New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro
Comments
jdoe1337halo
timpera
Same thing for me! Got it with the education discount when it came out in 2024 and, although I've been pretty disappointed with macOS, it's crazy to see that the price increased by $300 in less than 2 years, with no sign of the price increases slowing down.
What will happen once people are priced out of buying computers? I find this worrying.
qurren
> What will happen once people are priced out of buying computers?
If it persists for years people will have time to spin up more fabs and meet demand
jorvi
I don't really understand this dooming. All market forecasters, memory bulk purchasers and the memory producers themselves have stated multiple times, unequivocally that the shortage will get worse in 2027 and then as new fabs come online the shortage will taper off as 2028 progresses.
We've been through.. 4? 5? memory boom-bust-boom cycles already. Nothing is pointing to this one being any different, aside it probably becoming the mother of all busts since AI isn't adding much productivity and as businesses realize this, they'll stop paying top dollar for access meaning AI vendors cancel all their reserved fab capacity.
The fabs already exist at that point so it's less of a loss for the memory fabs to crank out memory chips and have the RAM OEMs sell them at bargain bin prices. No pseudo-cartel pricing possible either with CMXT becoming a major player. $50 for 32GB-64GB of DDR5 in 2029 here we come babyy
iamacyborg
> What will happen once people are priced out of buying computers? I find this worrying.
I’m sure some kind capitalist will be happy to rent them a thin client linked to a computer in the cloud.
datakan
Apple is already leasing phones/computers..........
WesleyJohnson
My take: this was done to pull consumers back into the cycle of upgrading to every new release. iPhones already do so much more than most people need. With the RAM price hikes, even though there was an influx of sales (according to a store rep) initially, I think Apple was expected a significant decline; people just choosing to stick with their current device to avoid paying the premium.
Leasing not only allows Apple to keep "selling" people new devices, it will also mostly like accelerate the second-hand sales and resource recycling arms of the business. Consumers will be more willing to upgrade sooner and stay in perpetual payments vs having to buy out the device at lease end - and Apple gets back newer devices where the recycled tech is arguably more valuable.
AISnakeOil
Yeah the era of the personal computer is over.
Companies will prioritize components for cloud computing and lease us thin clients...
reaperducer
I’m sure some kind capitalist will be happy to rent them a thin client linked to a computer in the cloud.
Maybe we'll see a return to the late 1990's, when companies would give you a free computer as long as you allowed it to constantly display an ad banner on the top of the screen.
brightball
Capitalism will lead to:
- Lots of options competing on quality, price, user experience, user needs
- Every marketplace innovation that we talk about on this platform
So somebody might offer exactly that and if it's a good option, people will use it. If it's not, they'll use an alternative.
Government regulation will lead to:
- Giant entrenched companies that are difficult to disrupt thanks to insider connections
- Lack of competition, price increases, terrible customer service and pretty much everything that "anti-capitalists" today complain about in regards to capitalism.
easywood
So, government regulation will lead to all bad things we see today in capitalism? But capitalism won't. This is not very sound logic.
brightball
Theory holds so far.
Everything government involvement touches gets more expensive. See healthcare, college tuition, student loan debt as some easy examples.
IneffablePigeon
Two of those are the same thing and both are much cheaper in countries other than the US where the government is much more involved
twalla
That’s odd because spend on all of those things per capita is consistently lower with better outcomes where they’re socialized.
iamacyborg
Hey now, let’s not burst his utopic bubble.
a2ff6eeb0
*gestures at prices*
FeloniousHam
In Soviet Russia, prices so low no inventory left!
CaptWillard
Quantitative easing and fiscal stimulus entered the chat a while ago.
brightball
gestures at supply and demand
a2ff6eeb0
Yeah. It's not working to lower prices.
LeBit
Pure hn libertarian moment
brightball
Truth doesn't change with the day.
seanp2k2
for all values of spherical cows in a vacuum
thesuitonym
> Government regulation will lead to: > > - Giant entrenched companies that are difficult to disrupt thanks to insider connections
Oh, you mean like Apple, Google, and Microsoft?
> - Lack of competition, price increases, terrible customer service and pretty much everything that "anti-capitalists" today complain about in regards to capitalism.
Have you looked around? This is already happening.
brightball
Yes, absolutely.
And it leads to comments like the parent blaming "capitalism"
sceptic123
Maybe they will have to use/repair/upgrade the ones they already own?
moomin
Problem with that is so few of them are repairable these days. Laptops just kind of fall apart over time.
imglorp
Thinkpad and Framework are notable brands for easily replaced components. They should run forever if you just replace moving parts like fans and keyboards.
Macs, as nice as the hardware is, are hostile to repair.
dawnerd
I wish I picked one up last fall when the stores were trying to clear them out. Now you can’t even buy them in person.
Waterluvian
I feel that way about my GPU for normal gaming use. Now I’m afraid of it dying on me.
Atotalnoob
Consider underclocking/undervolt it a little, especially if you aren’t using the GPU to its full potential.
It will last longer and hopefully the GPU prices will recover in a few years.
I hope
qurren
I'm still running a 32GB V100 ...
KronisLV
I’m currently hoping that my Intel Arc B580 doesn’t die on me cause even a 5060 Ti 16 GB has reached like 700 EUR price over here. I don’t think the prices will get better anytime soon.
Same with my M1 Air for being on the move, even notebooks would be more expensive than they’re worth.
drob518
I’m milking my M1 Air, too. It’s still going strong, and I just can’t justify replacing it. Would love 64GB or more memory, though.
garbageman
I got an essentially free upgrade from an M1 air to an M4 air and let me tell you...there is zero difference in day to day usage. You've got another 5+ years of headroom at least.
Ambroos
It's a bit of an emotional goodbye to the super cheap Mac Minis we got to enjoy for a while. I got some for family members, we had some serving as iOS/macOS build servers sitting in a closet at my last job, they were fantastic.
Not that they're a bad deal now, but at European prices of over €1000 for M6/16GB/256GB it's a psychological barrier that's been broken.
Dathuil
When they discontinued the M4 with 16GB a few months ago I had literally just ordered one off Amazon which they promptly cancelled. It would have been 600 after exchange rate from GBP.
I can't justify a more than 2x price increase for what I'm guessing are marginal improvements. I want to replace my home lab but as it stands my underpowered NAS will have to continue as it has the past few years
glimshe
If you adjust for inflation, is it a big change from the super cheap Mac Minis of the past? Probably still somewhat more expensive, but not as much as the nominal difference would imply.
petu
Mac Mini M4 launched less than 2 years ago at $600 (US, $500 with edu discount; as low as $400 on general discounts). Now same config with M6 is $900.
leoc
And except at the beginning, the Mac Minis of the past weren’t famous for being cheap, but rather for being disappointingly, unattractively expensive and, over time, apparently increasingly forgotten by Apple.
ex1fm3ta
same spec, same chip. I tought Apple would at least bump the RAM
simonh
You thought they'd bump the base RAM in the middle of the biggest RAM crisis in history?
drob518
Yea, that wasn’t going to happen.
amelius
> but at European prices of over €1000 for M6/16GB/256GB it's a psychological barrier that's been broken.
We should be buying European solutions anyway. Different psychological barrier that was broken long before.
tiagod
What's the European alternative to a Mac Mini?
ljlolel
be more rational and get over psychological barriers?
smartmic
> for always-on agentic computing
Don’t know, but this as main ad headline feels almost like a threat to my personal home computing needs
PinguTS
What I am missing in all of those benchmarks, how does the M6 compares to the M5 Pro.
I don't care how the M6 compares to the M1, even when the M6 2.3x compared to M1 in Excel spreadsheet. That is no measurement even in accounting. The dead time is not the Excel.
I am to only one?
rcarmo
The big difference you're not looking at is the memory bandwidth. The M5 Pro has nearly twice the one of the M6:
170GB/s memory bandwidth Configurable up to 32GB unified memory
307GB/s memory bandwidth Configurable up to 64GB unified memory
That is also the factor you want to take into account for AI inference, of course.
redox99
Both are still very low for AI btw.
