Apple unveiled the M5 Ultra and M6 chips alongside new Mac Studio and Mac mini models. The M5 Ultra, Apple's most powerful processor, uses a quad-die architecture fusing four M5 Max chips on a 3nm process. It delivers up to 36 CPU cores (12 super, 24 performance), 25% higher single-threaded and 30% better multi-threaded performance than the M3 Ultra. The chip supports up to 512GB unified memory with 1.2TB/s bandwidth, a 50% increase. An 80-core GPU with neural accelerators boosts peak AI compute 4.5x and graphics 40% over M3 Ultra. The Media Engine adds four ProRes encode/decode engines and hardware AV1, H.264, HEVC support. Base Mac Studio with M5 Ultra starts at $5,499.

The M6 debuts on TSMC's 2nm process with a 12-core CPU (two super, four performance, six efficiency cores) and 32GB unified memory at 170GB/s bandwidth. Apple claims world's fastest single-threaded performance and 1.2x faster multi-threaded vs M5, plus 30% neural processing uplift. Reportedly, Apple will skip M6 Pro/Max and move to M7 by mid-2027. The M6 targets low-end Mac, iMac, and MacBook models, prioritizing power efficiency for productivity laptops.