Apple M6 iMac and MacBook Pro: What the New Chip Changes

By Jaspal Singh October 28, 2026 Updated: October 28, 2026

Apple's new 14-inch MacBook Pro and 24-inch iMac both move to the M6 chip, Apple's first 2nm processor. The MacBook Pro keeps its $1,999 price and design while adding two CPU and two GPU cores, Wi-Fi 7 and faster on-device AI. The iMac jumps straight from M4 to M6, starting at $1,499.

What Happened

On October 27, 2026, Apple announced two Macs built on the M6 chip. The first is the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro, which Apple says in its MacBook Pro press release starts at $1,999 in the US, or $1,899 with education pricing. The second is the 24-inch iMac, which, according to Apple's iMac announcement, starts at $1,499 with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, and at $1,699 with a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU.

Both machines open for pre-order on October 28 in 35 countries and regions, including the US, and begin arriving on Friday, November 6. Apple quotes these gains for the MacBook Pro over its M5 predecessor: up to 30 percent faster graphics, up to 25 percent faster AI workloads such as LLM prompt processing, and a Neural Engine up to 1.9 times faster. For the iMac, which skipped the M5 generation entirely, Apple claims up to 5 times faster on-device AI prompt processing in LM Studio and up to 2 times faster graphics than the M4 model it replaces.

The M6 itself is not brand new. The Verge's Jess Weatherbed notes that it is the same chip Apple shipped in the Mac mini in August, and describes it as Apple's first 2nm chip. The launches also arrived a day before Apple's "Pro and Tell" event, where higher-end MacBook Pros are widely expected.

Why It Matters

The headline price hides the real story. According to MacRumors' M5 versus M6 comparison, the M5 MacBook Pro launched at $1,599 with 512GB of storage. Apple dropped that configuration in March, making 1TB standard at $1,699, and a June increase tied to rising memory and storage costs took it to $1,999. The M6 model replaces it at that same $1,999. Anyone comparing against last year's launch price sees a $400 jump; anyone comparing against what Apple charged last week sees no change at all.

That history matters if you are deciding whether to buy now. Memory prices have been pushing laptop prices up across the industry all year, a trend we covered when Apple raised MacBook prices across the board. The M6 does not reverse it. What it does is put more silicon into the same price point: two extra CPU cores, two extra GPU cores, and the N1 wireless chip with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.

For the iMac, the case is stronger. Owners of an M1 iMac, still a common machine in homes and small offices, get a chip several generations newer, and Apple claims up to 18 times the performance of the most popular Intel-based iMac. The Verge points out that the $1,499 entry price matches the current M4 iMac price, now with a 10-core rather than 8-core CPU, so this is a straightforward spec improvement at the same cost.

How It Works

Three tiers of CPU core

Apple's spec sheets describe the M6 CPU in three tiers rather than the familiar two. The 12-core version in the MacBook Pro and the upper iMac has 2 "super" cores, 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, according to the MacBook Pro technical specifications. The cheaper 10-core iMac drops to 2 super, 3 performance and 5 efficiency cores. Apple has not published detailed microarchitecture, but the arrangement suggests a familiar split of work: the two super cores handle the bursty single-threaded tasks that make a computer feel responsive, the performance cores take sustained heavy work such as compiling code, and the efficiency cores carry background jobs at low power. Apple says the M6 has "the world's fastest CPU core," a claim worth checking against independent benchmarks once machines ship.

Why AI speed and memory are linked

Apple's AI figures focus on "time to first token," the delay before a local language model begins answering. That stage, called prompt processing, is mostly raw arithmetic, which is why the Neural Accelerators Apple has built into every GPU core help it so much. The next stage, generating each word, depends far more on how quickly the chip can read the model's weights out of memory. That is where memory bandwidth comes in.

Here a detail in the spec sheets deserves attention. The base MacBook Pro with 16GB of unified memory is listed at 153GB/s of memory bandwidth, while the 24GB and 32GB configurations reach 170GB/s. Apple's marketing uses the higher "up to" figure. If you plan to run local models, the cheapest configuration is therefore slower at generating text as well as smaller. Capacity matters too: a model's weights must fit in unified memory alongside macOS and your apps, so 16GB comfortably runs compact quantized models, while 32GB, the maximum on this MacBook Pro and the 12-core iMac, opens up mid-sized ones. Machines built for very large models, like the clusters in our piece on running Meta's 816B Muse Spark model on Mac Studios, sit in a different class entirely.

