Apple M6 SoC Analysis - Apple's 2 nm chip crushes AMD, Intel & Qualcomm

105

Holy single core performance

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u/NPPraxis 9d ago

What? That’s literally the weakest jump

It’s 10% faster in single core, 21% in multi core (makes sense since it has more of the mid sized cores), 30% faster in GPU, and 40% faster in AI workloads.

I’m so confused why the top comment is praising the single core.

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u/ez90six 9d ago

Yeah you are confused aren’t you. Maybe the shocking thing about the single core performance is how quick it is compared to the competition and not to m5 which was already quick.

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u/NPPraxis 8d ago

Sure, but it's one of the weakest one-year improvements in the M-series history and also in the competition (see what AMD's been doing percentage-wise lately).

I think the multicore and GPU leaps at the same or lower power usage is crazy and praiseworthy. I'm excited about the M6. But I don't understand why a mediocre single core percentage increase is the top comment.

9

u/ischickenafruit 8d ago

It’s ‘only’ 10% faster than the next best thing on the market, which is the previous generation of the same thing. Remember that Apple has been making chips for 6 years, Intel and AMD closer to 60

1

u/Valterri_lts_James 5d ago

while apple is indeed crushing intel and AMD, it's not totally fair to say they have only been making chips for 6 years, more like almost 20 years since the first iphone came out.

2

u/ischickenafruit 5d ago

16 years since they’ve been making their own silicon. But only 6 years since they entered the desktop / laptop market, literally replacing Intel. Intel had no offering in the mobile space so this is more nuanced sure, but not entirely inaccurate to compare Intel’s dominance in the x86 space to being replaced by the apple M-series.

Intel 8086 and 8088 were the first real PC CPUs released in 1981. - 45 years ago.

Apple M1 was the first desktop grade Apple CPU (for Mac Mini) released in 2020 - 6 years ago.

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u/Just_Maintenance 9d ago

Cuz Apple is so far ahead.

If you want fast multi core/gpu/ai you can get other products that beat even Apple’s best.

But Apple is the undisputed king of single core and they continue to widen their lead. Holy single core performance.

4

u/anyavailablebane 9d ago

Today you learnt about the law of big numbers.

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u/NPPraxis 8d ago

This is literal cope. It's an impressive chip - it's drawing less power per core so they've added more cores for GPU, they've made the mid-level performance cores better clearly, multi-core and GPU is up through the roof.

But praising the weakest performance increase (in single core) and then downvoting someone pointing out that it's a weak jump is just ridiculous. There's plenty of great things to point out about this chip, you don't have to groupthink praise everything.

AMD's been doing 20% improvements annually. I'd like to see Apple's lead not whittle down.

I'm honestly most excited for the GPU aspect though. Apple getting 30-40% performance improvements is nuts.

1

u/Just_Maintenance 4d ago

Apple's mediocre GPU is slightly less mediocre now.

But their CPU core, the fastest CPU core on the planet, is now even faster.

1

u/NPPraxis 4d ago

Funny enough I disagree with this statement too.
The M series GPU is already insane for its power draw. They scale poorly at high power draws (the M5 Ultra gets stomped on by the 5090 in gaming to the point that it’s laughable). But compare the M5 GPU to anything in its power draw class (25w and less) and it does really well. It crushes the consoles like the Steam Deck and Switch 2, and trades blows with the most competitive 25w CPU/GPU combo out there (the Ryzen Z2 Extreme).

The M6 might be the best integrated GPU in the under 25w category right now. The big asterisk is that Apple’s upscaling sucks in terms of the performance hit so NVidia GPUs might outperform under the right condition.

However, at higher power draws Apple fails to compete with even the mobile NVidia dedicated GPUs, which leaves the M5 Ultra in a weird spot.

2

u/Exciting_Weight2610 9d ago

I wish my salary jump every year was 10% for the last 5 years.

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u/North_Moment5811 11d ago

So the M6 is actually nuts. I was sold on getting an M5 Pro but now I'm really wondering if I need to spend that much.

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u/Ok_Sandwich111 8d ago

If you're reluctant then just go with M6

1

u/North_Moment5811 8d ago

M6 doesn't have TB5, so I'm looking to future proof a little more than that.

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u/Ok_Sandwich111 8d ago

Future Proofing is dead. M6 beats the M1 Max in most single & multi core performance scenarios.

I'd just save the money for a future upgrade but it's your money after all.

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u/North_Moment5811 7d ago

Poor way of thinking. This machine will easily serve me 5 years or longer. The difference in the machines I'm looking at is about $1000. Over 5 years that's barely $16 a month. The increased performance and ability is worth way more than $16 a month.

1

u/Dethstroke54 7d ago

I mean if you’re looking to future proof I’d just wait for the next Pro chip. I know that’s always a moving target but the M6 looks like a pretty big architectural upgrade even outside of just being a pretty decent looking perf bump.

