A chrysophile has ordered a special edition mini PC with a pure 24-carat gold passive chassis reports Fanless Tech. It’s a premium custom version of the ~5-inch (120 x 120 x 120mm) Kubb Fanless PC, but costing around $1.7 million with its opulent gold chassis. As well as its choice of materials pumping up price, this mini PC’s weight has increased from its default 4.6 to 28.7 pounds (2.1kg to 13kg). But as a bonus, which probably still doesn’t make it worth it for most folks, gold has significantly better thermal conductivity than aluminum.

In its social media post, Fanless Tech calls the Kubb Fanless in gold a “cooling marvel.” Its news post on the topic elaborates on this claim, explaining that the thermal conductivity of gold is “about 30% to 50% faster than aluminum.” That might help its Core Ultra chip perform a bit better, all else being equal. However the sacrifice to portability, as this compact gold PC is over 6x heavier, could be a major drawback. As well as the price.

We looked up the thermal conductivity of aluminum and gold, as well as some other common materials. The chart below could be useful for your own passive computing projects.

In contrast to its gilded construction, this mini PC's specs are very modest. Standard configurations of the Kubb Fanless are as follows:

• Intel Core Ultra 5 225H, or Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, or AMD Ryzen AI 5 340
• 16GB DDR5, up to 128GB
• 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD, optional second M.2 SSD
• Intel: 1x USB 3.2 (Type A), 1x USB 3.2 (Type-C, DP1.4a), 1x USB4/Thunderbolt 4 (Type-C, DP 2.1), Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• AMD: 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 (Type A), 2x USB4 (Type-C, DP 1.4a), Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3
• Side ports: 2x Port RJ45, 2x HDMI 2.1 TMDS, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type A)
• 19V DC, 6.32A, 120W power adapter (100–240V AC)
• Windows 11 Pro
• 3 years guarantee

Kubb Fanless mini PCs are usually made from aluminum, and finished in graphite, blue, or bronze. With an Intel Core Ultra 5 225H at their heart, all those colors are all listed at €1,595 ($1,822) at Kubb.eu, but there is no stock. At that kind of price, the Arctic Senza AI 370 we tested earlier in the year looks like it would be a knockout passive computing competitor. We aren’t sure if Arctic would accept the 24 carat gold chassis special order, and the Senza is designed for discrete under-desk-mounted silence.

We previously reported on the fanless Kubb Mini range of 3 x 3 x 3-inch mini PCs which packed Intel Twin Lake chips, came in cute/bright color finishes, and were priced around $500 (€430).

GMKtec already has an AMD Strix Halo mini PC in its stables, in the form of the Evo-X2. Now, just six months later, we have another AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor-packing mini PC from GMKtec in the labs. The obvious difference is that the Evo-X3 has a brand new chassis and cooling design, it also comes with 128GB of LPDDR5X-8000 as standard. Those are welcome changes. Half a year later, though, the price has basically doubled as seemingly every electronics product with RAM and NAND chips inside has been affected by the ongoing component shortage.

The result is a desirable computer that will offer strong appeal to enthusiasts who want machines with a large pool of fast, unified RAM, in a competently revamped case. But you will have to have quite a compelling reason to part with the $3,799.99 our 128GB/2TB configuration costs in mid-2026.

Design of the GMKtec Evo-X3 AI Mini PC

GMKtec has thoroughly revamped its Evo-X family with the new X3. Gone is the short-but-stout design, where we saw a plastic inner case sandwiched by some brushed aluminum. Now GMKtec has gone almost entirely metal, with the exception of a textured and vented soft-touch green plastic cap. This towering new design, which is over 14-inches tall with the base attached, features a metal CNC chassis. That body feels very strong, the panels seem thick, and the base is made from a matching material. Where the mini PC meets the desk, there’s a pair of broad padded rubberized feet that you stick on after unpacking and fixing the metal base on the device.

While still in mini PC territory, the Evo-T3 is pushing it a bit at roughly 2.7 liters. Its flat base is about 4-inches wide, which helps it stay very stable on the desk. There are no side feet, which makes running it on its side inadvisible. Users will also have to hide away the large power brick if they are after the cleanest minimal workspace.

GMKtec Evo-X3 specifications

Ports and Upgradeability

GMKtec keeps the front of its mini PC simple with just three ports and the power button. In the top third of the tower’s facade, there’s a central green power button with a white LED ring lit when it is powered up. The middle third of the front is left plain, but the lower third has one USB 3.2 Gen 1, one USB 2.0, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack. I wish there was a Type-C port on the front, preferably USB4 or better.

