Apple Introduces Its Most Powerful Chips to Date: The M5 Ultra and M6

On Tuesday, Apple introduced its newest processors, the M5 Ultra and M6 chips, designed to power the latest Mac Mini and Mac Studio models.

The M5 Ultra, touted by Apple as its “most powerful chip yet,” merges two dual-die M5 Max chips to form the company’s first quad-die chip, specifically built to tackle intensive AI workloads. It boasts an up to 36-core CPU and an up to 80-core GPU, delivering an impressive 1.2 TB/s of unified memory bandwidth—50% greater than the M3 Ultra launched a year and a half ago.

Aimed at professionals engaged in compute-intensive tasks like intricate 3D rendering, visual effects, and advanced AI model applications, the Mac Studio equipped with the M5 Ultra is also likely to appeal to aspiring AI developers. Nonetheless, Apple indicates that the M6 chip is better suited for the average user.

“Fabricated using cutting-edge 2 nm technology, the M6 includes a revamped CPU architecture with two additional CPU and GPU cores, a Dual 16-core Neural Engine, and enhanced unified memory bandwidth, leading to remarkable energy efficiency for demanding tasks,” commented Apple’s VP of Silicon Engineering, Sri Santhanam, in a press release.

Boasting a 12-core CPU architecture that adds two cores relative to the M5, the M6 chip is capable of delivering nearly a 30% increase in peak GPU compute capacity for AI, significantly enhancing on-device LLM prompt processing efficiency.

“With these innovative chips and frameworks, developers can build and fine-tune extensive AI models directly on their Macs,” Apple stated in a press release. “Apple’s developer tools and frameworks automatically optimize performance across the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine, enabling developers to leverage Apple Foundation Models, App Intents for accessing Apple Intelligence features, or their own AI models to build and execute robust AI tasks right on the device.”

While Apple has been slower than competitors in developing its proprietary AI model—since the much-anticipated Siri update relies on Google’s Gemini—it has excelled in implementing on-device technology to allow users to safely utilize tools like Face ID and Touch ID, which would raise significant privacy concerns if handled in the Cloud. Apple’s emphasis on managing on-device AI operations may present a unique opportunity for the company to thrive, providing a secure framework for developers to innovate with new AI solutions.

Apple’s latest Mac Mini models are now up for preorder, with prices starting at $899. Shipments will begin after September 22.