New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro • Hacker News Board

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#131

Post by snazz » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

atonse wrote: post #51

After watching a video about how the filesystems are > 2x faster (and testing this myself in my mac mini vs a linux machine), I feel like Apple is leaving a lot on the table, and I hope that they get APFS to be as fast as the linux filesystems. Because otherwise a lot of this hardware (including their blazing fast SSDs) is wasted. Cuz my M1 mac mini is awesome otherwise.

Is APFS that much slower than ZFS or btrfs (more comparable Linux file systems) or just ext4? Btrfs is noticeably slower than ext4, but at least all the Mac and Linux file systems are way faster than file operations on Windows :)

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#132

Post by a2ff6eeb0 » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 5:03 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #106

a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*gestures at prices*

gestures at supply and demand

Yeah. It's not working to lower prices.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#133

Post by hauju » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

hmm waited for this, but the price... puuh

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#134

Post by DaSHacka » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

o_m wrote: post #129

copperx wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, like a $5 VPS?

A $5 VPS is easy to block. It's way harder to block a stock mac mini from a residential IP address

But why a Mac mini over a $30 raspberry pi on the same residential connection?

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#135

Post by snigacookie » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

Sigh. I had the m4 in my cart yesterday and now it is gone.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#136

Post by Atotalnoob » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #23

jdoe1337halo wrote: post #11

So happy with my base M4 purchase for $499 when it released. I even snagged a 1TB replacement drive for $199 a year ago. Feels like I got the last train out.

I feel that way about my GPU for normal gaming use. Now I’m afraid of it dying on me.

Consider underclocking/undervolt it a little, especially if you aren’t using the GPU to its full potential.

It will last longer and hopefully the GPU prices will recover in a few years.

I hope

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#137

Post by mytec » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

drewg123 wrote: post #130

numbsafari wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… from the fine print: “Results are compared to previous-generation Mac mini systems with Apple M4, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 32GB of unified memory, and 2TB SSD.”

Running what workload? How can I reproduce it?

There is more detail in the footnotes found here: https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#138

Post by tonymet » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

I’m still not convinced by the value of local models. It feels like ray-tracing where we are driving up the compute cost for a high cost and fringe benefit.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#139

Post by toasterlovin » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

PinguTS wrote: post #8

What I am missing in all of those benchmarks, how does the M6 compares to the M5 Pro. I don't care how the M6 compares to the M1, even when the M6 2.3x compared to M1 in Excel spreadsheet. That is no measurement even in accounting. The dead time is not the Excel. I am to only one?

Upgraded my work machine from an M1 MBP to an M4 Mac Mini a couple of years ago. I do a lot of work in Excel with large sheets. The performance improvement was very noticeable and appreciated!

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#140

Post by jorvi » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

timpera wrote: post #49

jdoe1337halo wrote: post #11

So happy with my base M4 purchase for $499 when it released. I even snagged a 1TB replacement drive for $199 a year ago. Feels like I got the last train out.

Same thing for me! Got it with the education discount when it came out in 2024 and, although I've been pretty disappointed with macOS, it's crazy to see that the price increased by $300 in less than 2 years, with no sign of the price increases slowing down. What will happen once people are priced out of buying computers? I find this worrying.

I don't really understand this dooming. All market forecasters, memory bulk purchasers and the memory producers themselves have stated multiple times, unequivocally that the shortage will get worse in 2027 and then as new fabs come online the shortage will taper off as 2028 progresses.

We've been through.. 4? 5? memory boom-bust-boom cycles already. Nothing is pointing to this one being any different, aside it probably becoming the mother of all busts since AI isn't adding much productivity and as businesses realize this, they'll stop paying top dollar for access meaning AI vendors cancel all their reserved fab capacity.

The fabs already exist at that point so it's less of a loss for the memory fabs to crank out memory chips and have the RAM OEMs sell them at bargain bin prices. No pseudo-cartel pricing possible either with CMXT becoming a major player. $50 for 32GB-64GB of DDR5 in 2029 here we come babyy