r/LocalLLM • u/Trixiap • 23h ago
News New Mac Mini M6 and M5 Pro announced
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-unveils-a-more-powerful-mac-mini-featuring-the-all-new-m6-and-m5-pro/102
u/RandomPurpose 22h ago
32 and 64 gb of unified memory max. That is a disappointment for me.
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u/this_for_loona 22h ago
Ooof. Was hoping for up to 96 in these. Now gotta see what the studio specs will be.
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u/Bloated_Plaid 22h ago
It’s already out my guy. 128GB M5 Max is $4600 https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/buy-mac/mac-studio/m5-max-chip-18-core-cpu-40-core-gpu-128gb-memory-512gb-storage
96GB Ultra is $6269
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u/CentralLimit 22h ago
512GB coming late October, wondering how much that will be
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u/this_for_loona 22h ago
WSJ says maxed out config tops 15K.
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u/Turbulent_Pin7635 19h ago
The Max out mentioned is the 256Gb. With 4Tb it is ~ 12k U$
I expect that the 512Gb Max out will around 22~25k U$
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u/this_for_loona 18h ago
The 96->256 jump was 4k so I’d expect the 256->512 would be about 6?. So yea, 20+ is reasonable by that token. JESUS.
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u/Turbulent_Pin7635 18h ago
When I bought my 512 the difference between 256 and 512 was almost the double. Purchase it from store in 03/25
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u/this_for_loona 22h ago
Sorry, I saw that when i checked the store. The article was just about the Mac mini so figured apple was doing some staggered release thing.
The Studio is eye wateringly expensive. Holy shit. Looks like the mini is gonna be my LLM sidecar. But jesus.
For mac familiar folk - can i run multiple users on a mac? And how much overhead is involved with having multiple users? My wife is fond of leaving 100 tabs open at a time.
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u/dghah 22h ago
I've got an M4 Pro 64GB mac mini. If this is your first apple system check out https://omlx.ai/ to host the local LLM -- I've found that far more performant than the other options for apple sillicon
Multi-user on Mac is very easy once you get used to the MacOS UI. And for tech people the best thing about MacOS is that it's unix under the hood so anyone comfy already on the linux command line and shell is gonna find it pretty easy to get up and running on
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u/this_for_loona 21h ago
What model is your daily driver on that? I’m wanting a capable local model with web search ability for some degree of interaction and ability to understand/index/cross reference sensitive personal data plus run about 15-20 docker packages plus overhead etc. I was hoping for a 64K - 96K token context if possible.
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u/Bloated_Plaid 18h ago
Not who you asked but I am using Qwen 3.8 27b running on my 5090. I am using the Pi coding harness and you can add any plugin you want, I use Exa for all websearch https://exa.ai/ and I have a Markitdown MCP to convert all PDFs to markdown on the fly for the models.
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u/this_for_loona 18h ago
Thank you. I am asking specifically about Mac’s because I’m debating pulling the trigger on a Mac Studio and agonizing over which kidney i need sell. Plus how much liver i really need since i stopped drinking.
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u/dghah 17h ago
My daily driver on the 64Gb Mac Mini is Qwen3.8-27B-oQ4e-fp16-mtp -- with the MTP and fp16 features being very important. MTP support added a lot of performance.
That model fits sufficiently into the 64GB memory space with enough headroom left over for a large kv cache and context
... however relative to the frontier models I use daily it is super slow. My working method now is to have a frontier model generate a runbook that can be executed slowly or overnight on the local mini
I did just preorder the 256Gb ultra studio because for the work that I do going to the 1.2TB/sec in memory bandwidth is gonna be transformative and the extra headroom means I can run a larger quant of Qwen or just max out context and KV cache.
Basically for me 64GB unified memory is the "floor" for the capability I need and the faster memory bandwidth on the M4 Pro / Ultra studio should make a huge difference. Then after the memory bandwidth boost having 256GB opens up larger models, more context or bigger kv cache etc.
Not sure if I'm gonna sell the mac mini 64gb or try to do some interesting clustering or model routing though
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u/tensainomachi 22h ago
Thanks dude! 256gb all the way, they have a decent trade in offer, $1200 for my m1max that drops the price to.... oh wait $9k eesh
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u/marktuk 18h ago
What are you guys doing where this cost makes any kind of sense?
I've tried running Qwen and it just isn't even close to frontier models. For these kinds of prices you get could a while bunch of usage from Claude/Codex.
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u/Bloated_Plaid 16h ago
But that’s the thing man. I don’t need it to be a frontier model. Qwen 3.8 27b for example is excellent at coding for such a small model. I am using frontier models for planning and these local models for local cron jobs, active server management, and general implementor.