Zylokloto
Last time the benchmark numbers from apple were stupid and they still are.
I just wait for practical real live numbers with real stacks i use.
And btw. they reduced the memory bandwdith on the M4 in comparision to its previous version by 40gb/sec or so, you need to wait to see.
toasterlovin
Upgraded my work machine from an M1 MBP to an M4 Mac Mini a couple of years ago. I do a lot of work in Excel with large sheets. The performance improvement was very noticeable and appreciated!
speedping
It basically means that every meaningful comparison produced an embarrassing improvement multiplier
zamadatix
Benchmarks from the manufacturer are just marketing as well. Wait for independent 3rd party reviews.
nicoburns
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-introduces-m6-a...
Says 1.2x for multithreaded and doesn't specify (I presume smaller) for single-threaded. That's compared to M5 not M5 Pro, so M5 Pro is likely significantly faster.
atonse
After watching a video about how the filesystems are > 2x faster (and testing this myself in my mac mini vs a linux machine), I feel like Apple is leaving a lot on the table, and I hope that they get APFS to be as fast as the linux filesystems.
Because otherwise a lot of this hardware (including their blazing fast SSDs) is wasted. Cuz my M1 mac mini is awesome otherwise.
TheJoeMan
I took a peek into APFS a bit ago [1] because I (stupidly) yanked a usb SSD before it was unmounted and corrupted it. Reading the documentation, it seems to have many "cool" features which just aren't fully exposed/utilized in the OS, and there is a lack of API tooling.
For example: it is copy-on-write, and my corruption happened in the superblock checkpoint. There is no built-in command in Disk Utility to "mount" an older checkpoint (and accepting a small amount of dataloss). Also the "First Aid" command allegedly runs volume repair top-down when it is recommended to do it inside-out.
kridsdale1
Claude was super helpful at walking me through the APFS CLI tool to do some more advanced stuff that’s not in the GUI.
snazz
Is APFS that much slower than ZFS or btrfs (more comparable Linux file systems) or just ext4? Btrfs is noticeably slower than ext4, but at least all the Mac and Linux file systems are way faster than file operations on Windows :)
djfdat
Here's a very recent video benchmarking APFS vs ZFS, btrfs, and XFS+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wVNFaFDIn8
abricq
> Up to 2x faster gaming performance with ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition when compared to Mac mini with M4.
Interesting that Apple quotes performances when playing Cyberpunk 2077 ! Maybe they will want to care more about gaming ?
And while i'm at it, I was wondering a few weeks ago if I should try this game on my M3 pro. Anyone has played it on Apple and has feedback ?
VCFundedGenYer
Apple does this thing where they pick a very old game and then boast about how well it runs. It's so bizarre.
Not like Mac gaming is good anyway...they have "Game Porting Toolkit" but it's not free and open like Proton so nobody will use it unless Apple pushes them. Removing Rosetta doesn't help either.
rxyz
Cyberpunk is THE PC benchmark game since it released
wpm
In fairness, Cyberpunk 2077 might be 5 years old but it is the modern day "Can it run Crysis". It is absolutely still a hard game to run.
datakan
Cyberpunk isn't old to macOS, they just released the native version a few months ago.
thewebguyd
Apple also just can't give up the idea of selling games through the AppStore either and you end up with situations like with AC: Shadows where it was ported, but you must buy the macport via the app store. Your copy on steam does not include the mac port, so if you wan to play on both your Windows/Linux desktop and Mac, you have to buy it twice. So stupid.
mathisfun123
> Game Porting Toolkit" but it's not free and open like Proton so nobody will use it unless Apple pushes them.
I don't know what this means - game porting toolkit is free
bodge5000
From what I've seen they do care quite a bit about gaming, but not to the point where they're willing to actually do much about it, so I wouldn't expect a proton style compatibility layer anytime soon unfortunately
LetsGetTechnicl
You can get Proton through CrossOver at least. I haven't done much testing but I know some people use it to do some basic gaming.
andrewingram
I play quite a few games on my Mac Mini via Crossover, but rarely anything particularly graphically intensive. Though I do see occasional buzz about improvements in the game porting toolkit leading to significant perf improvements when they make their way into Crossover.
mcphage
> Interesting that Apple quotes performances when playing Cyberpunk 2077 ! Maybe they will want to care more about gaming ?
