Apple Inc. today debuted four custom processors that will power a new generation of Mac computers.
The company is bringing to market a new Mac mini miniature desktop and Mac Studio workstation that are both available in two editions. Each edition features a different processor. All the chips include a central processing unit, a graphics processing unit and a standalone artificial intelligence accelerator.
The most advanced processor that Apple introduced today, the M6, will ship with the Mac mini. It’s the first from the company to use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s latest two-nanometer node. The process embeds tiny batteries called SHPMIM capacitors in chips to improve their reliability.
A processor’s energy consumption fluctuates so rapidly that its power delivery components often struggle to keep up. When that happens, transistors don’t receive enough electricity to complete calculations, which decreases their performance and causes errors. SHPMIM capacitors make up the energy shortfall by releasing their accumulated electricity at opportune moments. Furthermore, they can absorb excess chip energy to avoid reliability issues.
The M6’s CPU and GPU both feature 12 cores, two more than Apple’s previous-generation silicon. The company also revamped the two modules’ core architectures.
Two of the M6 CPU’s cores are optimized for performance, six prioritize power efficiency and four have a midrange design. The GPU’s cores, in turn, each feature AI-optimized circuits. They’re supported by a dedicated 16-core machine learning accelerator called a Neural Engine.
The second new edition of the Mac mini features a chip called the M5 Pro. It’s not based on TSMC’s latest two-nanometer node M6 but its CPU and GPU feature six and eight more cores more, respectively, than the corresponding modules in the M6. The onboard AI accelerator includes 16 cores.
According to Apple, the M5 Pro enables on-device large language models to process prompts up to four times faster than the M4 Pro. The M6, in turn, is 4.8 times faster than the M4. Apple says that its first two-nanometer chip can also significantly speed up other workloads such as Excel calculations.
The M6 version of the Mac mini offers 16 gigabytes of memory and 256 gigabytes of space for a starting price of $899. The M5 Pro edition, meanwhile, will sell from $1,699 with 25 gigabytes of memory and a 512-gigabyte flash drive.
Apple also introduced two new flavors of the Mac Studio, its workstation for engineers and creative professionals. The entry-level edition includes a chip called the M5 Max that features an 18-core CPU, a GPU with up to 40 cores and a 16-core Neural Engine. The more expensive Mac Studio configuration includes the M5 Ultra, which comprises two M5 Max chips linked together by a custom interconnect.
The new Mac Studio editions also feature other Apple-designed silicon. According to the company, the machine uses a custom chip called the N1 to provide Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity. Additionally, it features circuits optimized to run video codecs. Those are programs that compress video files before they’re sent over the network to save bandwidth and subsequently decompress them.
The M5 Max version of Mac Studio is available from $2,499 with 512 gigabytes of flash storage and 128 gigabytes of RAM. The M5 Ultra edition starts at $5,499. The machine ships with four times more memory than the M5 Max Mac Studio and twice as much storage capacity.