The Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro chips are here, replacing the last generation of M4 chips. But with the rise in prices, is the $900 M6 Mac mini good enough, or do you really need to spend almost double the amount, $1700, for the M5 Pro Mac mini? And what are all the differences between them? Let’s find out.
Outside
On the outside, nothing has really changed from the last generation and there aren’t any differences between the 2 chip models, so let’s get straight to the namesake difference, the chip.
M6 vs M5 Pro Chips
The base Mac mini now has the M6 chip, but reportedly Apple is not planning to release the M6 Pro or Max chips, so the M5 Pro is used as the step-up model this time. This is probably what we’ll get until the M7 chip generation.
The M6 chip offers 12 CPU cores, which is 2 more than the 10-core CPU of the M5. In addition, the M6 core mix is 2 super, 4 performance, and 6 efficiency, the first time all 3 types of cores are found together in a single chip.
The M5 Pro offers either 15 cores split into 5 super and 10 performance, or you can get 18 cores, 6 super and 12 performance, as part of the $200 chip upgrade, so let’s say $100 for the CPU portion.
Since M6 is one generation newer, we can expect faster single core performance. However, it might just be marginally faster at around 5-10%. For multi-core, M5 Pro with 15 cores is around 22-35% faster than the M6, and the 18-core M5 Pro is 34-42% faster than the M6. The 18-core M5 Pro is also 5-10% faster than the 15-core version.
On the graphics side, the M6 has a 12-core GPU compared to M5 Pro’s 16-core or 20-core GPU options. The 20 core is part of the $200 chip upgrade, so we can allocate $100 again for the GPU portion.
Performance may need to wait until more benchmarks appear, but we can expect the 16 GPU core M5 Pro to be faster than the M6 by less than 33%, since that is the core count difference, and M6 cores should individually be better than the M5 generation. The upgraded 20 GPU core M5 Pro is theoretically up to 25% faster than the base M5 Pro, based purely on core counts.
One place the M6 generation makes a huge improvement is the neural engine. There’s now TWO 16-core neural engines, compared to just the one 16-core engine in M5 and prior generations. As usual, individual cores are likely faster as well, but this could mean some AI workloads are faster on the M6 than the M5 Pro, depending on how much the neural engine is handling versus the GPU.
Memory
Moving on to the memory, the M6 comes with 16 GB by default, and you can upgrade to either 24 or 32 GB, at a cost of $200 per additional step up. That’s a consistent $25 per gigabyte. If you do upgrade the memory capacity to either 24 or 32, you also get faster memory bandwidth, increasing from 153 GB/s to 170 GB/s, about 11% more.
The M5 Pro comes with 24 GB of memory baseline, and you can upgrade to 48 GB for $600 more, or 64 GB for $1000 more. That’s also a consistent $25 per gigabyte, so no discounts here for higher memory amounts. Memory bandwidth on the M5 Pro is at 307 GB/s regardless of the capacity, about double the baseline M6, or 80% faster than the memory-upgraded models.
Storage
Moving on to storage, the M6 mini comes with only 256 GB included as standard, which is barely enough to get by these days. I’d go with at least 512 GB, costing an extra $200, which is a whopping $800 per terabyte. You can also move up to 1TB for $500, which is ever so slightly better at $667 per terabyte, or go to 2 TB of storage for $1000, which reduces the cost to $571 per terabyte. In prior years, these storage upgrades would have topped out at $400 per terabyte, so it’s basically doubled.
The M5 Pro Mac mini comes with 512 GB standard. Upgrading to 1TB costs $300, which is $600 per terabyte. 2TB costs $800, or $533 per terabyte. But you can actually go above that here. 4TB costs $1800, which is $514 per terabyte, and finally 8 TB costs a whopping $3800, which is $507 per terabyte.
Looks like storage prices aren’t going lower than $500 per terabyte nowadays from Apple.
Ports
Let’s talk about connectivity, aka ports. The M6 and M5 Pro mini’s are almost identical here, as both have 2 USB-C ports on the front, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the rear, they both have an HDMI 2.1 port, plus a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port, which can be upgraded to 10 Gigabit speed for $100 extra.
The 2.5 gig ethernet is a nice upgrade from prior years’ 1 gig port, but it does make the 10 gig upgrade a bit less valuable. After all, you only get 2.5 times the speed for $100 more instead of 10 times. For most people, 2.5 gig is fast enough, which also means you could pick up a stock model Mac mini instead of custom ordering it if you wanted faster than gigabit ethernet, so you don’t have to wait several more weeks, or you can choose to buy it from somewhere other than Apple.
Back to the ports, here’s the main difference. The M6 mini has 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports which are 40 Gigabit per second speed. The M5 Pro mini has 3 Thunderbolt 5 ports, which are 120 Gigabit per second, 3 times as fast. For most, the speed difference probably won’t come into play much, but the other thing this affects is the display support.
