First M6 benchmarks reveal how much raw power the Mac mini has - appleinsider.com
It's also 69% better than the M2 Mac mini. At 22,783, the M6 Mac mini is 48% better at multi-core tasks than the M4 Mac mini. Compared against the M2 Mac mini, the M6 is 132% better.
Tue Sep 15 2026, 01:45 PM EDT · 1 minute read
The first benchmarks for the M6 Mac mini have emerged. While Moore's Law is in fact dead, the Mac mini is still getting a massive and noticeable boost in processing performance.
Ahead of the release of Apple's product launches to consumers, benchmarks for the models frequently surface, hinting at what's on the way. That has seemingly happened for the M6 Mac mini, which Apple introduced at the end of August.
The Geekbench 7 listing for a "Mac18,5" posted on September 15 mentions it is a Mac with an M6 chip, complete with 12 cores. The listing adds that it has a base frequency of 4.78GHz, up from the 4.4Ghz M4 Mac mini and the 3.2GHz M1 Mac mini.
At the time of reporting, there is only one listing appearing for a "Mac18,5" for Geekbench 7's CPU benchmarks, with none for GPU or AI testing so far.
While we would prefer to see multiple benchmarks that can back up these figures, they do seem plausible enough to be real. As consumers get their hardware, expect more results to come out and to solidify just how much better the M6 is over its predecessors.
Single-core scores under Geekbench 7
On the single-core test, the M6 Mac mini is shown to have achieved a score of 4,071. By comparison to the previous base Mac mini model, the M4, that works out to be a 24% improvement.
It's also 69% better than the M2 Mac mini. The 89% improvement almost doubles the score of the M1 Mac mini.
Multi-core scores under Geekbench 7
The change is more startling on the multi-core side of things. At 22,783, the M6 Mac mini is 48% better at multi-core tasks than the M4 Mac mini.
Compared against the M2 Mac mini, the M6 is 132% better. That extends to 165% when the M1 Mac mini is taken into consideration.
It's said that consumers will only really notice a difference in processing performance if it is about 15% better or worse. If these figures are correct, the first buyers to receive their new Mac mini will definitely be able to feel the difference.
Based in South Wales, Malcolm Owen has written about tech since 2012, previously for Electronista and MacNN. His interests include photography, magic tricks, game development, and annoying his cats.
Damn. Apple continues to impress with Apple silicon.
I remember it was years ago that the major Apple news was about a brain drain at their chip division and to expect Apple to lose its leadership position.
I wonder how the M6 mini compares to the M1 MacBook Pro Max 😂
https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/comment/3509303#Comment_3509303
Wasn't that long ago. Gurman keeps beating this drum.
https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/comment/3509304#Comment_3509304
M1 Max MacBook Pro is 2214 single core, 14000 or so multi. M6 is about twice as fast as M1 Max in single core, about 50% faster in multi.