Apple starts sales of M6 Mac mini and M5 Max/Ultra Mac Studio, with Mac mini from $899

KX3 News — U.S. / Global Edition

Apple began retail sales of its new Mac mini and Mac Studio lineup on September 22, 2026. The Mac mini is available with M6 or M5 Pro, while Mac Studio moves to M5 Max and M5 Ultra.

U.S. pricing starts at $899

The M6 Mac mini starts at $899 in the U.S., while M5 Pro configurations start at $1,699. Mac Studio starts at $2,499 with M5 Max and $5,499 with M5 Ultra. A Mac Studio configuration with 512GB of unified memory is scheduled to arrive in late October.

Apple is pushing desktop Macs as local AI systems

The new chips combine Neural Engine hardware with GPU neural accelerators and Apple’s unified memory architecture. Apple is explicitly positioning the new desktops for demanding AI, creative and professional workloads alongside macOS 27 and Apple Intelligence.

What it means for U.S. buyers

Mac mini remains the lower-cost entry point into Apple’s current desktop silicon, while Mac Studio targets users who need significantly more GPU capability and memory headroom. For local AI developers, memory configuration may matter as much as raw compute because larger models need to remain resident in memory.

KX3 perspective

Unified memory continues to make Macs unusual in the local AI market. Instead of working around a relatively small pool of discrete GPU VRAM, developers can choose configurations with much larger shared memory, although the cost rises sharply at the high end.

Primary source: Apple Newsroom

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Featured image: Photo by Sebastian Bednarek / Unsplash.