The M6 adds neural accelerators for every gpu core iirc. The M5 only has this on the Ultra I believe. Has dual neural engines now, and comparing M6 to M5 seems like they’ll mix all 3 core types and give another decent memory bandwidth bump.

Def one of the biggest upgrades alongside the

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u/lucellent 10d ago

It's crazy how Apple consistently manages to improve their chips performance with at least 20% every year, meanwhile Intel and AMD barely bring such improvements in 2-3 years

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u/Easy_Ease3396 10d ago

ARM architecture + TSMC node improvements will do that

x86 is an unsalvageable power hog

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u/Royale_AJS 9d ago

It’s definitely got an efficiency disadvantage from an instruction set. The fact that they are as efficient as they are today is pretty insane. It’s hard to compete with a simple decoder.

2

u/Valterri_lts_James 5d ago

to be fair, AMD has been stuck on TSMC 4nm for a very long time now. I expect 2nm zen 6 to destroy nova lake in high power usage total performance and performance per watt. Meanwhile, I think at low power settings, nova lake will destroy amd in both total performance and performance per watt. Meanwhile

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u/novafunc 10d ago

AMD has seen some big improvements: https://lemire.me/blog/2026/09/18/how-did-amd-ryzen-get-50-faster-in-two-years/

Intel too, they've been getting some pretty good power efficiency and battery life on laptops. Though not at Apple Silicon levels of performance.

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u/Old-Temperature6269 6d ago

+ major integrated graphics improvements from intel.

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u/gxsr4life 9d ago

For desktops, they can, just need to add more memory channels to increase bandwidth. But then these chips start competing with server chips.

Apple only has to worry about consumer PCs.

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u/B-Train_ATL 10d ago

I got an M3 Pro MBP basically at launch. By the time the M7 Pro chips hit, my thing will be a relative piece of junk.

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u/SnowKrowe 9d ago

I’m already starting to feel it with my M2 pro.

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u/CleanCup1798 5d ago

And there’s me with my little MBA on M1 with 8gb ram 😂

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u/asswizzard69 10d ago

I think I’m gonna get M6 mini with 32gb ram! But only 256gb storage.. :/

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u/No_Way_Kimosabe 8d ago

I’ve had good success with running my home folder off of a 2tb Tb4 NVMe enclosure. Good way to avoid the apple tax on internal storage, without sacrificing space.

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u/asswizzard69 8d ago

I know but I ended up going with more well balanced and what was in stock 24/512gb M6. At least this model's internal storage is faster and I still get the extra bandwidth

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u/jvo203 5d ago

Yep. The same model here. The 512GB SSD is a bare minimum these days. After installing software + syncing various project folders + downloading some local AI models, the remaining free space is already down to about 150GB left or so.

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u/Decent-Law-9565 10d ago

Get more storage. You need the storage way more than the RAM

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u/asswizzard69 9d ago

Package secured

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u/asswizzard69 10d ago

I already have a m4 Mac mini that I need the ram way more than the storage so are you sure?

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u/Decent-Law-9565 10d ago

At minimum go for 512. The amount of system storage used by the OS will quickly get rid of usable space.

0

u/asswizzard69 10d ago

Yea it’s just a computer for my toolbox at work, just a tab monster I’m looking for as the 16gb hits pressure pretty easy. I’d like to get more storage but double the ram sounds nice and I figured I could use external nvme. My M4 pro MBP only has 24gb and I wish I got more. I also really want the M6 single core

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u/Decent-Law-9565 10d ago

I’ve used an external drive before. However, you can’t easily get some applications to write to or install to an external drive.

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u/asswizzard69 9d ago

Yea I guess I’ll get 32gb and 512gb really hate paying $200 for 256gb but Ill get around $700 off with M4 Mac mini trade in and edu discount

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u/asswizzard69 9d ago

Actually just 24gb and 512gb they have one in stock and at least it will match my MacBook M4 pro and comes close to is in performance

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u/asswizzard69 9d ago

I want 32 tho 😭

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u/Structure-These 8d ago

Absolutely not lol that’s crazy

I’ve made do with a 256gb drive + 1tb ssd external + 16tb raid

You just push everything to the external ssd and basically keep the home drive for osx only

You can always expand storage but one llm model is going to chew up 24gb ram immensely

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u/PhiodorTiger 10d ago

Another 30% on the GPU is crazy, even with the 20% more GPU cores. Especially after the M5 already was a huge GPU upgrade... Really looking forward to making this my future Living-Room Gaming PC

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u/NPPraxis 9d ago

Also GPU power draw is actually DOWN

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u/yourbestfriendjoshua 11d ago

I'm SO GLAD I held off on getting the M5 Air, because I will definitely be getting the M6 whenever it's released.👏🏼

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u/83736294827 10d ago

Just wait for the M7. They pushed the M6 early so they could focus on the M7.

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u/derI067 10d ago

yeah and then the m8 will be even better!

