TechAppleDesktopsThe Mac Mini is still mighty, just not as cheapIt remains the best tiny computer you can buy, but $900 stings compared to the $600 of the last-gen.If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.by Antonio G. Di BenedettoPhotography by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeSep 21, 2026, 1:00 PM UTCShareGiftIf you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.Apple’s little computer gets a little spendy.Antonio G.
Di Benedetto is a reviewer covering laptops and the occasional gadget. He spent over 15 years in the photography industry before joining The Verge as a deals writer in 2021.There are lots of compact desktop computers out there, but none match the Mac Mini’s small size and big power. 2024’s redesign reduced the Mini to 0.82L, a chassis so minimal you can easily mount it behind a monitor or under a desk. I’ve used gaming laptop charging bricks that are nearly as large and definitely heavier than this whole computer. But despite being tiny, the Mini maintains a bunch of speedy ports — even a front-facing headphone jack.The 2026 Mini is the first Mac to get Apple’s new M6 chip, with more cores — and more kinds of cores — than the outgoing M4 model.
Along with that comes another beefier version, replacing the M4 Pro model with an M5 Pro. It’s a chip bump year, and that’s just fine. But it’s also a price bump year: while the M4 Mac Mini started at $599, the new model starts at $899. In spite of that, the Mac Mini remains the best value in the Mac lineup, because just about everything costs more these days.9Verge ScoreM6 Mac Mini$899$899The GoodM6 chip is more than enough for most peopleSame great, tiny chassisLots of portsThe Bad$300 higher starting price over the old base M4 modelSpeakers are still “Well, better than nothing”Still wish it had an SD card slot$899 at Apple$899 at Best BuyHow we rate and review products8Verge ScoreM5 Pro Mac Mini$1699$1699The GoodM5 Pro packs lots of power in such a small form factorLots of ports, including Thunderbolt 5Super fast storage read / write speedsThe BadMore expensive than last year and gets ludicrous — to the point when you should just buy a Mac StudioSpeakers are still “Well, better than nothing”I especially wish the M5 Pro model had an SD card slot$2899 at Apple (review config)$1699 at Best BuyHow we rate and review productsSince May, the cheapest M4 Mini was the model with 512GB storage, for $799; Apple discontinued the $599 model with 256GB of storage due to supply constraints — in part because of people buying up Mac Minis en masse for use with OpenClaw.
So while the base M6 model with 16GB / 256GB is technically only $100 more than the last available M4 Mini, it’s really a $300 increase.Screen: BYOWebcam: BYOKeyboard: BYOTrackpad: BYOPort selection: ASpeakers: DNumber of ugly stickers to remove: 0We have two specced-up units in for review. One is a $1,299 M6 model with a 12-core CPU / 12-core GPU, 24GB of unified memory, 512GB of storage, and 2.5Gb ethernet. The M5 Pro config is a very pricey $2,899 for an 18-core CPU / 20-core GPU, 48GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, and 10Gb ethernet. As powerful as the M5 Pro is, this is a bit overkill for a Mac Mini.
Spending $2,899 puts you well into M5 Max Mac Studio territory.Like all the latest M-series Macs, both the M6 and M5 Pro Mac Mini are absolute speed demons for raw performance. They even benefit from Apple’s recent push to faster storage, doubling the storage speeds of the M4 / M4 Pro Mac Mini. The M6 is Apple’s newest chip, and it’s now the head of the pack in single-core performance. Not just the Mac pack, either; the entire pack.