Around the back it has a good variety of ports, but I wouldn’t describe them as numerous. You will find a USB‑A 3.2 Gen 2 port, a USB4 Type‑C (PD 3.0 / DP-alt) port, an HDMI 2.1 port, an OCuLink PCIe Gen 4 ×4 port, an RJ‑45 2.5G LAN port, and a DC‑IN barrel jack. Ideally, I’d like to have a full size DP port, as well as a second USB4 port, plus more USB-A ports. If I were to use this as a daily driver I think I’d need to connect a fast USB docking solution for the oodles of peripherals I like to have ready and connected.

Wireless connectivity seems adequate enough, with an M.2 2230 card inside providing Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. I had no problems with either during the test period.

Access to the components inside the GMKtec Evo-X3 is straightforward, but takes time as there are eight Torx-6 screws securing the side panel in place. Once they were all unscrewed I needed to use a guitar pick and a bit of gravity to tilt the heavy panel off. Removing of the panel allowed access to the two M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 slots, one of which was already populated with a Crucial P310 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD fitted with a slim heatsink. In the opposite corner of the chassis I saw an M.2 2230 socketed MediaTek wireless card. There are no other internal user upgrade or repair options as the 128GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM is soldered to the motherboard.

Test System Setup

Productivity Performance on the GMKtec Evo-X3

GMKtec describes the Evo-X3 as a machine that targets AI workloads, but first we ran through our standard mini PC benchmark comparison suite, which targets more general computing usage.

A brief glimpse at the tech specs of the X3 reveals that it has lots of modern fast CPU cores, supported by one of the best iGPUs, and plenty of RAM and storage. It should make light work of our productivity benchmarks, and indeed its 16C/32 core AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 CPU left its mini PC rivals eating dust, most strikingly in multi-threaded tests.

As we expected, the single core tests show the GMKtec Evo-X3 is a competent performer in the context of the competition in our charts. It isn’t the only Zen 5 machine in this race, so it doesn’t get a chance to dazzle yet.

Moving onto the multi-core tests is where the Ryzen AI Max+ 395’s 32 threads show their potential for real-world data crunching performance. For example, in Y-cruncher it completed its Pi compute in around 60 seconds. That’s twice as fast as its nearest competitor in our mini PC charts, the Beelink SER10 Max.

Rendering in Cinebench is also strong. In Cinebench 2026, the X3 scored roughly 7,300 points in multi-core. That’s over 40% faster than its nearest competitor, the Arctic Senza AI 370. Video transcoding performance is also in a new class, with the Evo-X3 crushing the competition, achieving around 24 frames per second.

For some added AI benchmarking stats, we did a few tests in Geekbench AI and LM Studio Bionic to weigh the GMKtec Evo-X3 against the Evo-T2. These are both machines with large unified memory pools by default and which the makers claim to be local LLM champs.

Using Geekbench AI with the ONNX framework and DirectML backend the Evo-X3 achieved a half precision score of ~37,100. On the Evo-T2 using the same options, a score of ~23,060 was achieved.

However, machines like the GMKtec Evo-X3 and T2 might be picked up by consumers to work with local LLMs considerably larger than most consumer GPUs can load. With this in mind, I ran LM Studio Bionic chat sessions powered by the new Qwen3.8 27B Q4_K_M model on both machines. To use this 27 billion parameter model as intended, a machine needs around 20GB of ‘VRAM’ of shared memory to avoid undesirable side effects like out-of-memory errors and slowdowns.

I prompted the same tasks on both machines then analyzed the logs and found prompt processing was pretty similar between the platforms, ranging either side of 200 tok/s. However, the AMD Strix Halo Evo-X3 far outpaced the Panther Lake Evo-T2 by generating responses at up to 28 tok/s, compared with around 8 tok/s at best, respectively. It would be possible to tune these LLM speeds for each machine, but I didn’t tweak settings for the comparison tests. With 128GB of unified memory in the Evo-X3, allowing up to 96GB to be dedicated to the GPU, even larger models can be utilized for the most capable local AI chatbots, agents, generation workloads.

During our demanding tests, the GMKtec Evo-X3 stayed admirably cool and quiet. All our tests were done with the default 85W balanced profile, as the system shipped. Owners can also choose to run this system in Silent Mode (54W) or push it to Performance Mode (peak 140W).

Gaming and Graphics on the GMKtec Evo-X3

The GMKtec Evo-X3 is pretty good at gaming, thanks to its powerful CPU and iGPU with lots of fast memory onboard. Remember, the Ryzen AI Max 395+ has 16 Zen 5 CPU cores with 32 threads, and its Radeon RX 8060S iGPU features 40 CUs and 2,560 shader cores – more CUs than a vanilla PlayStation 5. The capacious LPDDR5X-8000 memory pool has a 256-bit interface.