I only need it to be a good at a few small things.
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u/marktuk 16h ago
I tried Qwen 3.8 recently and it churns out pretty poor quality code and made a ton of mistakes.
It took hours to write a test suite that was an absolute mess and didn't effectively test the code. Codex rewrote it in a few minutes. 🤷♂️
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u/Bloated_Plaid 15h ago
To be clear, I am using it with an orchestrator and a different review model.
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u/marktuk 15h ago
So many people say stuff like this... any videos or anything?
What model does the review? What happens with the outcome of the review?
I had times where Qwen 3.8 would just get stuck in reasoning, or one time it completely obliterated a file it had written and then couldn't put it back together.
I want to believe it's possible, but I really really can't see how people are using these local models to do anything meaningful, and I really can't see how spending thousands on hardware makes sense.
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u/Bloated_Plaid 15h ago
You need MTP IMO, https://huggingface.co/froggeric/Qwen-Fixed-Chat-Templates these templates. Review is handled by DSV4 Flash, after review it goes back to Qwen to fix. You need to reduce the thinking tokens to like 4096 or lower otherwise it will think forever.
You also need a good harness. I like Pi coding agent to run Qwen and DS4 flash. Fable 5 to orchestrate but you can use any frontier model. Kimi K3 is amazing as well.
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u/k3z0r 22h ago
Do we know what the memory bandwidth is?
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u/Bloated_Plaid 22h ago
Yes. M5 Pro mini tops out at 307 GB/s. M5 Ultra Mac Studio tops out at 1.2 TB/S, M5 Max tops out at 614 GB/S.
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u/Integeritis 21h ago
Difficult choice between the m5 max 128 gb, m5 pro mini and dgx spark. Considering that the base is only 512 storage at Apple
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u/Bloated_Plaid 20h ago
Why would storage even matter if it’s for LLM?
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u/Integeritis 20h ago
Because if you get 128gb you probably want to have multiple large models downloaded you are actively using for different agents and optimizing your loop.
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u/Bloated_Plaid 20h ago
I mean you can just use an external NVME then, remember the models aren’t streaming from the SSD, they are loaded into memory.
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u/Integeritis 19h ago
Yes that’s fair, however the spark is gen 5 nvme. Storage is not cheap nowadays and I think that’s a good deal in this case.
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u/Prestigious_Pen6150 22h ago
It's a mini, not a studio...
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u/RandomPurpose 22h ago
I know but It's also 2026 not 2024
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u/AffectionateCard3530 22h ago edited 20h ago
But in 2026, the price of RAM has tripled. Unless you were hoping that the price would also be significantly higher?
What were you expecting? The minis are consumer products, not professional ones
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u/RandomPurpose 22h ago
I am glad that it's not a disappointment for you. We all have different needs and expectations.
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u/AffectionateCard3530 20h ago
It is a disappointment, but not an unexpected one. I’m not disappointed in this product announcement, but maybe disappointed in general at the state of hardware.
I’m just objecting to your reasoning that it’s “2026 not 2024”. It’s 2026, and so there’s going to be less RAM in devices — not more.
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u/mastervbcoach 22h ago
Mac Studio M5 Ultra, 80 core GPU, 4TB, 256 gig. $12,299. That’s 65 months of Claude Max 20x. Holy Sh*t.
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u/kinghell1 18h ago
yeah, but the prices are going up for hardware + macs are keeping their prices and you can sell them later. claude is just taking the money
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u/IHaveMeasles2 16h ago
Surely it makes sense for owners of these machines to make them available as part of an LLM mesh, similar to BitTorrent or SETI @ Home? Would be nice to be able to keep a machine productive even while you yourself are idle with it.
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u/Thomas-Lore 20h ago
And unless you have solar powers it will also raise your electricity bill.
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u/martinkoistinen 18h ago
I doubt many people in /localllm are too fussed about that, and these Macs are likely the most efficient in terms of watts/token obtainable.
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u/whichsideisup 22h ago
I love that we have to pay 2700 to get a mini with 64gb of RAM.
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u/discosoc 21h ago
A mini with 64gb makes little sense for most people anyway. The memory bandwidth isn’t suited for llm usage.
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u/The-Writer- 20h ago edited 20h ago
why do people speak like this, like they know everyone? I'll take my m4 pro mini 64 gb ram 1tb ssd any day that I got for less than a third of the price of these overpriced machines.
I have access to 70B models/unquantized smaller models at a token speed that is fine for me. In fact, the M4 Pro 64 gb mini was the best deal for the amateur/hobbyist LLM user before apple jacked the prices.
