Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro now comes with the M6 chip, with up to 32GB of memory read at 170GB/s

Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro now comes with the M6 chip, as well as with the M5 Pro or the M5 Max. Apple's MacBook Pro page opens pre-orders for the M6 model at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time on 28 October and lists it as available from 6 November. If you want the machine to run language models on your own desk, two figures on its tech specs page matter more than the chip's name: how much memory you can order, and how fast that memory is read.

What changed

The page puts it as a family: the M6 chip joins the M5 Pro and the M5 Max. The tech specs list the M6 with a 12-core CPU — 2 super cores, 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores — and a 12-core GPU. The GPU carries Neural Accelerators, the chip has a Dual 16-core Neural Engine, and its memory bandwidth is given as up to 170GB/s.

That "up to" depends on the memory you order. The 16GB model reads its memory at 153GB/s; the 24GB and 32GB models read it at 170GB/s. The memory is unified: the CPU and the GPU work from the same pool, so a model loaded on the GPU shares it with macOS and your other apps.

Apple says a Neural Accelerator is built into each GPU core of all three chips , and lists large language model prompt processing among the tasks they speed up. The headline AI figure on the page is up to 13x faster than M1 ; the footnote for the M6 test against an M1 MacBook Pro measures time to first token, with a 16K-token prompt, a 14-billion-parameter model at 4-bit quantization, and LM Studio v0.4.25+1. The page also names Msty Studio and LM Studio as apps for running language models locally.

Above the M6, the 14-inch model keeps its M5 Pro and M5 Max configurations. The M5 Pro has a 15-core CPU and a 16-core GPU, with 307GB/s of memory bandwidth , and can be configured with an 18-core CPU and a 20-core GPU. With the 16-core GPU it takes 24GB or 48GB of memory; with the 20-core GPU, 24GB, 48GB or 64GB. The M5 Max with the 32-core GPU reads its memory at 460GB/s , and with the 40-core GPU at 614GB/s. The first comes with 36GB only; the second with 48GB, 64GB or 128GB.

What it was before

Apple's own test footnotes set the new model against a production 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5, a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU. Neither page lists that model's memory options or bandwidth now, so the comparison here stops at the core counts.

What it means for you

Memory decides which models you can run at all. A model is a file, and it runs only if that file fits in memory with room left for macOS, your apps and the text the model is holding. On the M6 the ceiling is 32GB.

Bandwidth decides how fast a model that fits can write. Every word it produces means reading the model from memory again, so the speed at which the memory is read sets the ceiling on speed. On the M6 that makes the 16GB model the weakest choice twice over: it holds the smallest models and reads them at 153GB/s, where the 24GB and 32GB models read at 170GB/s. If you buy the M6 to run models, order 24GB or 32GB.

Read Apple's AI figure for what it measures. The footnote Apple attaches to its M6-against-M1 test measures time to first token — how long you wait before the answer starts, which is the prompt processing the Neural Accelerators are said to speed up. It says nothing about how fast the answer is written after that, which is the bandwidth's job, and it is measured against M1, not M5. The page gives no figure for the M6 against the M5 model it sits beside, so if you already own that machine, wait for measurements before you trade it in.

If the models you want do not fit in 32GB, the M6 is not your chip. The M5 Pro with the 20-core GPU goes to 64GB , and the M5 Max with the 40-core GPU to 128GB at 614GB/s. The M5 Max with the 32-core GPU comes with 36GB only , a small step up in room for a large step up in bandwidth.

Our guide Mac or PC for Running Models Locally works these two figures, memory and bandwidth, through common models and sets Macs beside graphics cards. Read it before you order, and choose by the largest model you need first, and by speed second.

The source

Apple's pages: MacBook Pro and MacBook Pro — Tech Specs.