The Mac mini M6 is available today; it starts at $899, and it runs Apple’s newest 2nm chip, so if you have been waiting for a reason to upgrade your home office setup, this is a pretty direct answer. But for those people (or businesses) looking for a good, local AI monster machine, the Mac Studio M5 Ultra is the beast to get. Clocking in at over $5k, this really isn’t a little desktop Mac.
I said earlier that I really think these Minis and Studios will be incredibly popular for AI work. While I can’t afford them, after reviewing the specs and testing local AI on a variety of laptops, I can’t wait to see how people use the power of the new chipsets.
Again, this is a bit of a shot across the bow to public AI companies. While it would take several months of running public AI as a subscription to “pay off” a Studio Ultra, open-source models are improving quickly and may soon become a viable option.