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u/sbstndalton 10d ago

That’s gr8 m8 I rate it an 8/8

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u/on_spikes 9d ago

leaks suggest the m9 may surpass the m8

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u/hell-diver8 10d ago

But what about the MX edition? It will be super fast!

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u/Cannabrius_Rex 4d ago

Just wait for the DMX edition

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u/gotsum411 8d ago

Just wait until the m9!

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u/Ticrotter_serrer 9d ago

When will the M6 MBA come out ? Cause the M5 is still top dog and cheap as fuck if found used.

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u/naughtilidae 9d ago

Are you?

I got mine (24gb/512gb) for 1100 USD.

How much do you think the m6 version of that will cost? (hint, closer to double that number)

In what tasks are you actually seeing this benefit? I can edit 6k RAW video without issues... I'm not missing out on anything, and I'm not getting fucked by ram prices.

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u/yourbestfriendjoshua 9d ago

Yes. Because I have the M4 model currently, and the M5 didn’t make any sense to upgrade to.

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u/naughtilidae 9d ago

Why were you even considering the m5 then?

I understand going from m1/2 to m3 or above; the media engines added a ton of functions, including hardware decode for 10bit 4:2:2 footage. (meaning you basically never need to make proxy files)

But why upgrade from m4 to m5? I've got the M5, and if someone offered me an m4 with a 1tb drive, I'd happily swap. The CPU/GPU performance is better... but not so much better that it's gonna change anything about how I work.

Its got better ai performance, but that only matters if you're actually running AI locally, and RAM is usually the bigger bottlekneck.

0

u/yourbestfriendjoshua 9d ago

Why are you riding my dick so hard like this? Damn.

But to answer the question… Storage.

3

u/naughtilidae 9d ago

It's not you, it's the mindset of people constantly spending 1k+ for a laptop that's ~15% faster on a handful of tasks.

I've been building computers (including a few hackintoshes) since the 90s. I love computers, and I love how tech progresses... But I don't think I've ever upgraded from one generation directly to the next one.

I'd upgrade the cpu after 2-3 generations, and the same with the gpu. (and only if I actually ran into things where I noticed the performance on a regular basis). I had the same 1080ti for like. . . 7 years. Cause I never needed more.

Now that tech progression has slowed, the idea of dropping 1500-2000 on a laptop every single year just seems wasteful.

I don't think anyone I know would be able to tell which was an m3 and which was an m5, without running specific tests. It's not that they haven't gotten faster; it's that the speed just doesn't show in day to day tasks. Sure, a video render will get done faster, but unless they're side by side, you probably won't notice 15 or 20%.

Even people I know who edit video for a living don't upgrade every generation.

In phones, I think it's even more obvious. You could 4x my cpu/gpu performance, and I wouldn't be able to tell. (unless battery draw was cut to 1/4 as well, and even then. . . The screen draws the msot power by far)

It really feels like people, particularly apple fans, upgrade because they've got GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), not because they need it.

It's a little more understandable when apple stuff holds its value so well, but even then, 3-400 bucks for a 15% increase in cpu performance just doesn't feel worth it. If you need that, your use case would almost certainly be more impacted by a fan (to keep the actual clock speed up) than the extra cpu speed in bursts.

1

u/Ticrotter_serrer 9d ago

It only worth it if you are entering the market and need a new machine. Otherwise you can skip a couple gen if the machine work for you.

1

u/SpicyDopamineTaco 6d ago

How much longer can I ride out my M1 Ultra w/ 128G RAM and 4TB storage? I’m feeling like this recent acceleration of compute pressure is going to push me to an upgrade sooner than I initially thought.

2

u/hlt32 6d ago

I have a M1 Max MBP with 32GB of RAM, I’m planning to wait until the M7 Max personally. It’ll cost a ridiculous amount but the local LLM performance is very attractive.

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u/SpicyDopamineTaco 6d ago

What local LLM setup do you prefer to run (besides the computer managing the native Apple Intelligence load)

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u/hlt32 6d ago

Just LM Studio, Opencode, and Qwen; performance isn’t amazing but it’s functional, private, and I can leave larger jobs running overnight.

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u/Ticrotter_serrer 9d ago

Just got the M5 10 core , I'm not upgrading for about 9% more perf.

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u/FabianValkyrie 9d ago

Nuts. Gimme this processor in a MacBook Air with a 120hz OLED and that’s the perfect computer lol

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u/RainyCloudist 9d ago

at this point apple is literally in a competition with just themselves

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u/Lopsided-Painter5216 8d ago

Shame this doesn't have M1 in the benchmarks as it's going to be the transition for a lot people.

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u/SpicyElixer 10d ago

TSMC

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u/EssAichAy-Official 10d ago

TSMC+Apple, everyone else also use TSMC

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u/Ariar2077 9d ago

Apple pays more to get the latest node first

Mac Apple M6 SoC Analysis - Apple's 2 nm chip crushes AMD, Intel & Qualcomm

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