Before moving onto our standard synthetic and AAA PC gaming tests, I decided to run around in Star Wars Outlaws. I chose the High preset, at 1440p, and kind of enjoyed this game, experiencing a performance level of mostly between 60 and 90 frames per second. The graphics weren't anything special, but I noticed the game was using about 9GB of VRAM which could have meant dips and stutters on systems packing 8GB GPUs and using the same graphics settings. While the CPU usage was mostly under 20%, the iGPU was nearer to 90%.

Next up, our benchmarks include a trio of 3DMark synthetics and two iconic PC gaming standards. In the 3DMark Solar Bay test, which seems most appropriate to the mini PCs we have tested in 2026, the Evo-X3 left the competitors in the dust with over 50,000 points. It was almost twice as fast as the Panther Lake B390 iGPU, and about three times as fast as the Radeon 890M machines that came with fast dual-channel RAM (like the aforementioned Arctic and Beelink mini PCs).

In 3DMark Steel Nomad we got a respectable score of 2,132, and the frame rate reached 21 FPS. It was a similar story in 3DMark Speed Way, where the Evo-X3 managed a score of 2,046. For some context this Speed Way result still lags behind my Asus Zephyrus G16 laptop with RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, which scored up to 2,425.

Moving on to real AAA games, let’s check the data provided by the multi-scene benchmarks built into Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077. The former scales well with processor resources and can still often look and run great on humble iGPUs. As for Cyberpunk 2077, it can really push even the strongest modern GPUs, so here we've used two settings to show how the GMKtec Evo-X3 can perform. I thought both these titles looked better than Star Wars Outlaws, too.

The Shadow of the Tomb Raider High 1080p test resulted in an impeccably smooth 138 FPS on average, with the low of 126 FPS, on the Evo-X3. That’s a great score for a mini PC without a discrete graphics card. I was inspired to re-test at 1440p High, and the X3 still achieved an average 96 FPS / low 86 FPS.

In Cyberpunk 2077 the Evo-X3 managed to achieve 96 FPS using the 1080p High preset, with 1% lows at 78 FPS. This is certainly another candidate for moving up to 1440p and/or higher quality presets. CD Projekt Red also provides lots of upscaling tech (DLSS, FSR, XeSS) settings to adjust in this futuristic RPG, to try and get your sweet spot performance / resolution / quality setting dialed in.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the GMKtec Evo-X3

When I left the GMKtec Evo-X3 to idle, my power meter measured wattages around 16W from the wall for the whole system. When the PC was pushed with simultaneous CPU and GPU benchmarks running, power draw seemed to peak at a little under 150W. GMKtec shipped this device with ‘Balanced Mode’ set in the BIOS, allowing the processor to consume up to 85W. The supplied 230W power brick had plenty in reserve, and it might need it in ‘Performance Mode’ where GMKtec says that the processor alone will demand up to 120W with peak power spikes to 140W.

System tools showed that during light activities like browsing the web, and typing reports like this one, the CPU temperature stuck around 42 degrees Celsius (in a 22 C room). Playing games for 30 or 40 minutes, the reported CPU temperature seemed to stay between 75 C and 82 C most of the time. The peak CPU temperature I saw was 85 C.

GMKtec’s powerful mini PC was a quiet operator at idle and under load. My measurements from about half a foot in front of the device show noise levels under 30 dBA at idle, which is very quiet and under the measurement threshold of my meter. Stressing the system with multiple CPU and GPU loads I managed to get nearly 37 dBA out of the system. This seemed an exceptional result during my testing, as most of the time the max noise level during benchmarks was nearer 33 dBA.

Software and Warranty on the GMKtec Evo-X3

The GMKtec Evo-X3 ships with Windows 11 Pro installed. Unlike its Evo-T2 brother, I found no pre-installed AI apps and tools on the X3. However, I note that the product page mentions GMKtec Claw and Wrangler as features. I installed LM Studio Bionic and Comfy UI for some AI testing, though.

GMKtec sells the Evo-X3 with a one-year warranty.

GMKtec Evo-X3 configurations

GMKtec sells only two Evo-X3 configurations in the U.S. Both machines feature the same processor and generous amounts of RAM. The only configuration choice is between a 2TB SSD (our model) and a 4TB SSD equipped model.

At the time of writing our 2TB configuration is listed at $3,799 but the product page says the price is normally $4,100. The 4TB model is currently $3,999, discounted from $4,349. We don’t know when the prices might get adjusted. Pricing for computers and devices with lots of RAM and storage is volatile right now.

Bottom Line

I was impressed by many aspects of the GMKtec Evo-X3 mini PC. Computing on a machine with so much RAM felt quite liberating. Especially when so much of it can be allocated to the system's iGPU. Moreover, the CPU and iGPU components of the SoC are plenty powerful for the compact form factor. I was also impressed by the X3's sleek design, solid build quality, and quiet operation.