Display Support
For displays, both the M6 and M5 Pro Mac minis can support up to 3 external displays, but there are some differences in how well it can do it. Firstly, the M6 mini can only support 2 displays out of a single Thunderbolt 4 port, while the M5 Pro mini can support 3 displays from the same Thunderbolt 5 port. In addition, the M6 mini’s Thunderbolt 4 ports support DisplayPort 1.4 speeds, while the M5 Pro mini’s Thunderbolt 5 ports support DisplayPort 2.1 speeds.
If you only need to connect 1 display, there’s not much difference. Both M6 and M5 Pro minis can do a single display at up to 8K at 60 Hz, 5K at 120 Hz, or 4K at 240 Hz.
If you want 2 displays, the first display is the same as I just mentioned, but the 2nd display on the M6 mini can only go up to 5K at 60 Hz if connected to Thunderbolt, or 4K at 60Hz if connected to HDMI. However, the M5 Pro mini can have the second display go up to 5K at 120 Hz, or 4K at 200 Hz, which is a big deal if you plan to use multiple high-resolution and high refresh-rate monitors.
If you want 3 displays on the M6 mini, only 2 of them can reach 6K resolutions at 60 Hz, or 4K at 165 Hz, while the 3rd display is limited to 5K at 60 Hz if connected to Thunderbolt, or 4K at 60Hz over HDMI. On the other hand, the M5 Pro with 3 displays connected can operate all of them at 6K at 60Hz, or 4K at 165 Hz.
So multiple display support is definitely better on the M5 Pro mini, but if you plan to just use a single display, you don’t really get much benefit over the M6 mini.
Weight and Cooling
The final difference between the M6 and M5 Pro machines is the weight. They both have the same size, but the M6 weighs 1.5 pounds, while the M5 Pro mini weighs slightly more at 1.6 pounds, or 7% more. This is most likely due to a beefier cooling solution on the M5 Pro, which is a common practice.
Other than that, things like the N1 networking chip with Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread support, or the built-in speaker, are the same between the models, so let’s get into the summary and value comparison.
Summary: M6 vs M5 Pro (15-Core) Mac mini
The M6 Mac mini starts at $900, while the M5 Pro mini starts at $1700. For that extra $800, you get:
- The M5 Pro chip instead of the M6 Chip, which has 3 extra CPU and 4 extra GPU cores, albeit 1 generation older. This contributes to 5-10% less single-core CPU performance, but 22-35% faster multi-core performance, and less than 33% more GPU performance.
- However, the M6 chip has a faster DUAL 16-core neural engine, so perhaps it can exceed the AI performance of the M5 Pro in certain circumstances where the neural engine is used more than the GPU.
- 24 GB of memory at a faster 307 GB/s memory bandwidth, compared to the 16 GB of memory at 153 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This is $200 of Apple’s upgrade price.
- 512 GB of storage instead of $256 GB, another $200 of Apple upgrade price.
- 3 Thunderbolt 5 ports with speeds up to 120 Gb/s versus 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports with speeds up to 40 Gb/s
- Better support for 2 or 3 monitors, allowing higher resolutions and refresh rates, mainly due to the Thunderbolt 5 ports supporting DisplayPort 2.1 speeds instead of 1.4
- And a 7% heavier weight, indicating a beefier cooling solution for sustained heavy workloads. Weight doesn’t matter that much in a desktop computer, so this is a positive.
If we allocate $400 of the price difference to the memory and storage upgrades, that means you are paying $400 more for the chip upgrade, Thunderbolt 5 ports (which is both for speed and better display support), and better cooling. Is this worth it?
Well, I would say the main benefit is if you are planning to run multiple high-resolution and high-refresh monitors beyond what the M6 chip can support, but since a Mac isn’t the best for gaming, that seems a pretty niche use case as well. And for most people, the M6 chip speeds should be more than sufficient.
So I would personally get the M6 mini. However, I might opt for the 512 GB storage version since 256 GB is really limiting after the OS and applications are installed.
Summary: M5 Pro (15-Core) vs M5 Pro (18-Core) Mac mini
Now let’s compare the M5 Pro 15-Core and 18-Core Mac minis. For an extra $200, you get:
- An extra 3 CPU cores, split into 1 super and 2 performance cores. This translates into 5-10% more CPU performance.
- An extra 4 GPU cores, which theoretically means up to 25% more GPU performance if they can be fully utilized.
Only you can decide if the relatively modest performance boost is worth it. The price increase of $200 would have seemed more impactful in previous years when the base price was lower, but now with the base price being $1700, that means a 12% increase in price. From that perspective it’s sort of meh, and I would save money wherever possible since everything is getting more expensive, so I would personally NOT go for this upgrade.
