M6 chip
- 12-core CPU (2 super, 4 performance, and 6 efficiency)
- 12-core GPU
- Neural Accelerators
- Hardware-accelerated ray tracing
- Dual 16-core Neural Engine
- Up to 170GB/s memory bandwidth
Media engine
- Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW
- Video decode engine
- Video encode engine
- ProRes encode and decode engine
- AV1 decode
That’s identical to the chip we got in the Mac mini, so no surprises there. The M5 MacBook Pro was the last of Apple’s laptops to still run Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, so it also got an upgrade to Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 with the N1 chip. But if you don’t have a Wi-Fi 7 router and a very fast network, you’re not going to notice that either.
From what we’re hearing, this MacBook Pro will be the last of its kind. Apple is expected to release a touchscreen MacBook Pro with a new design this week. That new design will reportedly make its way to the non-touchscreen models with next year’s M7 update, so if you have an M4 or M5, you can probably sit this one out.
The M6 MacBook Pro is part of a week of “exciting” releases that has also included the A20 Pro iPad mini and M6 iMac. But the main event will be Wednesday, when Apple releases its first-ever touchscreen MacBook Pro. You can pre-order the M6 MacBook Pro tomorrow starting at 10:10 a.m. PT for delivery next Friday, November 6. It starts at the same $1,999 with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, which is a small victory in this age of price hikes.