No machine is perfect, though. For example, despite having a variety of ports available including USB4 and OCuLink, I felt there were not enough ports in total. To use this as my daily driver I’d feel pinched by the Evo-X3’s design offering just a single USB4 port, and one HDMI out.

The price is high, even considering the spec, but that's unfortunately common during this component shortage.

GMKtec sells its new Evo-X3 direct at the offer price of $3,799, as mentioned and linked above. At the time of writing we note that our GMKtec Evo-X3 128GB/2TB configuration is also available from Amazon U.S. at the same price, if you prefer.

If you like what you’ve seen of the Evo-X3, the nearest competitors that we have experience of are the Evo-X2, also from GMKtec, and AMD’s first-party, turn-key Strix Halo mini-PC. However, we know there are several next-gen Ryzen AI Max 495+ machines coming to retail soon. Depending on market pricing, configurations, design, and port selections of these refreshed ‘Gorgon Halo’ models, they might be worth waiting for. We saw Minisforum, Lenovo, GMKtec, Chuwi, and AceMagic with AI Max 495+ designs at IFA 2026 earlier this month.

It’s been nearly two years since Apple updated the Mac mini. And for better or worse, things have changed a lot during that time. The last Mac mini with an M4 processor went on sale in early November 2024, with a starting price of $599. The latest Mac mini that we’re testing today starts at $899, which we can directly blame on the rising costs of components due to the voracious demand for everything related to artificial intelligence (AI).

A $300 price hike in less than two years is unprecedented, but it’s a sign of the times, and we have to factor those realities when evaluating any product today. So with that context in mind, we’ll take a look at Apple’s newest Mac mini, which looks very familiar on the outside, but has undergone some internal hardware upgrades, to deliver some significant performance improvements over its predecessor.

Design of the Apple Mac mini (M6)

The Mac mini hasn’t changed on the design front, and that’s mostly a good thing. I’m always impressed with not only the minimalist style of this small form-factor computer, but also its tiny size. It has a 5-inch x 5-inch footprint, while standing just 2 inches tall. My only gripe is the power button, which remains stubbornly on the bottom of the system (back left corner). You’ll need to lift the system any time you want to turn it on (or force it to shut down in the event of a crash), and you’ll need to double-tap the power button when setting up Touch ID with an Apple Magic Keyboard for the first time. However, this is just a minor annoyance, as interacting with the power button on a modern Mac is a rarity.

Despite its trim dimensions, you do get a fairly decent number of ports on the exterior of the Mac mini. However, let’s get this out of the way first: Apple doesn’t give you any USB-A ports on the Mac mini, so keep that in mind before purchasing. So, if you have USB-A devices around, you’ll either need to keep some cheap USB-A to USB-C adapters on hand, or invest in a USB-C or Thunderbolt dock for connecting legacy devices.

Instead, our Mac mini review unit features two USB-C ports (10 Gbps) and a 3.5 mm headphone jack up front, along with three Thunderbolt 4 ports on the rear (M5 Pro systems swap the Thunderbolt 4 ports for Thunderbolt 5). You’ll also find a 2.5 GbE port (up from 1 GbE), an HDMI port, and the power port on the back. We should note that while our review unit was specced with the 2.5 GbE LAN, you can individually option a 10 GbE port for $100 extra. A 10 GbE USB-C adapter would set you back around $100, so Apple’s upgrade is surprisingly reasonably priced, and you don’t lose a port in the process.

When it comes to wireless connectivity, the Mac mini uses Apple’s new in-house N1 wireless chip instead of relying on a third-party design. It provides tri-band Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support, which is an upgrade from the Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 on the previous generation.

One thing to keep in mind with the Mac mini is that what you see is what you get when you purchase one. There are no internal upgrades available for the system once you’ve purchased it, so choose wisely before you click the buy button. Base systems come with an M6 chip (12-core CPU, 12-core GPU), 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. Our review unit features the M6 chip, 24GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. If you want to add storage post-purchase, we’d suggest taking a look at one of the best external SSDs.

Apple Mac mini (M6) Specifications

Productivity Performance on the Apple Mac mini (M6)

Although the Mac mini is available with a more potent M5 Pro processor, our review unit came with the base M6 processor (12 CPU cores, 12 GPU cores). It also incorporates 24GB of LPDDR5X memory and a 512GB SSD.

This is the first system we’ve tested with the new 2-nanometer M6 processor. So, we were eager to see how it would perform against not only the M4 Pro in the previous Mac mini, but also the M5, which can be found in the current-generation MacBook Air and base MacBook Pro.

