Apple has officially announced the new M6 chip, marking the company's transition to 2nm architecture. Alongside it, the company introduced the M5 Ultra, which it describes as its “most powerful chip ever,” specifically designed for demanding tasks such as 3D rendering and running frontier AI models.
The M6 Chip and the New Mac Mini
The M6 is Apple’s first 2nm chip, bringing improvements in performance and power efficiency. It features a 12-core CPU (up from 10 in the M5), consisting of two “super” cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores. Apple claims the M6 offers the “world’s fastest single-threaded performance” and up to 1.2x faster multithreaded performance compared to the M5.
Regarding graphics and AI, the M6 includes a 12-core GPU and a Dual 16-core Neural Engine for on-device AI workloads. Additionally, Apple has included a Neural Accelerator with each GPU core. The chip will be available in a new Mac Mini and supports up to 32GB of unified memory.
M5 Ultra: Power for Professionals
The M5 Ultra utilizes Apple’s UltraFusion interconnect technology to link two dual-die M5 Max chips into a single quad-die architecture. Its specifications include:
- Up to a 36-core CPU (12 super cores and 24 performance cores).
- Up to an 80-core GPU.
- A 32-core Neural Engine.
- Support for up to 512GB of high-bandwidth unified memory.
The M5 Ultra will launch in a new Mac Studio. Both the new Mac Mini and Mac Studio will be available for preorder starting Tuesday, with a full release scheduled for September 22nd.