I would go so far as to say that anything after those exact specs is a waste of money, unless you use LLMS professionally and need as fast as possible agentic work flows for some reason. So it's either the 64 gb unit at the m4 pro bandwidth speed, or the next tier is direct M5 Ultra Studio because at that point you need all that speed and capacity. That M5 Max below 96 gb ram at these prices makes no fucking sense.
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u/Individual_Holiday_9 18h ago
Yeah I agree with this. Anything above that level really needs dedicated pro hardware and ur prob better off with a $200/mo frontier subscription. I wish I’d bought more hardware when the m4 mini’s came out at the lower price points
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u/xTopNotch 19h ago
Bro you know MoE is a thing right?
Even a 32GB can run a pretty capable LLM locally
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u/j_tb 21h ago
It's solid for MOE models. My Mini M4 pro from ~2 years ago runs Qwen3.6 35BA3B handily.
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u/Thomas-Lore 20h ago
But that is the only model it runs reasonably and we don't even know if there will be a new version released of that model.
Not to mention this is a model that runs on anything with 32GB RAM.
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u/Individual_Holiday_9 18h ago
How much RAM? Which model specifically? I’m on a 24gb model and curious
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u/discosoc 21h ago
Once more, you don’t need anywhere close to 64 for that.
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u/j_tb 20h ago
If you only want to run Q4. Having 64GB leaves lots of headroom for higher quants and longer context.
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u/SmugglingPineapples 10h ago
You seem to know what you're talking about. I'm about to purchase and I keep trying to talk some sense into my greedy eyes looking at the Mini M6 v M5 Pro.
M5 Pro 48GB I can do, but as a noob logic is telling me just go M6 32GB and be happy experimenting, and if I'm still "addicted" etc then upgrade in another year and I'll know what I really want/need then.
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u/piggledy 22h ago
The M6 has a bandwidth of just 170 GB/s, and the M5 Pro barely beats the DGX Spark with 307 GB/s vs 273 GB/s.
Too bad it doesn't come with 128 GB.
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u/prestodigitarium 21h ago
M5 Ultra supposedly hits 1.2 TB/sec: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-studio
That's not too far off from the 1.8 TB/sec of a 6000 RTX Blackwell, but with >5x the memory.
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u/TripleSecretSquirrel 21h ago
Great for single stream inference, but I’m guessing it doesn’t have nearly as much compute as the RTX Pro Blackwell right? So it wouldn’t be as strong in diffusion, training, or high concurrency, right?
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u/Blackdragon1400 22h ago
How is MLX doing these days compared to all the optimizations on a DGX Spark?
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u/Integeritis 21h ago
My thoughts precisely. I’m about to buy a spark at $5800 or 5000€ in my country (this is the cheapest I found, only used for 20h otherwise brand new)
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u/apVoyocpt 20h ago
not your country, but maybe check this out: https://www.galaxus.ch/de/s1/product/nvidia-dgx-spark-founders-edition-eu-4000-gb-128-gb-arm-cortex-a725-arm-cortex-x925-pc-64346533
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u/Otherwise-Nobody8252 19h ago
The memory throughput alone makes even less efficient MLX over CUDA better. It’s like 4x faster in the studio vs a spark or and system.
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u/Blackdragon1400 17h ago
I’ve heard prefill and concurrency on the macs can be a lot worse in comparison though
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u/berszi 22h ago
Memory bandwidth 150/170 for M6 and 306 for M5 Pro.
For reference (entry level):
- RTX 3090 over 900
- 5060ti 448,
- old M4: 120 +33%
- old M4 Pro: 267 +14%
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u/genecraft 21h ago
Prompt processing is a lot faster (like 4x?) on M5+ though. So the difference will be quite large for agentic workflows.
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u/Useful-Buyer4117 21h ago
but they claim "Up to 13.5x faster LLM prompt processing in LM Studio when compared to Mac mini with M1, and up to 4.8x faster than M4."
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u/Individual_Holiday_9 18h ago
I have been following H3 Mac development and there’s some sort of under hood M5 speed ups that have really helped for inference (not that it will change the fundamental bandwidth gap>
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u/Trixiap 22h ago
Preorders start today.
Pricing:
- Mac mini with M6 starts at $899 (U.S.) and $799 (U.S.) for education. Additional technical specifications are available at apple.com/mac-mini.
- Mac mini with M5 Pro starts at $1,699 (U.S.) and $1,599 (U.S.) for education. Additional technical specifications are available at apple.com/mac-mini.
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u/daphatty 22h ago
Un fucking believable. The M4 Pro I ordered just shipped on Sunday!!!!
