Apple's Mac mini has finally been upgraded with the M5 Pro chip. Here's how the latest model compares to its M4 Pro counterpart.

After the debut of the M5 Pro chip in the MacBook Pro, Apple's latest system-on-chip has made its way to another Mac. The Mac mini now ships with the M5 Pro chip, offering a worthwhile performance improvement.

Like the M5 Pro MacBook Pro, the M5 Pro Mac mini uses a tried-and-true design. You still get the same chassis and ports as with the M4 Pro Mac mini, even though Apple spent well over a year working on the M5 Pro model. Still, you do get more processing power for close to the same price.

The M5 Pro Mac mini starts at $1,699, while the M4 Pro Mac mini started at $1,399. Both weigh 1.6 pounds. The M5 Pro offers a 15-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, Neural Accelerators, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and 307GB/s memory bandwidth. The M4 Pro has a 12-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and 273GB/s memory bandwidth. Memory options are 24GB, 48GB, and 64GB for both. Storage options are 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB for both.

The M5 Pro Mac mini adds Apple N1 wireless networking chip, 802.11be Wi-Fi 7 support, Bluetooth 6, Thread networking technology, and 2.5Gig Ethernet (10Gig upgradable). The M4 Pro has 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6E support, Bluetooth 5, Gigabit Ethernet (10Gig upgradable). Both have HDMI, three Thunderbolt 5 ports, two USB 3 Type-C (front), and 3.5mm headphone (front).

The design remains unchanged: 5 inches by 5 inches, 2 inches tall, aluminum. The front offers two USB-C ports. The weight is the same for both models: 1.6 pounds. Apple's Mac mini continues to deliver the core Mac experience and still embodies the same "bring your own keyboard and mouse" strategy that Steve Jobs introduced.