We may be a couple of weeks out from the launch of the next iPhone 18 Pro, but Apple has seemingly taken everyone by surprise by stealth-dropping the launch of the next Mac mini and Mac Studio. Relegated to a press release, rather than introduced on stage by incoming Apple chief exec John Ternus in his first keynote, the Mac mini is the first of Apple’s PCs to boast Apple’s new M6 chip, which is faster and more powerful than before, boasting a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU for faster performance. Apple has also introduced a new Mac Studio, which comes with either an M5 Max or M5 Ultra chip, with the company claiming up to a 36 per cent faster CPU. The hitch? A hefty price hike. Available to pre-order now, here’s everything to know about the new Mac mini and Mac Studio, plus when you can buy them. Read more: Best laptops, reviewedMac miniIt’s been almost two years since Apple last launched the Mac mini, so it was due an upgrade. It still looks the same design-wise, with its tiny 5in footprint, but there’s now a new M6 chip on the inside. The new M6 chip features a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU. That’s better than the 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU found on the M4 model from a couple of years ago. Apple says the changes should deliver 40 per cent faster CPU performance, with twice the graphics performance, so it should run even snappier than before. There are also new Neural Accelerators in every GPU core, which Apple says delivers up to four times faster AI performance compared with the previous generation. Storage is also up to twice as fast.You can also get the new Mac mini with Apple’s beefier M5 Pro model. It has an 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU. Apple claims it has up to four times faster LLM processing and 1.4 times faster ray-tracing performance than the previous M4 Pro model. In terms of connectivity, it now comes with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 instead of the older Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, and boasts a 2.5GB ethernet as standard. The regular M6 Mac mini starts at £899, which is an eye-watering £300 hike over the £599 starting price of the M4 model. It’s slightly disappointing given the Mac mini M4 was always one of the best budget PCs, but at £899, its successor is now circling that four-digit price tag. The more powerful M5 Pro model starts at £1,699, again £300 more expensive than before. Available to pre-order now, you can buy both models from 22 September.Mac StudioThe Mac Studio is getting even more powerful as well. Retaining the same design as the previous version, the Mac Studio’s M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips have been replaced by the new M5 Max and M5 Ultra.The hefty M5 Max features an 18-core CPU, with its GPU boasting up to 40 cores. Apple says the GPU is up to 50 per cent faster than the previous generation, and LLM processing is up to 3.9 times faster. Text-to-image performance is up to 3.5 times faster than the M4 Max as well.If you need serious grunt work, the Mac Studio also comes with an M5 Ultra chip, boasting a 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU. According to Apple, you’ll get up to 30 per cent faster CPU performance and 80 per cent faster graphics compared to the M3 Ultra. AI performance is also up to 4.3 times faster. You can also configure it with 512GB of unified memory, with 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth.Like the Mac mini, Apple says storage is up to twice as fast, and it comes with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. There are also six Thunderbolt 5 ports, with support for a whopping eight displays. Apple says you can now cluster multiple Mac Studios together for more demanding AI workloads.And again similar to the Mac mini, you’re going to pay significantly more than you would have when the previous generation first launched. The Mac Studio with the M5 Max chip starts from £2,499, which is £400 more than the M4 Max’s original £2,099 launch price. The M5 Ultra starts at a whopping £5,499, which is an insane £1,300 price hike over the M3 Ultra’s original £4,199 price tag. Apple had already hiked both prices earlier this year, however, so compared with what you would have paid last week, the M5 Max costs the same and the M5 Ultra is £200 more expensive. Both are available to pre-order now and go on sale on 22 September. For more, these are the best laptops for students