They include game metrics in their marketing often, because they know their customers care about gaming. But no—for whatever reason, it never translates into Apple caring about gaming. I don't get it, but that's the way it has been for a long time.
wlesieutre
With the “game mode” and “game porting toolkit” in recent history, I think there’s one person at Apple who cares about gaming and every couple of years he escapes from the basement where they keep him locked up and manages to sneak something into the release branch
They’ve also said when they pull Rosetta for intel compatibility, it will still be available for old games to use, which is a huge improvement from their usual stance of “that game studio that hasn’t existed since 2008 should dust off their code and update it to our new architecture.”
efficax
they've done a bunch to make macs a better gaming platform, including the very nice game porting toolkit (https://developer.apple.com/games/game-porting-toolkit/) which you can use yourself to run pc games on the mac. All macs since m1 have very nice gpus that can handle most games made today, and the newer ones can run the latest AAA ones with good detail. At this point it's more that game publishers/studios don't care about the mac
swozey
cp2077 sits permanently at 60fps and looks great on my m1 max 64gb. I used to play it on my 4090, but once I figured out how to do redmods on macos I quit using it and play it on my mac to save power (I'm 100% solar powered and barely generate 600w, 4090 consumes 500+). In apples infinite wisdom they don't support egpus, so my 4090 egpu will never work with my mac, which was a really disappointing thing to discover.
russelg
It could work but that would require NVIDIA to release an arm64 macOS driver. Safe to say this will never happen.
deadbunny
Do we need a 3rd top level discussion on this?
Insanity
The M-chips are insanely powerful. So powerful for my regular use that I'm still on M1-generated devices and don't really need to update. Perhaps in a few years when both local-running LLMs are good enough on regular consumer hardware there'll be a good reason to upgrade.
As a disclaimer though, I haven't even tried to really run local models on the M1 as I also have a 'gaming PC' that can run them fine.
xutopia
I feel much the same. I feel like the next time I upgrade I could splurge a bit more and get a really bigger CPU and storage to be even more productive with.
However the main reason I would upgrade is to run LLMs locally and RAM prices are making this a no-go. One day if RAM comes down to earth I'll upgrade. If not I'll stick to this old machine for a long time.
matt-p
2.5Gbe as standard is nice.
wpm
About damn time, Gigabit ethernet started shipping on desktop Macs over 20 years ago.
matt-p
Eh, for what? Most people use it only for 'internet' and 1G full duplex is generally still enough for that. Happy for 2.5G though :)
brynet
I'm curious what 2.5GbE chipset they used.
muro
Double the price of the base m4 mac mini in February :(
(it was late in it's lifecycle and there were frequent sales)
markstos
I see that my old M1 Mac Mini with 16 GB memory and 1 TB drive has held value over time, selling for $600 to $700.
A new Mac Mini with that much ram and storage costs about double now.
stuff4ben
Which is more important for AI/LLM stuff, the number of GPU cores or the amount of unified memory? I can choose from a Mini with the M5 Pro 18CPU/30GPU and 64GB RAM or a Studio with a M5 Max 18CPU/40GPU and 48GB RAM for roughly the same price
weli
They affect different things. You want more powerful models -> more memory. You want the models that run to be faster -> more gpu cores.
cpuguy83
Larger model -> more memory
It depends on what model(s) you want to run.
mthoms
Memory bandwidth is one of the most important factors. The Max machines typically have higher bandwidth than Pro (you should look up these exact models to verify though). Having said that, you could run bigger models with 64GB.
I went with a 64GB M2 Max a few years back even though it stretched my budget and I'm glad I did. I'm not sure what I'd pick in this case. Tough call.
