Mac Mini M6 Vs. M4: How Much Faster Is The New Model?

The MacBook Neo may still be the most affordable way to break into Apple's ecosystem, but the Mac mini remains a popular option for those seeking desktop-level performance plus the convenience of being able to hook up their own peripherals. Apple has upgraded the Mac mini with its latest M6 silicon, bringing both incremental and substantial improvements across different parts of the computer.

The new M6 Mac mini offers up to four times faster AI performance, 40 percent faster CPU performance, and up to two times faster storage and graphics compared to the M4 Mac mini that it's replacing. Given its compact form factor, Apple is positioning the Mac mini as an always-on agentic device. This time around, the Mac mini features a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU — both gaining two extra cores over the M4 Mac mini. You can expect AI workloads to be handled more efficiently thanks to neural accelerators being built into each GPU core — a first for the Mac mini.

The M6 Mac mini ships with 16GB of unified memory, but you can deck it out with up to 32GB. Memory bandwidth is higher, too, reaching up to 170GB/s. There's support for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and new 2.5Gb Ethernet, which can be upgraded with a 10Gb option. Compared to the previous model, the M6 Mac mini offers up to two times faster gaming performance, too. Unfortunately, Apple's recent price hike means the computer now starts at $900 — the previous-gen Mac mini launched at $600.

With up to 13.5 times faster LLM prompt processing in LM Studio compared to the M1 Mac mini, the new M6 chip should be able to handle everything you throw at it and then some. However, for those with even more demanding workflows, like scientific simulations, video editing, or game development, the M5 Pro Mac mini is the most powerful iteration of the compact computer you can currently buy.

The Pro tier of the M5 chip unlocks up to an 18-core CPU and up to a 20-core GPU. The M5 Pro Mac mini can be configured with up to 64GB of unified memory and an even higher memory bandwidth of up to 307GB/s. Performance has seen a modest jump, with Apple claiming rendering performance to be up to 1.4 times faster than the M4 Pro Mac mini in Blender and LLM prompt processing in LM Studio to be up to four times faster. Those coming from older generations, like the M2 Pro Mac mini, will see much larger gains.

Like the M6 Mac mini, you get quality-of-life upgrades with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, alongside a decent port selection with two USB-C ports that support USB 3 on the front. That said, the M5 Pro Mac mini uses Thunderbolt 5 for the three USB-C ports on the back, compared to Thunderbolt 4 on the M6 model, giving you significantly more bandwidth for demanding peripherals. Pricing starts at $1,700, which is, again, $300 costlier than the model it's replacing.