Compact powerhouse with the 2 nm M6 SoC - Apple Mac mini 2026 Review

The Mac mini 2026 is once again a very compact system and the new M6 SoC is a very impressive chip. It is Apple's first 2 nm chip for Macs and we can see performance improvements in all categories (single-core, multi-core, GPU) as well as efficiency improvements, which is the benefit of the new manufacturing process. The M6 currently offers the best single-core performance you can get, period, and there is a huge advantage over AMD, Intel as well as Qualcomm. The multi-core performance of the new entry-level chip is also excellent and easily beats the Panther Lake or Gorgon Point competition. You would need AMD's Strix Halo or the fastest Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme. And if the M6 is not powerful enough or you need more than 32 GB RAM, Apple also offers the Mac mini with the M5 Pro SoC.

The Mac mini is also a very quiet system unless you really stress the CPU and the GPU, but it is never annyoingly loud. Since Apple did not change the chassis, there are still teh same drawbacks as before. There are no maintenance options, upgrades are expensive (even though this is not limited to Apple anymore) and the power button location is still very inconvenient. There are also smaller things like the limitation to 160 MHz for the Wi-Fi 7 module, but considering the starting price of $899, this is not a huge deal-breaker. 

The 2026 Mac mini uses the familiar chassis, which offers excellent build quality. The silver aluminum enclosure is very compact (12.7 x 12.7 x 5 cm) and the M6 SKU tips the scale at 653 grams with an integrated power adapter. The power button is still on the rear left corner on the bottom, which can be annoying. You also still get two USB-C ports and the 3.5 mm stereo jack at the front, while all the other ports are located at the rear. The M6 SKU features three Thunderbolt 4 ports, while the M5 Pro SKU supports Thunderbolt 5 ports. The N1 Wi-Fi module supports Bluetooth 6 as well as Wi-Fi 7, but limited to 160 MHz, so transfer rates are capped at around 2 Gbps. Transfer rates were very stable in our test and we did not experience any connectivity issues. You also get a 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port by default, while a 10 Gbps port is available for $100.

The Mac mini is equipped with the brand-new M6 SoC (12 cores), Apple's first 2 nm chip for Macs. We recommend our analysis article for more technical information, but the performance of the new M6 is pretty ridiculous and it easily beats other mini-PCs powered by Intel's Lunar Lake or Panther Lake chips as well as AMD's Gorgon Point CPUs. In terms of multi-core performance, it is even not that far off AMD's Strix Halo systems like the compact HP Z2 Mini G1a, which is much more expensive. We have also included the results for the faster M5 Pro SoC, which is also available for the Mac mini.

Compared to the old Mac mini M4 the multi-core performance is roughly 40-50 % better. However, while we cannot use powermetrics for the CPU power draw on the new M6 so far, our power measurements indicate that the TDP is ~10 Watts higher in multi-core scenarios compared to the M4 and therefore comparable to the M5 SoC at around 30 Watts. If you are looking at the single-core performance, the new M6 is once again the fastest single-core chip you can get and Apple just increased the already huge gap to its rivals by another 10 % compared to the M5 and about 25 % compared to the M4 generation. For more efficiency results, please see our dedicated analysis article for the new M6 SoC.