HelloUsername
Related? "Apple to skip high-end M6 Mac chips in favor of AI-focused M7 line" june 2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48676795 380 comments
kotaKat
Not really. It's Gurman, once again throwing darts at the wall to see what sticks like a desperate roach begging for subscribers to his bullshit newsletter of guesses and predictions he'll flip in a month the opposite direction for even more clicks and bait.
sceptic123
Is the "Water Project" intended as a sly dig or some kind of nod to AI water use concerns?
kuuuzya
Wow. Is OpenClaw still alive? Would their users spend so many for the new Mac mini?
rxyz
Large majority of users moved to Hermes Agent
amelius
How many tokens per second would you even get on them?
kennywinker
Afaik most openclaw users aren’t running their llm locally - just using a mac mini as an always-on sandbox for agents.
copperx
Cool, like a $5 VPS?
o_m
A $5 VPS is easy to block. It's way harder to block a stock mac mini from a residential IP address
DaSHacka
But why a Mac mini over a $30 raspberry pi on the same residential connection?
kennywinker
Yes, but 100 times more expensive.
xhkkffbf
A sandbox with access to iMessage. Can't have your agent texting with green boxes.
kennywinker
Nono it’s ok iMessage is actually an open standard - steve promised.
simonh
OpenClaw was originally designed to run on a Mac, but using remote LLMs accessed via API. Running the LLM locally on beefier hardware came later.
mandarinclips
I really want to buy one for coding/dev work, but it's just too expensive. Not sure if the M4 MacBook will get a price cut anytime soon.
Zylokloto
You will not feel a difference in coding/dev work between M1 to M6 in a relevant manner.
user43928
Two years ago maybe, when I wrote code by hand.
Today development work is limited by compile times and test run times, particularly with UI tests in the iOS simulator.
Hardware on the development machine finally maters.
eknkc
I have an M1 and M4 Max at office. I feel the sluggishness of M1 now, after years it finally started to show its age.
coredog64
Have been considering a used M1 but I'm concerned that I'm going to get flash storage that's been thrashed to within an inch of it's life by someone running it as a poorly configured inference host.
Zylokloto
There are sooo sooo many students and normal people using these devices or corporate laptops never seen inferencing or anything like this, its so hard to trash the storage of them, i wouldn't worry about it.
mandarinclips
Where's a reliable place to buy a used Mac? I'm afraid of ending up with a broken unit.
linguae
Last week I purchased a MacBook Pro M1 Max from www.macsales.com, which is owned by Other World Computer, a maker of Mac peripherals. My computer comes with a 1-year warranty. It was my first time purchasing from them.
mandarinclips
Yeah, I know. The problem is that used prices right now are almost the same as what they used to cost brand new. Prices have gone up way too much.
nodesocket
I also can feel a speed/sluggishness difference between my M1 Max MacBook Pro and my M4 Pro (14 core).
tonymet
I’m still not convinced by the value of local models. It feels like ray-tracing where we are driving up the compute cost for a high cost and fringe benefit.
jbverschoor
Very well timed for John Ternus's first quarter.
meerita
I will buy a Mac mini, 64GB RAM + 2TB. That will replace my current MBP M1 Pro with 16GB (4 years old). For serious upgrade I will wait the M7 Line.
mythz
Considering doing exactly this, hopefully by the time M7 Ultra is out, the RAM Apocalypse will be over.
manishmicrosaas
glad that i purchased mac studio this January
drewg123
I'm so sick of "up to 2x faster" ...THAN WHAT? ON WHAT WORKLOAD? How can I reproduce these claims?
