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I never felt like the M4 Pro Mac mini was a great buy at $1,399. Now the M6 Mac mini starts at $899, and in my tests it beat the M4 Pro at everyday work, 4K video and a lot of the AI features built into apps. The biggest gap was AI Denoise in Lightroom: 50 RAW photos took 4:07 on the M6 and 8 minutes on the M4 Pro.
The M4 Pro still wins a few things, like multicam editing, big Logic sessions, local AI and Thunderbolt 5. I ran both through Final Cut Pro, Lightroom Classic, Logic Pro, Xcode, local AI, Blender and the usual benchmarks, so by the end you’ll know which one fits the way you work, and whether a used M4 Pro is worth it over a new M6.
For most people, the M6 is as fast or faster and costs less new. Get an M4 Pro only if you edit a lot of multicam, run big Logic sessions or larger local AI models, or need Thunderbolt 5. If you already have an M4 Pro, keep it.
- AI Denoise on 50 RAW photos in 4:07 vs 8:00
- Magnetic Mask in 17 seconds vs 28.9
- About 27% faster single-core in Cinebench 2026
- Starts at $899, with Wi-Fi 7 and 2.5Gb Ethernet standard
- Played 12 6K clips at once vs 5 on the M6
- Local AI wrote 84 tokens a second vs 54
- Logic handled 269 tracks vs 196
- Thunderbolt 5, and up to 64GB of memory
Specs and price
A huge shout out to B&H for loaning me this M4 Pro so I could compare it to the M6. The M6 Mac mini starts at $899, but I got the version with a 512GB SSD and kept it at 16GB of memory, which is $1,099. That’s the real starting price to me. The M4 Pro I tested is the base chip with a 12-core CPU and a 16-core GPU, 24GB of memory and a 1TB SSD. It launched at $1,399, and right now you’ll usually find them for about $1,100 to $1,300 used or open box.
| M6 Mac mini | M4 Pro Mac mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $899 to start, $1,099 as tested | $1,399 at launch, about $1,100 to $1,300 used |
| As tested | 16GB, 512GB | 24GB, 1TB |
| Memory options | 16, 24 or 32GB | 24, 48 or 64GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 153GB/s (170GB/s with 24GB) | 273GB/s |
| Thunderbolt | 3 Thunderbolt 4, up to 40Gb/s | 3 Thunderbolt 5, up to 120Gb/s |
| Ethernet | 2.5Gb standard (10Gb is $100) | Gigabit standard (10Gb is $100) |
| Wireless | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 | Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 |
| External displays | Up to 3 | Up to 3 |
The M6 is the newer chip, and its two super cores for single-threaded work help it pull away in a lot of these tests. The M4 Pro still has more memory bandwidth, which is how fast the chip can move data in and out of memory, and that shows up in a few results below.
If you’re stuck between these two, I offer free personalized Mac buying advice. Tell me how you use your Mac and I’ll tell you which one I’d buy.
Ports and Thunderbolt 5
The ports are the main hardware difference. Up front they’re the same: two USB-C ports at 10Gb/s and a headphone jack. On the back, both have three Thunderbolt ports, HDMI and Ethernet, but the M4 Pro’s are Thunderbolt 5 and the M6’s are Thunderbolt 4.
For most people, Thunderbolt 5 doesn’t matter. A good Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 SSD runs at about 3,000 to 3,500MB/s, which is plenty to edit 4K and 6K video straight off the drive, even multicam. Where Thunderbolt 5 shows up is moving big files. Copying 500GB took 1:41 to my Thunderbolt 5 drive and 2:49 to the 40Gb drive. It also helps with docks, since one cable has enough bandwidth to run high resolution displays and a fast drive at the same time. Thunderbolt 5 drives still work on the M6, just at Thunderbolt 4 speeds.
Networking is where the M6 improved. It comes with 2.5Gb Ethernet standard, and the base M4 Pro has gigabit. Both can go to 10Gb as a $100 upgrade. The M6 also gets Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, up from Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, and both run up to three external displays.
Everyday use
Browsing the web, word processing and other everyday tasks felt identical on these. I couldn’t tell which chip I was on without looking. The differences only showed up in the heavier tests.
Real-world tests
Every chart below pulls straight from my Mac test results, the same sheet I use for every Mac I test.
Final Cut Pro
Magnetic Mask uses AI to cut a person out of a clip. On my 18-second clip, the M6 took 17 seconds and the M4 Pro took 28.9.
Next I stacked 6K clips on a timeline to see how many each Mac could play at the same time, which matters if you edit multicam. The M4 Pro played 12 before it started dropping frames. The M6 played 5.
Exports went to the M6. My 3-minute 4K video took 1:08 on the M6 and 1:34 on the M4 Pro. The 30-minute video took 11:37 on the M6 and 14:45 on the M4 Pro. Unless you’re doing a ton of multicam, the M6 is already the better video editing Mac.
Lightroom Classic
These are all RAW photos from my Sony a7 IV, which are 33 megapixels. Initial previews are what Lightroom builds when you import, and 500 photos took 15.5 seconds on the M6 and 19.5 on the M4 Pro.
I exported batches of 50, 200 and 500 photos as full-quality JPEGs, and the M4 Pro was faster at every size. 500 photos took 1:22 on the M4 Pro and 1:50 on the M6. It’s probably the extra memory, since some Adobe tasks like having more RAM.
AI Denoise is where the M6 pulled away. One photo took 5.5 seconds on the M6 and 11.9 on the M4 Pro. On 50 photos it was 4:07 vs 8:00, less than half the time. That’s the Neural Accelerators in the M6’s GPU at work.
Logic Pro
A bounce is when Logic takes every track in your project and exports it down into one audio file. On a big 512-track project, the M4 Pro finished in 1:55 and the M6 took 2:30. I also loaded as many tracks as I could play back at once. The M4 Pro handled 269 and the M6 handled 196, which is still a lot.
I’ve been asked whether the new super cores help in Logic. They make the M6 faster on single-core, but for big sessions the M4 Pro’s extra performance cores and memory bandwidth still win.
Xcode
I built the same Xcode benchmark project three times on each Mac. They were basically a tie, averaging about 126 seconds on the M6 and 127 on the M4 Pro. If you’re a developer, either one works.
Local AI
LM Studio runs AI models right on your Mac with nothing going to the cloud. I ran Google’s Gemma 3 4B on both and asked it to write 50 paragraphs about the Roman Empire. Tokens per second is how fast it writes once it gets going, and the M4 Pro wrote at 84 tokens a second to the M6’s 54. That follows the memory bandwidth almost exactly. Time to first token, how long you wait before it starts answering, was close: 0.21 seconds on the M4 Pro and 0.39 on the M6.
Image generation went to the M6. In Diffusion Bee, a cat working on a laptop with nachos on the side took 9.9 seconds on the M6 and 12.4 on the M4 Pro.
Benchmarks
Blender
Blender is an app where you render 3D scenes, and it’s a great test of both the CPU and the GPU. I’m using the third run of each scene. On the CPU, the Classroom scene was close: 4:15 on the M4 Pro and 4:19 on the M6. On the GPU, the M6 was faster on the heavier Barbershop scene, 2:15 vs 2:45, and on Classroom, 25.8 seconds vs 30.6.
CPU and GPU
Single-core is how fast one CPU core finishes a task, and it’s most of what you feel day to day. Multi-core uses every core at the same time, which matters for rendering and exporting.
In Cinebench 2026, the M6 was about 27% faster on single-core, 811 vs 639, and the multi-core scores were close, 5,209 on the M6 and 4,922 on the M4 Pro. Geekbench 7 also gave the M6 the single-core win, 4,001 vs 3,449, while the M4 Pro edged ahead on multi-core, 22,834 vs 21,297. On graphics, the M4 Pro scored higher in Geekbench 7 Metal, 102,300 vs 84,110, and Cinebench 2026 GPU, 29,294 vs 26,894.
Geekbench AI
Geekbench AI runs AI tasks on the CPU, the GPU and the Neural Engine. I’m looking at the quantized scores, since that’s closer to what apps use. The M6’s GPU scored more than twice the M4 Pro, 34,901 vs 15,571, and that’s why most of the AI tests above were so lopsided. Its Neural Engine was about 46% higher too, 85,244 vs 58,295.
Storage
I used AJA System Test with the 16GB file at 4K. They were basically even.
| AJA System Test | M6 Mac mini (512GB) | M4 Pro Mac mini (1TB) |
|---|---|---|
| Write | 6,360MB/s | 6,019MB/s |
| Read | 5,546MB/s | 5,612MB/s |
This is a table instead of a chart because the live charts use my Blackmagic Disk Speed Test results, and the video used AJA. Keep in mind these are different SSD sizes too.
Should you buy a used M4 Pro?
The M6 is the cheaper computer and it won most of my tests, so a discounted M4 Pro only makes sense for a few people. I’d buy the M4 Pro today if you edit multicam, run big Logic sessions, run larger local AI models that need the extra memory, or move huge files to external drives all day and need Thunderbolt 5. For everything else, the M6 is as fast or faster, and it costs less new.
If you already have an M4 Pro, I wouldn’t move to an M6. You’d lose multicam, Logic and local AI performance, plus Thunderbolt 5.
| Buy the M6 Mac mini if | Buy the M4 Pro Mac mini if |
|---|---|
| You want the best value for everyday work | You edit a lot of multicam |
| You edit photos or 4K video | You run big Logic sessions |
| You use AI features in your apps, like AI Denoise | You run larger local AI models that need more memory |
| You want Wi-Fi 7 and 2.5Gb Ethernet standard | You move huge files to external drives all day |
Is 16GB enough?
For everyday work, photo editing and 4K video, 16GB is totally fine. The 16GB M6 beat the 24GB M4 Pro in a lot of these tests. If you’re buying it to run local AI models, memory becomes your ceiling, because the model has to fit in your RAM. The M6 tops out at 32GB, and going to 24GB bumps the price to about $1,300.
If you’re choosing between 24GB with 256GB of storage or 16GB with 512GB, I’d get the 16GB with 512GB. 256GB isn’t enough in 2026, and the 256GB model is slower than the 512GB. If I were buying one to use every day, I’d probably get 24GB with the 512GB SSD so it lasts a long time. I go deeper on this in 256GB or 512GB and how much RAM your Mac needs.
The bottom line
The M6 is better than the M4 Pro at most things, and it’s $500 less than the M4 Pro launched at. That makes the M4 Pro harder than ever to recommend. Buy the M6 for everyday work, photo editing, 4K video and AI features in apps. Buy the M4 Pro only for multicam, large Logic sessions, bigger local AI models or a lot of fast external storage. Thanks again to B&H for loaning me the M4 Pro.
Every result I’ve tested is on my Mac test results page, and if you still need help picking, tell me what you do and I’ll help you choose.
Still deciding? If you’re looking at a bigger jump, I tested the M6 Mac mini vs the M5 Pro Mac mini. And if you have an M4 Pro now, here’s how it compares to the M5 Pro Mac mini.
