Apple has launched its latest desktop lineup in India, introducing the new Mac mini powered by the M6 chip alongside the new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra. The new desktops bring major upgrades in performance, graphics, on-device AI and memory, while retaining Apple's compact desktop designs.
The new Mac mini brings Apple's first 2nm chip, the M6, while Mac Studio gets the more powerful M5 Max and all-new M5 Ultra chips. Apple is positioning the Mac mini for everyday users, developers, students and AI enthusiasts, while Mac Studio targets professionals working on demanding creative, AI and scientific workloads.
Apple Mac mini Specifications And Features
The new Mac mini with M6 features a 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU and Dual 16-core Neural Engine, along with up to 32GB of unified memory and up to 170GB/s of memory bandwidth.
Built on a 2nm process, the M6 features a new CPU configuration with 2 super cores, 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores. Apple claims up to 1.2x faster multithreaded performance than M5 and up to 2.4x faster performance compared with M1.
The M6 also brings a larger 12-core GPU with Neural Accelerators in every GPU core. Apple claims nearly 30 percent higher peak GPU AI compute compared with M5, while AI compute is more than eight times higher than M1.
The chip also supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, updated shader architecture and Dynamic Caching, while its Dual 16-core Neural Engine is designed to accelerate on-device AI workloads.
Mac Studio Specifications And Features
For professional users, Apple has introduced the new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra. The M5 Max configuration features an 18-core CPU and up to 40-core GPU, with Neural Accelerators integrated into every GPU core.
It supports up to 128GB unified memory and up to 614GB/s memory bandwidth. Apple claims up to 3.9x faster AI performance compared with the previous generation, alongside improvements for video editing, 3D rendering, software development and image generation.
The M5 Ultra takes things further with up to a 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU. It supports up to 512GB of unified memory and delivers 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth, allowing users to run extremely large AI models locally.
Apple claims up to 4.3x faster peak AI compute than M3 Ultra and up to 1.8x faster graphics performance. The upgraded Media Engine can also handle up to 33 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video at 30fps simultaneously. The new Mac Studio gets Thunderbolt 5, offering bandwidth of up to 120Gb/s for external storage, displays and PCIe expansion systems.
It also introduces Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, while supporting up to eight displays. Users can connect up to four Studio Display XDR monitors at full 5K resolution and 120Hz.
The Mac Studio also features faster storage, with Apple claiming up to 2x faster storage performance than the previous generation.
Apple Pushes Local AI Across New Mac Desktops
AI is a major focus across the new Mac lineup. The M6's Dual Neural Engine and GPU Neural Accelerators are designed to accelerate on-device AI workloads, while the M5 Ultra's massive memory capacity allows significantly larger models to run locally.
Apple says developers can use frameworks including Core AI, Core ML, Metal and Xcode to build and run AI models directly on Apple silicon.
Multiple Mac Studio systems can also be connected using Thunderbolt 5 and RDMA to create a shared AI computing setup. Apple claims a cluster of four Mac Studio systems can deliver up to 3x faster AI inference than a single system.
Both new desktop platforms are designed to take advantage of Apple's upcoming macOS 27, which introduces new Apple Intelligence capabilities including Siri AI.
The updated Siri can use personal context across messages, emails and photos, while helping users perform tasks across applications. Apple is also introducing improvements to Spotlight, Visual Intelligence, Shortcuts, Safari and Photos.
Mac mini M6, Mac Studio M5 Max and M5 Ultra Price in India
The Mac mini with M6 starts at Rs 99,900 in India.
The Mac Studio with M5 Max starts at Rs 2,79,900, while the education price starts at Rs 2,56,900.
The Mac Studio with M5 Ultra starts at Rs 6,29,900, with the education price starting at Rs 5,84,900.
The new Mac Studio models are available for pre-order in India from August 25 and will begin arriving with customers and becoming available at Apple Store locations and authorised resellers from September 22. The 512GB unified memory configuration is expected in late October.
Apple's new desktop lineup now covers a much wider range of users. The Mac mini with M6 brings the company's new 2nm architecture to a compact and relatively accessible desktop, while the Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra is aimed squarely at professionals who need substantially more compute and memory.
Together, the new Mac mini and Mac Studio show Apple's strategy clearly: M6 focuses on efficient everyday and on-device AI performance, while M5 Max and M5 Ultra push Apple silicon towards workstation-class computing and large-scale local AI.