The M6 chip’s jump to a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU over the M4’s 10-core / 10-core makes it faster on all fronts.The M6 contains all three of Apple’s current core types: 2 super, 4 performance, and 6 efficiency. (The super cores are the fastest ones, which Apple called performance cores until earlier this year; the performance cores are new and meant for multithreaded work.) The M4 had four of the old performance cores and six efficiency cores. The M5 Pro Mac Mini has six super cores, twelve performance cores, and zero efficiency cores.In single-threaded work, the M6’s super cores are about 10 percent faster than M5’s performance cores, and a little more than 20 percent faster than the performance cores in the M4. The super and performance cores in the M5 Pro are both slower than the M6’s, and so are the GPU cores, but what they lack in speed they make up for in number, not to mention memory bandwidth. The M5 Pro is 40 to 50 percent faster in multi-threaded CPU and GPU benchmarks than the M6.It’s just so dang tiny.Looking at a real-world benchmark like our Adobe Premiere 4K export test, the M6 Mac Mini finishes in 2 minutes and 34 seconds — 40 seconds faster than the M4 we tested in the iMac with the same amount of RAM.
The M5 Pro did it in 1:51, almost a third faster than the M6 and even faster than our recent re-test of the 10-core / 32-core M1 Max (which took 2:03).Mac Mini (2026) / Apple M6 / 24GB / 512GBMac Mini (2026) / Apple M5 Pro / 48GB / 1TB / 10G EthernetiMac (2024) / Apple M4 / 24GB / 1TBMacBook Pro 16 / Apple M4 Pro / 48GB / 2TBMacBook Pro 14 / Apple M5 / 16GB / 1TBMacBook Air 15 / Apple M5 / 16GB / 1TBRazer Blade 16 (2025) / AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 / RTX 5090 / 32GB / 2TBAsus Zenbook Duo / Intel Core Ultra X9 388H (Panther Lake) / 32GB / 1TBCPU cores1218101410101216Graphics cores12201020101010496 (CUDA)12Geekbench 6 CPU Single46534294377739764208417529683009Geekbench 6 CPU Multi2100529104147562261517948165671592217268Geekbench 6 GPU (OpenCL)61462885313595870018490594766121301656839Geekbench 6 GPU (Metal)99620142708551601136007759576035N/AN/AGeekbench 7 CPU Single40343675——Geekbench 7 CPU Multi2245034021——Geekbench 7 GPU (OpenCL)5756088763——Geekbench 7 GPU (Metal)89613137117——Cinebench 2026 Single809715–736727-528Cinebench 2026 Multi55338059–44863413-3993PugetBench for Photoshop16739177261024812374123541151386798773PugetBench for Premiere Pro (2.0.0+)75108105041–7112261861-54920PugetBench for DaVinci Resolve (2.0.0+)6154985624–5088245378–Blender classroom test (seconds, lower is better)332465-44461861Blender cosmos test (seconds, lower is better)8451—-121204Premiere 4K Export (lower is better)2 minutes, 34 seconds1 minute, 51 seconds3 minutes, 14 seconds2 minutes, 13 seconds2 minutes, 47 seconds2 minutes, 53 seconds1 minute, 56 seconds3 minutes, 3 secondsSustained SSD reads (MB/s)6759.8612218.073252.896737.847049.457049.456726.256762.15Sustained SSD writes (MB/s)7537.3815420.953393.397499.567317.67480.554931.415679.41Price as tested$1,299$2,899$2,299$3,349$1,949$1,499$4,499.99$2,299.99What does all of this feel like in everyday use? These Mac Minis are more than capable for lots of multitasking and content creation, with the M5 Pro of course having more headroom. I was able to import a batch of 1,253 50-megapixel RAW images (all my recent photos still living on my SD card) from my full-frame Sony camera into Lightroom Classic on the M6 Mac Mini in about 6 minutes and 13 seconds. The same import only went about 30 seconds faster on the M5 Pro Mac Mini.
But doing some heavy batch editing with AI subject detection across a selection of 188 photos showed the performance advantage of the M5 Pro. The M6 Mac Mini was decently fast, but even with 24GB of RAM this little torture test hit swap memory and slowed mid-processing. The M5 Pro sailed through and stayed speedier the whole way through.The M5 Pro model should come in black.If you’re doing video editing, visual effects, or 3D rendering then you’re best served looking at the M5 Pro Mac Mini — or maybe even the Mac Studio if you have the budget. The M6 Mac Mini is more for generalists who do creative work on the side or want an everyday desktop they could use for a very long time, li
