Apple takes powerful M6 chip to the MacBook Pro, iMac

The 14-inch MacBook Pro and iMac families will soon receive Apple’s 6th-generation M-series processors next month, ending the wait for the latest silicon in these machines.

These mid-cycle refreshes feature significant internal upgrades, even though the base-model MacBook Pro retains its previous generation's high-res mini-LED display, chiclet keyboard, and port selection.

Fabbed using TSMC’s 2nm process technology and announced alongside a refreshed Mac mini in August, the M6 boasts a refreshed CPU featuring 12 CPU and 12 GPU cores. It is also enhanced by a dual 16-core Neural Engine, or NPU, which promises better handling for Apple Intelligence features in macOS Golden Gate.

The M6 MacBook Pro ships with 16 GB of unified memory, offering 153 GB/s of bandwidth, though this can be upgraded to 24 GB or 32 GB for higher bandwidth up to 170 GB/s. Apple states the M6 offers considerable performance boosts over the M5, which is currently available in the MacBook Air.

In Xcode, Apple reports up to 30 percent higher performance when comparing it to a similarly equipped M5 MacBook Pro. The GPU sees comparable benefits in areas like Blender ray tracing, local AI inference, and image processing, achieving 1.3x faster prompt processing and 1.3x faster rendering, alongside 1.2x faster performance within the Affinity creative suite.

Furthermore, the M6 MacBook Pro gains Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity. The iMac also benefits from these connectivity upgrades, alongside Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and certain models gain 2.5 Gbps Ethernet.

For the iMac, the performance increase is even more substantial since it did not receive the M5. Apple claims the iMac delivers 1.5x faster performance in productivity apps such as Excel, 2x faster graphics performance, and 5x faster local AI processing.

Pricing remains static across both lines; a 16 GB model with 1 TB of solid state storage for the MacBook Pro will cost $1,999. iMacs start at $1,499. Preorders for both the M6 MacBook Pro and iMac begin tomorrow, with general availability set for Friday, Nov. 6.