M6 MacBook Pro Price Hike vs iMac Free Upgrade: Which Apple Silicon Mac Should You Buy?

M6 Chip: What's New

The M6 chip, first introduced in the Mac mini in August 2026, now powers the 14-inch MacBook Pro and 24-inch iMac. Key specifications:

12-core CPU + 12-core GPU : two more cores each versus M5; each GPU core includes a neural-network accelerator.

Dual 16-core Neural Engine : Apple claims up to 25% faster on-device AI tasks versus M5, with Neural Engine peak performance up to 1.9x .

Memory bandwidth 170 GB/s : up from 153 GB/s on M5 (~11% increase).

Third-gen ray-tracing engine + Dynamic Caching : Blender ray-tracing renders up to 1.3x faster than M5.

Wi-Fi 7 + Bluetooth 6 : wireless specs now match the Android flagship tier.

Official application benchmarks (all "peak" figures): Blender ray-tracing up to 1.3x, Affinity photo processing up to 1.2x, Xcode project builds up to 1.3x versus M5 models. Compared to the 2020 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro, large-language-model first-token generation speed is up to 13x faster — the Neural Engine is explicitly designed for such on-device AI workloads.

M5 vs M6 MacBook Pro comparison (source: Apple Club; individual parameters per official site)

MacBook Pro: M6 vs M5 Differences

The 14-inch MacBook Pro receives only a chip swap; chassis, display, ports, and webcam remain unchanged. The upgrades concentrate on GPU, on-device AI, and wireless connectivity .

Pricing comparison:

M6 model: China ¥15,999 starting (US $1,999, a 25% increase over the previous $1,599).

M5 Pro model: still listed at ¥19,999.

M5 Max model: ¥33,999.

Notably, Apple did not officially clear out M5 stock; it simply removed the M5 base model from the lineup. The ¥3,000 gap has no official lower-priced alternative — buyers must either pay the premium for M6 or hunt for discounted M5 units through third-party channels.

Author's take: The M6's on-paper gains justify the ¥3,000 premium only for users with genuine AI and graphics workloads . Everyday CPU performance feels nearly identical (both use 12-core designs where efficiency-core scheduling dominates daily loads); the real separation appears in local LLM inference and GPU rendering.

iMac M6: The "Real Upgrade"

The previous M4 iMac started at ¥10,999 (8-core) and ¥12,499 (10-core). The M6 iMac offers only two configurations:

10-core CPU + 10-core GPU, dual Thunderbolt ports : ¥12,499 (education ¥12,099).

12-core CPU + 12-core GPU, four Thunderbolt 4 ports : ¥13,999 (education ¥13,199).

The entry-level 8-core version has been eliminated. For the same ¥12,499 you now get the former high-end 10-core configuration plus a bundle of upgrades.

24-inch iMac: M4 vs M6 comparison

Official benchmarks (peak figures): LM Studio local LLM prompt processing up to 5x faster than M4 (12x vs M1); graphics performance up to 2x ; SSD read/write up to 2x ; Excel up to 1.5x .

Bottom line: The iMac M6 is a rare "same-price major upgrade" from Apple in recent years. If you are still on an Intel iMac, Apple claims overall performance up to 18x higher — a compelling replacement case.

Local LLM Perspective: Is M6 Enough?

Estimated on-device LLM performance (bandwidth-based calculations, not hands-on tests):

32 GB memory ceiling is the first bottleneck for local models. A 27B 4-bit quantized model (~17 GB weights) fits but leaves little headroom.

170 GB/s bandwidth governs decode speed: 27B 4-bit ~ 7–9 tokens/s (M6 Mac mini real-world tests show 8.3–9.8 tok/s); 14B 4-bit ~ 11–14 tokens/s — usable but not fast.

Versus M5 (153 GB/s), the same model sees ~ 11% higher decode throughput — a marginal "nice-to-have" improvement.

The advertised 5x/13x AI speedups refer primarily to prompt processing (first-token latency) ; long-context responsiveness improves noticeably, but sustained generation remains bandwidth-bound.

Conclusion: For serious local LLM work, neither new model is the answer — the 14-inch MacBook Pro M5 Pro with 64 GB (¥19,999+) or higher-tier configurations are the practical path. The base M6 suits only casual experimentation with models ≤14B.

Buying Recommendations: Five User Profiles

Five user-category buying recommendations

iMac M6 delivers the stronger value proposition — same price, substantial upgrades; home, office, and light creative users should buy the 10-core ¥12,499 model without hesitation.

MacBook Pro M6 carries a ¥3,000 premium — AI/graphics professionals buy directly; budget-conscious buyers should wait for third-party M5 clearance deals (potentially saving hundreds to over a thousand yuan within a month or two).

Pre-orders open 29 Oct 01:10 CST, launch 6 Nov — if not urgent, wait for independent first-party reviews , especially local LLM throughput and gaming frame-rate tests, before committing.

References: Apple press releases (2026-10-27/28), Apple China online store, iClarified, Tencent News, NetEase Digital, Pacific Computer Network. All official performance figures are Apple lab "peak" numbers; real-world experience should be judged by independent testing.