What did not change

MacRumors calls the MacBook Pro update a small refresh. It keeps the same 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display with up to 1,600 nits of HDR brightness, the same 12MP Center Stage camera, 1TB of base storage, up to 24 hours of battery life, and a port set of HDMI, MagSafe 3, an SDXC slot, a headphone jack and three Thunderbolt 4 ports. The M5 Pro and M5 Max models above it keep Thunderbolt 5. The iMac keeps its 24-inch 4.5K display at 500 nits and the same seven colors.

The iMac does gain faster storage, which Apple says is up to twice as fast, and optional 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet. Per Apple's iMac technical specifications, both versions start at 16GB of memory and 256GB of storage. The 10-core model tops out at 24GB and 1TB and drives one external display, while the 12-core model reaches 32GB and 2TB and drives two. The Verge reports that the 10-core model still has only two Thunderbolt ports to the 12-core model's four, and that choosing a Magic Trackpad instead of the mouse now costs $50 extra.

What's Still Unknown

Several things cannot be settled from launch-day material. Apple's performance claims come from its own testing on pre-production units, and independent reviews will show how the new super cores and GPU actually compare with M5 in sustained work, especially in the iMac's thin, fan-limited chassis. How much 2nm manufacturing contributes to efficiency versus the added cores is also unclear.

The bigger unknown is what Apple shows at its October 28 event. Bloomberg has reported that redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with OLED touchscreens are coming, at a reported starting price of $2,899, a story that we first tracked in our report on Apple's first touchscreen MacBook Pro. MacRumors adds that a redesigned entry-level MacBook Pro with an M7 chip is reportedly planned for as early as the first half of 2027. Neither has been confirmed by Apple, and how long Apple supports Macs with the current design is a separate question that its vintage and obsolete product list only answers years later.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do the M6 MacBook Pro and M6 iMac cost?

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 starts at $1,999 in the US, or $1,899 with education pricing, with 16GB of memory and 1TB of storage. The iMac with M6 starts at $1,499 for the 10-core CPU and GPU model and $1,699 for the 12-core model, with education prices of $1,449 and $1,599. Both open for pre-order on October 28.

When can I get an M6 Mac?

Apple opened pre-orders on October 28, 2026, through its online store and the Apple Store app in 35 countries and regions, including the United States. Deliveries to customers, along with stock in Apple Store locations and Apple Authorized Resellers, begin on Friday, November 6. Shipping estimates for specific build-to-order configurations may slip later than that date as orders come in.

Is the M6 MacBook Pro worth it over an M5 model?

For existing M5 owners, almost certainly not: Apple's own app-level figures show gains of roughly 20 to 30 percent, with no change to memory ceiling, battery life, ports or design. For buyers replacing an Intel Mac or an M1, the M6 is the better choice at equal prices. A discounted M5 with enough memory and storage remains a sensible, cheaper alternative.

Why did the MacBook Pro price go from $1,599 to $1,999?

The increase happened before the M6 arrived. The M5 MacBook Pro launched at $1,599 with 512GB of storage. Apple removed that configuration in March, making 1TB the standard at $1,699, then raised the price to $1,999 in June amid rising memory and storage costs, according to MacRumors. The M6 model simply replaced the M5 at that existing price.

Can the new iMac or MacBook Pro run AI models locally?

Yes. Both have a Dual 16-core Neural Engine and Neural Accelerators in every GPU core, and Apple says the iMac runs prompt processing in LM Studio up to 5 times faster than the M4 model. The practical limit is memory: the model must fit in unified memory, and the base 16GB configuration also has lower memory bandwidth than the 24GB and 32GB options.

What are super cores in the M6 chip?

Apple's spec sheets list the M6 CPU in three tiers: super cores, performance cores and efficiency cores. The 12-core version has 2, 4 and 6 of each, while the 10-core iMac chip has 2, 3 and 5. Apple has not published full technical details, but the super cores are its fastest, aimed at the single-threaded work that most affects how responsive a Mac feels.

Should I wait for the touchscreen MacBook Pro instead?

Only if you need a high-end machine and can afford one. Bloomberg reports that the OLED touchscreen MacBook Pros will start at about $2,899, roughly $900 more than the M6 model, and Apple had not confirmed them when the M6 Macs were announced. If your budget is around $2,000, the M6 model is the relevant choice, and a rumored M7 redesign may follow in 2027.