Apple says enables higher transistor density while improving performance and power efficiency.
M6 gets a new 12-core CPU, two more cores than M5. It comprises two super cores, four performance cores and six efficiency cores. Apple says it delivers the world’s fastest single-threaded performance, with up to 1.2x faster multithreaded performance than M5 and up to 2.4x faster than M1.
The different cores are designed for different workloads: super cores handle demanding single-threaded tasks, performance cores work on heavier multithreaded workloads while balancing power use, and efficiency cores handle background and everyday tasks.
M6 also has a 12-core GPU, two more cores than M5. For the first time in the Mac mini, each GPU core includes a Neural Accelerator. Apple says this results in nearly 30 per cent higher peak GPU compute for AI compared with M5, and more than eight times the level of M1.
The GPU also gets updated shader-core architecture, Dynamic Caching and hardware-accelerated ray tracing. One of the biggest changes is the new dual 16-core Neural Engine. Apple says it can deliver up to 2x the peak compute of previous generations for on-device AI workloads. System frameworks can use both Neural Engines simultaneously, allowing compatible applications to run AI models faster.
M6 supports up to 32GB of unified memory and offers memory bandwidth of up to 170GB/s. Apple says this is a 10 per cent increase over M5 and 2.5x higher than M1. The higher bandwidth is aimed at multitasking, running demanding applications and running large language models locally.
Apple is positioning M6 heavily around local AI processing. The combination of its Neural Engine, GPU Neural Accelerators and higher memory bandwidth is designed to speed up tasks such as running on-device LLMs, AI-assisted workflows and what Apple calls agentic AI workloads.
Apple also says developers can use frameworks such as Core AI, Core ML, Metal and Xcode to run and fine-tune AI models locally. Developers can work with Apple's Foundation Models, App Intents and their own AI models directly on the Mac.
M6 performance claims:
According to Apple's testing, M6 delivers:
- Up to 1.2x faster multithreaded CPU performance than M5
- Up to 2.4x faster multithreaded performance than M1
- Nearly 30% higher peak GPU compute for AI than M5
- More than 8x higher peak GPU AI compute than M1
- Up to 2x the Neural Engine peak compute compared with previous generations
- 50 per cent higher geometry rates for complex graphics
- Up to 170GB/s memory bandwidth
- Up to 32GB unified memory