The M6 chip in the Mac mini had no trouble dispatching the M4, M4 Pro, and M5-equipped systems in the Geekbench synthetic CPU benchmark. In fact, it was 21 percent faster than the last M4 Pro Mac Mini in the single-core test. It also completely obliterated the M4 (10-core CPU, 10-core GPU) version of the Mac mini. The advantage versus the M5 system was lessened, but it was still a clear victory for the M6. The M6 actually slightly trailed the M4 Pro Mac mini (21,045 versus 22,661) in the multi-core test, which wasn’t too surprising given that the 12-core M6 was going up against a 16-core M4 Pro. But it was still a strong showing for the M6, given the architectural improvements that allowed it to get that close.

We had some trouble obtaining consistent performance from our usual 25GB file transfer test, so we fell back to the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test for benchmarking the 512GB SSD. Needless to say, it presented a marked improvement over the preceding M4 Mac mini.

Storage performance was comparable to the M5 MacBook Pro on sequential writes, but slightly behind for sequential reads. It also slightly outperformed the M4 Pro Mac mini in writes, but was over 1,000 MBps ahead in reads. However, the M6 Mac Mini nearly doubled the write performance and more than doubled the read performance of the M4 Mac mini.

The similar multi-core performance in Geekbench was mirrored in our HandBrake test, during which we transcoded a 4K video file to 1080p. The M6 Mac mini completed the task in 2 minutes and 46 seconds, while the M4 Pro version was just one second behind. The M6 Mac mini was nearly 2 minutes faster than its M4 counterpart.

We ran Cinebench 2026 through 10 runs with the Mac mini, keeping track of its scores along the way. The Mac mini started off with a score of 5403, which rose to 5557 for the second run. For the remaining eight runs, the Mac mini was highly consistent, hovering between 5530 and 5554.

The M6 used in the Mac mini isn't yet fully supported by TG Pro, so we could only use the average of the available temperature sensors (power management sensors, power supply, and SSD). At idle, the fan spun at just around 1,000 revolutions per minute (RPM), with an average system temperature of 44 degrees Celsius. However, when running Cinebench 2026, the average system temperature rose to 64 degrees C, while the fan settled at around 2615 RPM.

Gaming and Graphics on the Apple Mac mini (M6)

Gaming shouldn’t be the primary goal with the Mac mini, but it can do some light lifting. I played Cyberpunk 2077 for a bit and benchmarked it. Although I was provided an Apple Studio Display (5K resolution) to test with the Mac mini, I ran benchmarks at 2560 x 1440 and 1920 x 1080, because the native 5K is a bridge too far for this game, given the hardware.

Using the "For this Mac" global setting, the Mac mini achieved 37.33 frames per second (fps) at 1440p and 58.11 fps at 1080p. With frame generation turned on, those numbers jumped to 62.61 fps and 96.24 fps, respectively.

If you don't mind turning the detail settings down a bit, you can achieve playable frame rates with the Mac mini. However, moving the detail slider to Ray Tracing (Medium) dropped frame rates into the 20 fps range even with frame generation turned on at 1440p.

macOS Golden Gate and Apple Intelligence

The Mac mini ships with macOS 27 Golden Gate, which was first made available to the public last week. macOS 27 is not a complete rethink of the desktop operating system formula for Apple, but it does provide a number of quality-of-life improvements for users.

One of the headlining features is new and improved Siri AI. While Siri was one of the first digital assistants to debut on a smartphone, it hasn't exactly been "smart," at least compared to its contemporaries. Siri AI now digs its fingers deeper into the operating system, allowing it to glean contextual data from your photos, mail, messages, and documents. You can access Siri AI from Spotlight (search) or using the dedicated Siri AI app. Siri AI is also vastly more useful, as it will more consistently answer general questions asked, rather than throw up its digital hands and say "Here's what I found on the web."

Apple's Shortcuts app is an incredibly powerful tool that has been available for years across the Mac, iPhone, and iPad product families. However, the granular control and seemingly limitless options can make creating a new shortcut daunting for newbies. So with macOS 27, you can now create a new Shortcut using natural language. For example, you could input, "Create a shortcut that sets the AC to 74 degrees when I leave work, and let my wife know what time I'll arrive at home," and it will take care of the rest.

Liquid Glass was one of the more controversial additions to macOS 26, with some people not liking the translucent makeover. MacOS 27 gives users more control over Liquid Glass, with sliders to adjust the intensity of the transparency effect.

Apple has also introduced plenty of system-level optimizations to improve performance across the board. For example, Apple says that AirDrop is up to 80 percent faster in macOS 27 than macOS 26, and a lot more reliable. Apps also open faster – any lagginess or stuttering that was perceptible in macOS 26 has been eliminated with this newest release. The best comparison I can make for the macOS 26 to macOS 27 upgrade is the fine-tuning that Apple did going from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. There weren’t any major feature additions with that latter release, but there were a plethora of under-the-hood optimizations that made it much faster and more stable.