I really miss when vendors would run the SPEC benchmark suite and performance was quantitative, and not qualitative.
numbsafari
… from the fine print:
“Results are compared to previous-generation Mac mini systems with Apple M4, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 32GB of unified memory, and 2TB SSD.”
drewg123
Running what workload? How can I reproduce it?
mytec
There is more detail in the footnotes found here: https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/
hauju
hmm waited for this, but the price... puuh
snigacookie
Sigh. I had the m4 in my cart yesterday and now it is gone.
napolux
So I guess M5 Pro is better, right?
sf1tzp
I guess so. It's slightly cheaper to buy 2x 32GB M6 minis than opt for 64GB sku (which is only available with the M5 Pro chip)...
nodesocket
Upgrading to 48GB memory is $600…. Gut punch. I have a M4 Pro (top cpu skew 14 cores). Any idea the performance gain to M5 Pro? I feel like they holding off releasing M6 Pro because a new studio is dropping soon as well.
benatkin
No 8GB option? Oh the horror.
revolvingthrow
~75% higher price for some extra GPU power and small CPU boost compared to M4? Eh. It's pretty far from M4's value, which was a no-brainer recommendation for people who wanted a tiny box sitting somewhere on their desk.
FinnLobsien
Not a surprise with John Ternus taking the reigns as CEO in a week, who was previously SVP of hardware engineering.
I can't hate a direction where Apple becomes more about building great computers rather than trying to force more and more subscriptions. I do wish they would fix many of the long-standing OS and native app problems.
steveBK123
I do worry that at this point it's no longer just Apple's problem to solve. They need to figure out a way to take the rest of the industry with it. Maybe if their standards are high enough everyone else will look bad by comparison.
My daily driver personal machines are incredible pieces of kit, but everything is always getting worse because majority of software is some SaaS living in the cloud, or even if on-desktop is constantly updating slop.
Why does it take 10 seconds for my streaming music app to open when my machine is 10-20 cores, 32GB+ RAM, high bandwidth NVMe storage, and I am connected to gigabit fiber internet? The thing is autoplaying videos, and has about 10 different panes clearly owned by different product managers that hate each other. Half the time its pushing me some pop-up dialog I don't care about.
Winamp in 1998 took about 2 seconds to load.
FinnLobsien
I agree with you, but I also think sadly most consumers don't really care about this. The reason the internet is in the state it's in is because most people tolerate it.
Most people simply don't care about using well-made software so long as it gets the job done because they don't even look at other options. I suppose this is how carpenters feel when they see ubiquitous IKEA furniture.
KJs6ZxELzQM37O
The "up to" and "Yx" compared to three generations ago specs from Apple. Never change.
Octoth0rpe
I think there's a valid argument for this pattern when you know most people are on 3-ish year upgrade cycles. Also, if you compare against the most recent generation, you risk creating buyer's remorse for recent purchases.
thewebguyd
I'd imagine most are on longer than 3 years for computers. Most (non developers) I know hang onto their laptops and computers until they die or get spec constrained, and that ends up being around ~6 or 7 years, so in this case the comparison to the M1/M1 Max makes sense, as for the next couple years that's going to be the cohort that's looking to upgrade.
writtenone
Now if only it would come with Linux instead of MacOS!
Apple's software holds the hardware back, and it's ugly (especially liquid glass!)
post_break
So the price just went up by another $100 am I reading that right?
linguae
Yup. Yesterday it was $799 for the base Mac Mini M4, a $200 increase from the original MSRP before June’s price hikes.
I paid $499 for my M4 back in April with the academic discount since I predicted the next generation base model would cost more. Sadly my prediction was correct: $599 to $899 is steep. I understand why; the prices of DIMMs, GPUs, and SSDs have also skyrocketed. But $899 for a base Mac Mini is painful, even if the alternatives on the current market are also painfully expensive.
matt-p
Faster CPU and Ethernet is certainly worth $100. Sucks though, I agree.
jdoe1337halo
Era of cheap compute is over I'm afraid
orphea
No, it's not. We do have to live through this long and harsh winter, though.
c16
I really want a mini for running local models, but there's no way I'm buying one for the next few years. I'm planning on waiting for models to get better and more powerful, as well as for hardware prices to come down.
vlucas
Over for now, or at least a little while until production ramps up to our new reality (~5 years minimum is likely).
HumblyTossed
Pretty much. Everyone seems to think prices will come back down, but I don't agree.
gib444
Just got to wait for the wealth to trickle down to make it cheap again
/s
So happy with my base M4 purchase for $499 when it released. I even snagged a 1TB replacement drive for $199 a year ago. Feels like I got the last train out.