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Apple has introduced its latest desktop computers, unveiling the M6 Mac mini and the M5 Ultra Mac Studio. With these new models, the company is turning its attention to local artificial intelligence tasks and to linking Macs together for more intensive workloads.<\/span><\/p>\n Both devices feature major under-the-hood changes but also come with higher prices as memory shortages continue to affect the industry.<\/span><\/p>\n The new M6 chip is Apple\u2019s first to use TSMC\u2019s advanced 2-nanometer manufacturing process. It brings a 12-core CPU design, blending two high-powered cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores onto a single processor.<\/span><\/p>\n According to Apple, the M6 delivers the fastest single-threaded performance available, with multithreaded speeds about 20 percent higher than the previous M5 chip and a 40 percent jump over the M4.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0The chip also includes a 12-core graphics processor, built-in Neural Accelerators for AI tasks, storage speeds of up to 15 GB per second, and 170 GB per second of memory bandwidth.<\/span><\/p>\n The M5 Ultra, now Apple\u2019s most powerful processor, uses a quad-die design that combines two dual-die M5 Max chips into a single unit. Thanks to Apple\u2019s UltraFusion technology, this setup permits more than 4.4 terabytes per second of bandwidth between the chips.<\/span><\/p>\n The chip can be configured with up to 36 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores, and a 32-core Neural Engine, along with up to 512GB of unified memory running at 1.2TB per second. Apple says this results in more than four times the peak AI computing power compared to the previous M3 Ultra.<\/span><\/p>\n Instead of focusing on the usual creative tasks, Apple is marketing these desktops as strong options for running artificial intelligence models directly on the machine. Both models now support clustering over Thunderbolt 5, which lets developers connect several Mac minis or Studios together and share memory to handle large AI models without relying on cloud services.<\/span><\/p>\n Apple says four clustered Studios can deliver up to three times the inference throughput of a single machine.<\/span><\/p>\n Prices for the new desktops are higher than before, a result of ongoing memory shortages affecting the tech industry. The M6 Mac mini starts at $899, and the Mac Studio begins at $2,499. Preorders are available now, with most models expected to ship by September 22. Versions with 512GB of memory will arrive later in October.<\/span><\/p>\n