New Mac mini and Mac Studio land 22 September — here’s what’s changed

Apple’s desktop Mac range gets two substantial updates on 22 September, with a new Mac mini and Mac Studio both already available to pre-order in the UK.

Mac mini now comes with either M6 or M5 Pro. Apple says the M6 version delivers up to 40 per cent faster CPU performance than the M4 model, alongside up to four times faster AI performance and twice the graphics and storage performance. Both versions also gain Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and 2.5Gb Ethernet.

One correction to our earlier story: Thunderbolt 5 is not standard across the whole Mac mini range. Apple lists Thunderbolt 5 as a feature of the more powerful M5 Pro configuration.

Mac Studio moves to M5 Max and M5 Ultra. UK prices start at £2,499 for M5 Max and £5,499 for M5 Ultra, with the latter configurable with as much as 512GB of unified memory. Apple says 512GB configurations will follow in late October.

These are very different machines despite their similar footprint. For most home and general creative work, Mac mini remains the obvious place to start. Mac Studio is aimed at workloads that can genuinely use substantially more GPU power, memory and bandwidth.

Both models begin arriving with customers and in shops on 22 September.

Discuss it: which desktop Mac would you choose? Join the discussion in the UKMac community.