Apple has announced a new M6 chip for Macs, along with an M5 Ultra that it claims is its “most powerful chip yet,” designed for tasks like 3D rendering and running cutting-edge AI models. The M6 is Apple’s first 2nm chip, which Apple says will bring improvements in performance and power efficiency, and also has a dual 16-core neural engine for on-device AI workloads. The M6 has a 12-core CPU, up from 10 in the M5, and includes two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores. (Apple’s “super” core terminology used to refer to performance cores, but it introduced a new type of performance core starting with the M5 Pro and M5 Max.) The company says the CPU delivers “the world’s fastest single-threaded performance” and up to 1.2x faster multi-threaded performance compared to the M5. The chip also has a 12-core GPU, compared to the M5’s 10 cores, and includes a neural accelerator with each core, Apple says. Supports up to 32 GB of unified memory. Apple says the M5 Ultra uses the company’s UltraFusion interconnect technology to connect two dual-die M5 Max chips as a quad-die architecture. The M5 Ultra has up to 36-core CPU with 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, up to 80-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine. It supports up to 512 GB of unified “high-bandwidth” memory, which, as usual with the M series, cannot be upgraded after purchase. The M6 chip will be available in a new Mac Mini, while the M5 Ultra will launch in a new Mac Studio. Both computers will be available for pre-order starting Tuesday ahead of their release on September 22.
