I reviewed the Mac Mini with M4 two years ago, and it was a hugely impressive redesign cutting down the size footprint of the device by half, and two years later with the new Mac Mini with M6 chip I’m equally impressed at the amount of power that Apple is getting out of such a small device.
As with any piece of tech, the price of the Mac Mini has gone up with the latest model now starting at $1,449 (up from $1,299 and $999 before it), but Apple has packed in even more of the latest tech, and if you’re wanting a tiny Mac that you can plug into any monitor, it’s really hard to go past the Mac Mini which will last you for years to come.
As far as the physical design goes, it’s the same tiny little PC with three Thunderbolt 4 ports on the front (there’s Thunderbolt 5 on the M5 Pro version, two USB-c ports on the front, a 3.5mm headphone jack, HDMI output on the back, and you’ve now got 2.5Gb standard ethernet with the ability to upgrade to 10Gb as well as power.
The M5 Pro version of the Mac Mini can now utilise those new Thunderbolt 5 to support three external 6K monitors, and the M6 model can support three external monitors, two with up to 6K at 60hz and one display with up to 5K at 60hz.
Other changes include an upgrade to Wi-Fi 7 which is welcomed as more and more routers on the market support this standard by default, as well as Bluetooth 6 which helps stability across Bluetooth devices, and both of these improvements come thanks to the Apple N1 chip.
This is the first device with Apple’s new M6 chip and obviously it brings with it a host of performance improvements. You’ve now got a 12-core CPU (up from 10 on the M4 Mac Mini), a 12-core GPU (also up from 10), as well as Neural Accelerators built into the GPU for the first time on a Mac Mini and a new Dual 16-core Neural Engine as well which results in 4x the AI performance of the previous generation.
SSD performance has been doubled with the M6 Mac Mini capable of 2x faster read/write speeds, and the memory bandwidth of the memory (still 16gb with the stock model) is now faster, with how much depending on which configuration you go with.
Apple Silicon is getting so far beyond what most people will ever need in terms of speed, but it’s so exciting to keep pushing it forward. When it comes to testing, Apple says that Blender ray-tracing is 2.1x the performance of the M4 Chip with Excel now performing at 44% faster speeds too.
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It’s clear that with those Neural Accelerators that are built into the GPU, ray-tracing and rendering have been improved hugely, with such tasks normally reserved for the Pro, Max and Ultra variations of Apple’s chip.
Obviously as a gamer, Cyberpunk 2077 hadn’t yet come out when the M4 Mac Mini released, but launching straight into it on the M6 Mac Mini, it just worked. Using the ‘For Your Mac’ preset, I was able to get 60FPS with zero stutters, and again, with how small the Mac Mini is, and the beefy PC you’d need to play it, it’s just amazing that I can play one of the most graphically intensive games on Mac with ease.
The M6 Mac Mini comes pre-installed with MacOS 27 Golden Gate, with its main feature being Siri AI that brings forward a dedicated Siri app as well as Visual Intelligence to have Siri answer questions about what’s on screen.
Photos has had a huge improvement too with better photo editing that includes a much improved Clean Up tool that lets you quickly remove objects from photos, Spatial Reframing to change the angle of a subject and expand out photos to other dimensions.
There’s everyday refinements too such as a much improved search functionality as well as the ability to make much faster AirDrop transfers, which I use every day without fail and have noticed them being hugely quicker.
The M6 Mac Mini is still the best value for money way to get into the Apple ecosystem if you’re after a desktop computer that takes up next to no space, and want to bring your own display, and paired with MacOS 27 Golden Gate, it’s just a dream to use for the everyday person.
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