In addition, macOS 27 doesn’t install the Rosetta x86 translation software by default; you’ll need to download it when you first run a legacy x86 app. However, starting next year with macOS 28, you won’t be able to run apps that aren’t Apple Silicon-native, so Rosetta will be completely off the table.

Apple Mac mini (M6) Configurations and Warranty

The base Mac Mini comes with an M6 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD for $899. Before Apple's June 2026 price increases, the base Mac mini with M4, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD cost $599. After the price increases, that $599 jumped to $799. Now, we're looking at another $100 increase for the base Mac Mini. There’s one standalone upgrade option: $100 extra gets you a 10 GbE port instead of the standard 2.5 GbE.

Apple also allows you to upgrade to 24GB or 32GB of RAM, along with 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB SSD options. A fully-loaded M6 Mac mini with 32GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, and 10 GbE costs $2,399.

For people who require a bit more processing power, perhaps for AI tasks (as Apple seems so inclined to believe), the base M5 Pro Mac Mini (15-core CPU, 16-core GPU), with 24GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, costs $1,699. However, you can go bonkers with the options, topping out with an M5 Pro (18-core CPU, 20-core GPU), 64GB of RAM, an 8TB SSD, and a 10 GbE adapter for a whopping $6,599. At that price, it’s probably worth looking at the Mac Studio.

All Mac minis come with a 1-year manufacturer warranty.

Bottom Line

The base M6 chip provides better single-core performance and nearly matches the multi-core performance of the optional M4 Pro in the previous-generation Mac mini. Compared ot the standard M4 Mac mini, the new M6 version blows it away in CPU and SSD performance.

These are the kinds of generational improvements we’ve come to expect with Apple Silicon, which seems to be firing on all cylinders these days. The new Mac mini also gets other, less-highlighted improvements, like faster standard wired networking (2.5 GbE versus 1 GbE) and Wi-Fi 7/Bluetooth 6.0 instead of Wi-Fi 6E/Bluetooth 5.4.

However, the elephant in the room is pricing for the Mac mini. Earlier this year, you could grab a base Mac mini for $599 – although availability was spotty after Q1, thanks to OpenClaw and anticipated price hikes. More importantly, over the years, going from one Mac mini generation to the next typically yielded performance benefits with no (or minimal) price increase. The AI revolution has rewritten the hardware rulebook, so we’re now faced with a new generation that is $300 more expensive than the previous model ($200 June price increase + another $100 increase for this new generation).

So in a matter of months, what was for years a screaming bargain for anyone looking for a cheap entry point into the Mac desktop ecosystem has gotten a lot more expensive. 16GB of memory and a 256GB hard drive are easier to justify at $599, but it’s a tougher pill to swallow at $899, and especially so with our review unit’s as-tested price of $1,399.

Earlier this year, Apple discontinued the Mac Pro, leaving the Mac Studio as its top-end desktop. With the new M5 Ultra chip, Apple's relatively diminutive system is more than ready to take on the mantle.

While you might not have a ton of PCIe connections and both RAM and storage are set, the Studio offers a ton of ports for accessories, monitors, and peripherals, memory options up to 256GB (with 512GB coming later), and a clean, quiet design.

Starting with an M5 Max at $2,499, the Mac Studio could be poised as a creator system for video editors, photographers, or game designers. At $12,299 as tested with the top-end M5 Ultra, 256GB of unified memory, and 4TB of storage, it effectively becomes an enterprise device, possibly a remote server, that could handle any task with aplomb, including local AI.

Design of the Mac Studio (2026)

Apple hasn't made any changes to the Mac Studio's design. It's a silver, squared-off block that's 7.7 x 7.7 inches on your desk that stands 3.7 inches tall. The aluminum chassis has a shiny Apple logo on the top. The M5 Ultra version we tested weighs 8 pounds, a 2-pound increase over the M5 Max variant. This is largely because the M5 Max version uses a cooler with a thin aluminum stack and a copper heat pipe, while the M5 Ultra uses a heavier copper fin stack and a copper vapor chamber.

The back of the system is also home to the power button, as well as a bunch of air holes for exhausting heat.

The air comes in through more holes in a small stand built into the bottom of the system. (There's also a Kensington lock slot, though its placement on the bottom necessitates a special adapter.)

