Apple updated the lower-end 14-inch MacBook Pro on Tuesday with the M6 processor and Wi-Fi 7. The upgrade is iterative, with no enclosure redesign and no M6 Pro or M6 Max variants expected soon. The M6 chip features 12 CPU cores (two super, four performance, six efficiency) and 12 GPU cores, paired with 16GB of RAM and Thunderbolt 4. Apple's N2 chip adds Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread. Battery life extends up to 14 hours.
Apple claims significant performance gains: up to 13x faster LLM prompt processing versus the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1, up to 11.7x faster ray tracing renders in Blender, up to 3.3x faster image processing in Affinity, and up to 2.5x faster Xcode builds. Compared to the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5, improvements range from 1.2x to 1.3x.
"The 14-inch MacBook Pro is the pro laptop of choice for a wide range of users — from college students, to business professionals across every industry, to multidisciplinary creators," said Shelly Goldberg, Apple's vice president of Hardware Engineering. "With the powerful M6 chip, we're taking performance to the next level, with a boost in CPU speed and graphics and even more powerful capabilities for on-device AI."
Prices start at $1,999 with 1TB storage and 16GB RAM. A maxed-out configuration with 32GB RAM and 4TB SSD sells for $3,899. Preorders begin October 28, with shipments expected November 6.
Source: AppleInsider · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing