M5 vs. M6 Chip Buyer's Guide: How Much Better Really Is M6?

Apple's upcoming M6 chip, expected in 2026, will be built on TSMC's first-generation 2nm process with gate-all-around nanosheet transistors, featuring a 12-core CPU with 2 super cores, a dual 16-core Neural Engine, and 170 GB/s unified memory bandwidth, compared to the M5's 3nm process, 10-core CPU, single 16-core Neural Engine, and 153 GB/s bandwidth, according to MacRumors' buyer's guide.

Apple M5 Chip 2025 | Apple M6 Chip 2026 | Made with TSMC's third-generation 3nm https://www.macrumors.com/guide/3nm/ process N3P | Made with TSMC's first-generation 2nm process N2 | FinFET transistors | Gate-all-around nanosheet transistors | 10-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores | 12-core CPU with 2 super cores, 4 performance cores, and 6 efficiency cores | | Super cores dedicated to single-threaded workloads | 16-core Neural Engine | Dual 16-core Neural Engine that system frameworks can run simultaneously | 10-core GPU with a Neural Accelerator in every core | 12-core GPU with a Neural Accelerator in every core | Enhanced shader cores | Updated shader core architecture | Second-generation dynamic caching | Third-generation dynamic caching | 153 GB/s unified memory bandwidth | 170 GB/s unified memory bandwidth |