The 2nm fabrication technology has finally entered Apple’s line of product through the new Apple Silicon M6 and M5 Ultra.
Welp, that’s half true, because only the M6 is 2nm while the M5 Ultra remains 3nm, but there’s one obvious focus – AI, in which the M6 is running a different architecture that bakes a set of new Neural Accelerators into the GPU, while the M5 Ultra takes things considerably further with massive unified memory capacity and bandwidth.
Let’s start with the M6. 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU and dual 16-core Neural Engine, and there’s up to 170GB/s of unified memory bandwidth and can be configured with up to 32GB of memory. And thanks to the Neural Accelerators now sitting within the GPU, it is said to be 20% better than the M5 in multithreaded performance, as well as generally better in other processes.
Meanwhile, the M5 Ultra is the cream of the crop of the “5” family, as the quad-die architecture based on UltraFusion interconnect technology ties the dies together to form a 36-core CPU, 80-core GPU and 32-core Neural Engine setup. As such, it can be configured with up to 512GB of unified memory and delivers up to 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth.
Such power is capable of tackling both local AI workloads and creative processes, and if managed carefully, one can actually run both at the same time too.
There is also an interesting quirk in Apple’s naming here. The M6 is technically the newer generation, but the M5 Ultra is obviously the much more powerful chip. The two aren’t really competing with each other – the M6 is designed for Apple’s more compact systems, while the M5 Ultra is aimed squarely at workstation-class workloads.
For Apple, though, both chips point in the same direction. The company is putting more silicon toward AI acceleration, increasing memory bandwidth and, in the case of the M5 Ultra, giving a desktop Mac the kind of unified memory capacity that can make local AI workloads much more interesting.
The M6 and M5 Ultra are now part of Apple’s latest desktop lineup, with the M6 debuting in the new Mac mini and the M5 Ultra powering the new Mac Studio. Both are scheduled to become available from September 22, 2026.
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