Apple has unveiled its new desktop processors with the M6 and the M5 Ultra.
We’ve compared the processors below, noting the differences between the two and which chip you should go for, depending on your needs.
Read on to learn more about M6 and M5 Ultra, where you can find both chips and which ones will best suit your needs. For more from Apple’s launch, visit our Mac Mini M6 vs Mac Mini M4 guide, while our best laptops round-up includes our favourite computers from the past year.
Specs Comparison Table
Availability
At the time of writing, the M6 chip is currently only found within the latest Mac Mini which has a starting RRP of £899/$899. It’s currently available for pre-order and will launch globally from September 22nd.
The M5 Ultra is also only available in one device: the Mac Studio and is considerably more expensive than the Mac Mini M6, with a starting RRP of a whopping £5499/$5499. At the time of writing, it is also available for pre-order and will launch from September 22nd.
M6 is Apple’s first 2nm chip
Apple explains that its M6 chip is built using cutting-edge 2nm process technology, and is the brand’s first state-of-the-art 2nm processor. This promises to pack greater transistor density into a smaller die for a “major leap in performance and power efficiency”
With this in mind, Apple promises the chip advances “every compute block” and delivers gains across every dimension of performance too.
M5 Ultra is Apple’s most powerful chip yet
As its name and hefty price tag suggests, the M5 Ultra is hailed as being Apple’s most powerful chip to date. The M5 Ultra also sees a first for Apple silicon, as it uses M5 Ultra next-generation UltraFusion technology to connect two dual-die M5 Max chips to form its quad-die architecture. This increases bandwidth to over 4.4TB/s and connection density by over 6x, to allow the four dies to behave as one unified processor
M5 Ultra itself includes up to a 36-core CPU that’s made up of 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, and a GPU with up to 80-cores that each incorporate a Neural Accelerator too. In addition, the M5 Ultra’s GPU includes Apple’s latest shader core with second-generation Dynamic Caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading and third-gen ray tracing too. This, Apple promises, delivers up to 40% faster graphics performance than the M3 Ultra.
Apple says that M5 Ultra is best suited for 3D rendering, colour grading, complex graphics, data science, LLMs, training and perfecting AI models, scientific analysis, 8K video editing and intensive gaming too.
M5 Ultra supports up to a whopping 512GB of memory – compared to M6 which supports up to 36GB
Following on from the above point, a chip built for such intensive tasks needs plenty of memory to ensure it runs smoothly and quickly.
Fortunately, the Mac Studio M5 Ultra comes with 96GB of memory as standard, although this can currently be upgraded up to 256GB. If you need a bit more, then you’ll have to wait until late October, as a 512GB option is set to launch then – though we don’t currently know how much this will set you back. Considering upgrading to the 256GB Mac Studio M5 Ultra adds an additional £/$4000, we’d recommend bracing yourself for the 512GB iteration.
On the other hand, the Mac Mini M6 comes with a more conservative 16GB of memory as standard, though you can upgrade to either 24 or 32GB should you see fit.
M5 Ultra includes a 32-core Neural Engine
Both M6 and M5 Ultra promise to offer AI-prowess, with Apple stating that developers can run and fine-tune large AI models locally on their Mac, thanks to Apple’s developer frameworks and tools that automatically optimise performance.
While the M6 chip introduces a Dual 16-core Neural Engine that promises to provide up to two times the peak compute over previous generations for faster on-device AI, the M5 Ultra doubles this with a 32-core Neural Engine instead. This should drive complex AI tasks, plus Apple Intelligence features, securely and with “industry-leading” energy efficiency too.
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Early Verdict
Choosing between the M6 and M5 Ultra chip will depend entirely on your needs. If you’re looking for a device that can support everything from intensive gaming to 3D rendering and training AI models, then the M5 Ultra Mac Studio is undoubtedly the device that’ll suit you best. However, you’ll need to factor in the very high price tag.
On the other hand, if you need more of any everyday yet still powerful device, then the Mac Mini M6 should give you all the power you realistically need.
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