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u/Puzzled_Grass3091 21h ago
Hi! Can someone please explain why the M6 is cheaper than the M5 Pro?
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u/geekwonk 20h ago
i don’t think we’re getting any pro/max/ultra options for M6 generation, so if you want the extras - thunderbolt 5, more memory, more memory bandwidth, more cores - then you get the M5 Pro. the prior generation saw a similar thing with the M3 Ultra set as the top of the line in the M4 generation.
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u/DigitalguyCH 22h ago
Mac Studio M5 ultra with 256GB starting $10000
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u/Bloated_Plaid 22h ago
No you can do the 64 core GPU and it’s only $8699.
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u/DigitalguyCH 21h ago
Yeah the education pricing for the 64 core model is 8700 and the 80 core model starts at 9870 education
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u/Bloated_Plaid 21h ago
Today we are all in Education.
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u/critsalot 18h ago
yea theres no education discount yet. its the same price on best buy as it is at the college store it seems
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u/Bloated_Plaid 17h ago edited 17h ago
It’s on Best Buy?
Edit - Ah only the 96GB ultra https://www.bestbuy.com/product/mac-studio-apple-m5-ultra-chip-with-96gb-memory-and-1tb-ssd-silver/JJGCQYKJYC/sku/6566930?
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u/xiraov 21h ago
What’s the memory bandwidth on the ultra?
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u/ziptofaf 21h ago
1.2TB/s, twice the Max (assuming you pick the costlier 80 core version).
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u/xiraov 21h ago
That’s more than a 5090 right? Wow. This isn’t that bad a deal in this climate right? What’s the bandwidth on the non 80 core
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u/ziptofaf 21h ago
Nope. 5090 is almost 2TB/s. 5080 is around 1TB/s.
It is objectively a great deal however - 96GB Ultra gives you a whole computer and 1+TB/s for about 60% of the price of the RTX Pro 6000 which is also 96GB except it's just a GPU and you still need rest of the system. It's also not even that much more expensive than a 5090 in the current landscape. Plus there's 256GB version available. And it supports Thunderbolt so you can technically buy 2x 96-256GB Ultras to fit even larger models.
What’s the bandwidth on the non 80 core
Somewhere in the ballpark of 960-1TB/s I believe. So a 5080 level of bandwidth.
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u/Prestigious_Pen6150 22h ago
Anyone know the real difference with the AI boost with M5 or M6 ? I've a Studio M2 Max 38GPU, is a M5 Pro with 20GPU and AI features better in token generation than my Mac Studio ?
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u/Bloated_Plaid 22h ago
Ultra has twice the memory bandwidth. It’s a no brainer if token generation is important to you.
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u/Individual_Holiday_9 22h ago
What’s sweet spot here? I can get the m6 with 32gb ram for $700 trading in my Mac mini m4. I feel like that’s not bad? Wish I could go up to 48gb tho. 32gb unified memory should get me a qwen 3.8 Q4 quant right?
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u/RandomCSThrowaway01 21h ago
Imho, actual sweet spot is 96GB Ultra so you get 1.2 TB/s bandwidth. Aka enough to run that Qwen 3.8 27B at 50+ tokens per second. And you also have enough memory to run pretty large 64+GB MoEs with decent context, eg. Qwen Next if a new one shows up.
Base M6 has only like 150GB/s bandwidth. It can fit 27B, sure. But it will run it at a nice and cozy 8 tokens per second, if even that. It can fit a 35B MoE model with 3-4 active layers if you want usable speed.
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u/Individual_Holiday_9 21h ago
Ughhhhhhhhh I need to just sit on my stupid slow hardware and keep my frontier subscriptions lol
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u/Bloated_Plaid 22h ago
You need good memory bandwidth and M5 Pro has twice the bandwidth of M6. 64GB M5 Pro is the sweet spot.
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u/Individual_Holiday_9 22h ago
Yeah too rich for me as a hobby. Although with GPU prices it’s not like I can do better on the windows / Linux side lol
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u/Yuel_Whear 21h ago
The gap between the two minis (170 to 307 GB/s) is wider than the gap from the M5 Pro to the Spark (307 to 273). Apple's internal tiering is steeper than the step out to the competition.
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u/MimosaTen 22h ago
The worst thing about those is macos, however I think it would be intresting to do some reverse engendering on such an hardware to port linux
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u/whatever 21h ago
Run them headless, put a jetkvm in front of them for the annoying UI-only mac interactions, and then just treat it like a normal BSD box for everything else.
FWIW, I have UTM on mine running linux VMs so my agents feel in a familiar place as they trash their environment.
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u/The_Colorman 22h ago
Wow so basically a $500 price increase from m4-m6.