Mac Studio (2026) Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the Mac Studio (2026)

On the front, there are two Thunderbolt 5 (USB Type-C) ports along with an SDXC card slot. The rest of the ports are on the rear, including another four Thunderbolt 5 ports, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI 2.1, a 10Gb Ethernet jack, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

There is no upgrading the Mac Studio. The RAM is soldered to the board, so be sure to get what you need when you're first buying the system, and Apple doesn't sell replacement SSDs (Some third parties may sell reverse-engineered NAND, but it will certainly void your warranty, and Apple doesn't support it. You're best off using external storage)

M5 Ultra

If you pony up for the most expensive Mac Studio configurations, you'll get Apple's most powerful chip. This is the only machine that Apple currently puts that chip inside.

M5 Ultra is Apple's first quad-die chip, connecting a pair of dual-die M5 Max SOCs over its UltraFusion connection. Apple claims that UltraFusion increases bandwidth between the dies to over 4.4 TB/s. Memory bandwidth is up to 1.2TB/s, which lets users store and run huge LLMs entirely on device.

Each of the 80 GPU cores features a neural accelerator, and there's a 32-core neural engine. There's now a media engine with hardware-enabled H.264, HEVC, hardware-accelerated AV1 decode, and four ProRes encode and decode engines.

Cinebench estimates that the M5 Ultra runs single-core at 4.6 GHz and multi-core at 4.3 GHz.

Productivity Performance on the Mac Studio

The Mac Studio is an absolute workhorse. The system stayed largely quiet (though the fan can make itself known) as it powered through our benchmarks. Anything you might want to do on a Mac, you can do on this one.

In fact, while we ran our basic desktop suite on this, we also ran some extra tests, as we don't test many workstations. Instead of pitting this system against other desktops, we pitted it against other workstations to get a better idea of how the M5 Ultra performs. While that's a bit antithetical to the way Apple designs its products (it doesn't sell chips separately; it designs them as part of its computers), it does give us a reference point to the chips powering the Windows and Linux workstations.

On Geekbench 7, the Mac Studio was the clear winner, with the ARM-based chip leading the pack in the bursty workload with a single-core score of 3,770 and a multi-core score of 52,293, despite having fewer cores than the competitors.

The Mac continued its lead on Handbrake, transcoding a 4K video to 1080p in 1 minute and 4 seconds. The next closest, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9980X, took 8 seconds longer.

On Blender's benchmark testing CPU-based rendering, the Studio with M5 Ultra fell behind the previous- and current-gen Threadrippers (7980X and 9980X, each with 64-cores), as well as the 56-core Intel Xeon w-3495X.

The Mac Studio with M5 Ultra copied 25GB of files at a rate of 2,983.08 MBps, surpassing the speeds of the M3 Ultra and M4 Max from the last generation.

The Mac Studio was consistent over our 10-run Cinebench 2026 stress test. Its lowest score, 17,825, was actually the first run. When the cooling kicked in, the rest of the results were slightly higher. The sixth run was the highest at 18,069, but it was so similar to the other runs that it's within the margin of error.

During the test, the CPU measured an average of 78.29 degrees Celsius.

Local AI on the Mac Studio (2026)

The M5 Ultra's GPU cores feature neural accelerators, granting it some extra matrix math horsepower, and Apple has boosted the chip's memory bandwidth to 1.2 TB/s, double that of the M4 Max we previously tested for AI.

The M5 Ultra's prompt processing speeds are even faster than Nvidia's DGX Spark's, and its tokens-per-second throughput is double that of the M4 Max and almost four times higher than the DGX Spark across the board.

Our tests, here using Qwen 3.8-27B-Q4_K_M, a dense model that relies heavily on memory bandwidth, are largely aimed at GPU performance in isolation. But combined with the blazing-fast single- and multi-threaded performance of the 36-core CPU, the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra looks to be ready for anything one might want to do with local or agentic AI workloads — and that's before someone tries to put it into an MLX cluster.

In addition to its raw performance, our M5 Ultra sample's 256GB of memory means you can fit very large, intelligent single models or a range of different models onto a single node. I spent time running models far larger than our tests with Hermes and LM Studio with strong performance. If you are interested in local AI, this will definitely do the job.

Gaming and Graphics on the Mac Studio (2026)

While the M5 Ultra and its 80-core GPU are more than capable of gaming, the Mac Studio isn't a gaming-first rig. For the price, systems with Nvidia's high-end graphics cards are far more competitive.

To stress the Mac Studio, I booted up InZoi, a life simulator that isn't graphically imposing but is hard on the CPU and memory. I set both the simulation performance and graphics to ultra settings, and set the game to 1080p, but allowed for upscaling with MetalFX's Performance mode, which upscaled from 960 x 540. The game ran between 45 and 65 frames per second, dropping to the lower end in outdoor environments with lots of other characters.

To compare more graphically demanding games, I picked out a few gaming PCs we've tested in the last year and pitted them against each other with the data from the Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark with the Ray Tracing Ultra preset, which we use for those kinds of rigs.

