Apple's desktop computers just got a refresh, and according to Wired, which says it tested the new lineup, the changes land unevenly across the Mac Mini, Mac Studio and iMac.
The Mac Mini is the headline act. Wired reports the mini desktop now ships with either Apple's new M6 chip or an M5 Pro option, and that the base model costs $300 more than previous Mac Minis. The outlet's reviewer says the extra cost buys higher specs and a configuration aimed squarely at running AI models locally, on the machine itself rather than in the cloud. For most buyers, Wired recommends the M6 model, calling it fast and reliable, while reserving the pricier M5 Pro configuration, which can be built with up to 20 GPU cores, for people doing serious work in Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve.
There's a catch Wired flags directly: the M6 Mac Mini now lands only a couple hundred dollars under a comparably configured MacBook Air, which makes the choice between a desktop and a far more portable laptop less obvious than it used to be. The upside the outlet points to is availability. The M6 Mac Mini can reportedly be picked up same-day at Apple Stores, while M5 Pro units may take up to four weeks to ship.
Mac Studio stretches past $11,000
Farther up the range sits the Mac Studio, built around an M5 Max chip, the same silicon found in the MacBook Pro, according to Wired. Configurations can reach 128GB of unified memory, useful for running heavier local AI models, but the outlet notes that doing so pushes the price past $5,000 quickly.
Then there's the M5 Ultra, which Wired describes as two M5 Max dies fused together. The configuration the outlet says it tested carried 256GB of memory and a price tag north of $11,000, which Wired calls the most expensive computer it has ever had on a desk. Wired's testing found GPU performance sometimes doubled compared to the M5 Max, and that agentic AI tasks which took minutes on the M5 Ultra took roughly five times as long on an M5 Max MacBook Pro. Wired also reports being surprised by how well games like Cyberpunk 2077 ran on hardware not built for gaming.
Shipping on the high end is slow. Wired says Mac Studio configurations with 128GB or more of memory can take up to six weeks to arrive, and the M5 Ultra model can take as long as four months.
The iMac hasn't moved since 2024
The iMac, meanwhile, is where Apple's attention clearly hasn't landed. Wired notes it hasn't been updated since 2024 and still runs on the M4 chip. The base iMac desktop starts at $1,499 for 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, an eight-core GPU and two Thunderbolt 4 ports on a 4.5K display. A second configuration with a 10-core GPU and four Thunderbolt 4 ports starts at $1,699. None of that pricing has moved despite the chip's age, which leaves the iMac looking increasingly like Apple's forgotten desktop while the Mini and Studio get the AI-era treatment.
CDFiled by The Computing Desk
Laptops, desktops, processors, graphics cards and the operating systems that run on them.
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