Mac mini and Mac Studio go on general sale Tuesday, September 22, 2026, ten days from today. Apple announced both machines in August, weeks before the September 9 iPhone event, and has already published full pricing, chip options and ports for every configuration.
Mac mini starts at $899 with the new M6 chip or $1,699 with M5 Pro. Mac Studio starts at $2,499 with M5 Max or $5,499 with M5 Ultra. Pre-orders for both opened August 25, and the top Mac Studio memory configuration will not actually be ready on launch day. Both machines reach general sale a little more than a week after macOS 27 arrives free on Monday, September 14.
Key facts
| Item | What Apple publishes |
|---|---|
| General sale date | Tuesday, September 22, 2026 |
| Pre-orders opened | Monday, August 25, 2026 |
| Mac mini pricing | $899 with M6, $1,699 with M5 Pro |
| Mac Studio pricing | $2,499 with M5 Max, $5,499 with M5 Ultra |
| 512GB Mac Studio configuration | Ships late October 2026, not September 22 |
| Education pricing | Mac mini $799 / $1,599, Mac Studio $2,299 / $5,099 |
Mac mini: M6 or M5 Pro
The $899 Mac mini runs Apple’s new M6 chip, built on what Apple calls its 2-nanometer process, arriving the same year as the A20 Pro chip inside iPhone 18 Pro: a 12-core CPU, described by Apple as two more cores than the previous generation, a 12-core GPU with Neural Accelerators in each core, and a dual 16-core Neural Engine. Memory starts at 16GB and is configurable to 32GB, with bandwidth up to 170GB/s. It carries three Thunderbolt 4 ports, two front USB-C ports, a headphone jack, rear HDMI and Ethernet, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and 2.5Gb Ethernet with a 10Gb option.
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The $1,699 Mac mini moves to M5 Pro: up to an 18-core CPU, up to a 20-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, up to 64GB of unified memory and 307GB/s of bandwidth. Its Thunderbolt ports step up to three Thunderbolt 5 connections, with the same front and rear layout and the same Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Ethernet options as the M6 model.
Mac Studio: M5 Max or M5 Ultra
The $2,499 Mac Studio runs M5 Max: an 18-core CPU built from six of what Apple now calls super cores plus 12 performance cores, up to a 40-core GPU, up to 128GB of unified memory and bandwidth up to 614GB/s. It drives up to eight displays, or up to four Studio Display XDR units at 5K resolution and 120Hz.
The $5,499 Mac Studio runs M5 Ultra: up to a 36-core CPU with 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, up to an 80-core GPU, up to 512GB of unified memory and 1.2TB/s of bandwidth. Apple also lists an Apple Upgrade lease option through Klarna, from $48.99 a month for M5 Max or $110.10 a month for M5 Ultra, each on a 36-month term.
Every configuration, side by side
| Machine | Chip | CPU cores | Max memory | Bandwidth | Starting price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mac mini | M6 | 12-core | 32GB | 170GB/s | $899 |
| Mac mini | M5 Pro | up to 18-core | 64GB | 307GB/s | $1,699 |
| Mac Studio | M5 Max | 18-core | 128GB | 614GB/s | $2,499 |
| Mac Studio | M5 Ultra | up to 36-core | 512GB | 1.2TB/s | $5,499 |
That 512GB figure in the table is the ceiling Apple has announced for M5 Ultra, not a configuration you can actually order for September 22. Apple’s own Mac Studio announcement states plainly that the 512GB unified memory build does not ship until late October, a separate date from general sale.
Why the launch got buried
Apple announced Mac mini and Mac Studio in August and opened pre-orders August 25, roughly two weeks before the September 9 keynote introduced iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo, AirPods 5 and Apple Watch Series 12. Johny Srouji, whom Apple named its chief hardware officer this year, is the executive quoted in both Mac announcements. Of Mac mini, Apple’s release quotes him saying, “Mac mini has always been our most versatile Mac.” Of Mac Studio, Apple calls it, in Srouji’s words, “the ultimate desktop for on-device AI and the world’s most demanding pro workflows.”
Apple is also promoting a newer use for the desktop: it says four Mac Studio systems clustered together deliver three times faster AI inference than a single system, framing Mac Studio as infrastructure rather than only a desk machine.
What Apple has not said
Apple has not published a specific hour for Tuesday’s general sale, the way it does for pre-order mornings. It has not given a firmer date than “late October” for the 512GB Mac Studio, and it has not said whether that delay affects any other configuration. Pricing outside the United States and education store has not been published in Apple’s own release for either machine.
As of September 12, both machines are ten days from general sale. The 512GB Mac Studio, and any date more specific than late October, remain unannounced.