At 1080p, the Mac Studio ran the game at 66 FPS, falling behind systems like the HP Omen Max 45L and Maingear MG-1 with Nvidia's top-end GeForce RTX 5090. It was much more in line with the Acer Nitro 65, with an RTX 5070. At 4K, the Mac Studio didn't reach playable levels, though the RTX 5090 systems both reached 59 FPS.

Using Cyberpunk's "For This Mac" preset set the resolution to 1440p, turned off ray tracing, and mostly stuck to high settings and effects options.

On 3DMark's Steel Nomad graphics test, the Mac Studio still fell far behind the RTX 5090 system, but outperformed the RTX 5070-based Acer desktop.

Software and Warranty on the Mac Studio (2026)

The Mac Studio comes with macOS 27 Golden Gate. This is a great update over macOS 26 Tahoe, refining the Liquid Glass aesthetic and making it more customizable (I actually kind of like it in this iteration), and yes, thank heavens, consistent window shapes. It also adds the new Siri AI (be sure to get on the waitlist). The new Siri is far superior to the one you're used to.

Golden Gate also adds AI throughout apps, including more photo features, including a better Clean up option and spatial reframing, which lets you move a camera after you take a picture (the latter is kind of surreal). Better indexing makes it easier to search messages, emails, and calendar entries, and now you can use natural language to create automations in the Shortcuts app or come up with your own Safari extensions.

There's no bloatware, as usual. Apple's software suite includes Safari, Messages, Photos, Maps, Notes, and Reminders. Its services, including News and Apple TV, also have applications. Pages, Keynote, and Numbers are still in the dock by default, but they're the Creator Studio subscription versions, which require a subscription to get full features, including AI functionality, royalty-free graphics, and additional templates.

People using the Mac Studio as a server running AI models may not need all of those programs. For the first time in a while, I found myself wishing for something akin to macOS Server, but for better remote monitoring. I would also like to see an option for a system of this class to come with pared-down built-in apps, perhaps limiting it to the browser, App Store, Terminal, Activity Monitor, and other essentials and letting system admins decide what else needs or deserves to be there. A video editor might want to use Messages on the side. But you don't need that for a cluster running a huge model.

Apple sells the Mac Studio with a one-year warranty. Further repairs and support can be added as part of AppleCare+ ($6.49 monthly or $64.99 annually), or as part of AppleCare One or AppleCare Family.

Mac Studio (2026) Configurations

Our Mac Studio review configuration is clearly an enterprise machine. With the top-end M5 Ultra (36-core CPU, 80-core GPU), along with 256GB of RAM (currently the top-end option, with a 512GB configuration coming in late October), and a roomy 4TB SSD, it costs $12,299.00, but that's not stopping anyone: As of this writing, it's backordered between 16 and 18 weeks.

But there are a lot of steps below that. The base model is $2,499 with the M5 Max (18-core CPU, 32-core GPU), 36GB of memory, and 512GB of storage. There are two versions of each: the M5 Max and M5 Ultra. Going from a 32-core GPU to a 40-core GPU on the M5 Max costs $300.

The cheapest M5 Ultra system is $5,499 with a 30-core CPU and 64-core GPU, along with 96GB of memory and 1TB of SSD storage. Bumping up to the M5 Ultra we tested increases the price by $1,300. Moving from 96GB of RAM to 256GB adds $4,000. Bumping up from a 1TB SSD to 2TB is $500, while our 4TB SSD is a $1,500 increase.

The M5 Max configurations have slight port differences on the front of the desktop. The USB-C ports on those are 10Gb/s ports, while on the M5 Ultra, you get Thunderbolt 5 for up to 120Gb/s.

Bottom Line

At $12,299, the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra is effectively an enterprise computer, capable of difficult workloads like rendering and running AI models that are as close to frontier-grade as you're going to get right now on edge computing.

Much of that price also comes from RAM and storage. Given the fact that you can't really upgrade this computer, businesses and people using this for their job may see the extra cost as an investment. Really, its biggest weakness is in gaming, for professionals who may want to do that on the side. Discrete GPUs still win there.

Given the fact that an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9980X, a 64-core monster that beats this CPU in Blender, is priced around $5,000 on its own before memory, storage, power supplies, or any other components, it may not actually be that crazy in this market, and the Mac Studio can be had in a much smaller case. (For wealthy homelabbers, businesses, and server farms, third-party accessory makers already make rack mounts to fit the Mac Studio; its shape hasn't changed since its last redesign).

For local AI, the M5 Ultra is seriously impressive, though that may still be a niche use case for some. But in a computer that can reach over $12,000, niche is the name of the game.

This all makes the M5 Ultra version of the Mac Studio an impressive package and further proof of the power and performance Apple can draw out of its own silicon in concert with its own software.