Tech brief

Should You Upgrade to the M6 MacBook Pro? Who Should Buy, Who Should Wait

By , Tech Cheat Codes Team

Published 6 min read

Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6, open, showing its Liquid Retina XDR display
Image: Apple
On this page · 8 sections
  1. What this means for you
  2. What actually changed
  3. If you have an M1 or an Intel Mac
  4. If you have an M2, M3 or M4
  5. If you have last year's M5
  6. If you need more power
  7. How to pay less
  8. References

Your MacBook Pro still works. It's just slower than it used to be, the battery gives out before the afternoon does, and Apple put a new one on sale this week. So, should you upgrade?

It depends almost entirely on what you have now. Apple's new 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M6 chip starts at $1,999 (price as of ; official source), the same as the M5 model it replaces, and it looks the same on the outside. Pre-orders open today, Wednesday, October 28, at 1:10 p.m. ET, and the first ones arrive Friday, November 6. Our M6 iMac and MacBook Pro news story has every price and date.

Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6, open, showing its Liquid Retina XDR display

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 keeps the same screen and body as last year's model. Image: Apple

What this means for you

  • On an Intel Mac or an M1 MacBook Pro: buy. The jump in speed and battery life is big.
  • On an M2, M3 or M4: worth it if your laptop is holding you back, otherwise there's no rush.
  • On last year's M5: skip it. The changes are small.
  • Not sure what you have? Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner and choose About This Mac. The chip is listed there.
  • Thinking of ordering today? Wait until after Apple's 1 p.m. ET "Pro and tell" launch. Pre-orders open ten minutes later, so you lose nothing by watching first. Our live coverage is updating through the day.

A photo being edited in Pixelmator Pro on the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6

Photo editing in Pixelmator Pro on the new MacBook Pro. Image: Apple

What actually changed

Not much on the outside. Same 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR screen, same ports (three Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, an SD card slot, MagSafe 3 and a headphone jack), same space black and silver.

The change is inside. The M6 chip has a 12-core processor and a 12-core graphics chip, two more of each than the M5. Apple puts the graphics gain at up to 30 percent and AI work at up to 25 percent faster than M5. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 are new too. Memory starts at 16GB and goes up to 32GB, and storage starts at 1TB.

Here is how it lines up with the two models people are most likely upgrading from. The speed figures are Apple's own best-case lab numbers, so treat them as a ceiling, not a promise.

14-inch MacBook Pro, M6 (new) 14-inch MacBook Pro, M5 (last year) 13-inch MacBook Pro, M1
Starting price $1,999 $1,999 (since June) —
Processor cores 12 10 —
Graphics cores 12 10 —
Graphics speed Baseline M6 up to 30% faster M6 up to 11x faster
Code builds in Xcode Baseline M6 up to 1.3x faster M6 up to 2.5x faster
Battery (video streaming) Up to 24 hours Up to 24 hours Up to 4 hours less than M6
Thunderbolt ports 3 3 One fewer than M6

If you have an M1 or an Intel Mac

This is the group Apple built the pitch around, and the numbers back it up. Coming from a 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro, Apple rates the M6 at up to 11 times faster graphics and up to 2.5 times faster code builds. You also get up to four more hours of battery, 16GB of memory as the starting point and an extra Thunderbolt port.

Intel owners get the biggest jump. Battery life improves by up to 14 hours over an Intel-based Mac, and an Intel laptop is old enough now that the new one should feel like a different computer.

Code compiling in Xcode on the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6

Developers get faster code builds in Xcode, up to 2.5 times faster than an M1 MacBook Pro by Apple's numbers. Image: Apple

If you have an M2, M3 or M4

Here it comes down to how you use the laptop. If you edit video, work with big photo libraries or run AI tools on the machine itself, the extra cores will save you real time. If you mostly browse, write and sit on video calls, the Mac you have is still fast, and $1,999 buys you very little you'll notice day to day. Our read: keep it another year unless the battery is shot or you're out of storage.

If you have last year's M5

Skip this one. The body, screen, ports and battery rating are the same. The gains are real but modest, up to 1.3 times faster in Apple's Xcode, Blender and AI tests. That's not worth selling a laptop you bought a year ago.

If you need more power

The M6 model is the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro. Apple's store still lists 14-inch and 16-inch models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, which have more processor and graphics cores. If you do heavy video work every day, look at those before you settle on the M6.

An Adobe After Effects project on the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6

An After Effects project on the M6 model. Daily heavy video work may call for an M5 Pro or M5 Max model instead. Image: Apple

How to pay less

Students and teachers pay $1,899 (price as of ; official source) with education pricing. You can trade in your current computer at apple.com/shop/trade-in, and the credit comes off the price. In the U.S., Apple also leases it through Apple Upgrade from $38.99 (price as of ; official source) a month for 36 months, before tax and any trade-in credit.

If you order a custom build with more memory or storage, check the delivery date at the end of checkout. Custom builds can arrive after November 6.

Before you trade in or sell your old Mac, back it up with Time Machine. Then go to System Settings > General > Transfer or Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. That signs you out of iCloud, turns off Find My and wipes the Mac for the next owner. It works on Apple silicon Macs and on Intel Macs with Apple's T2 security chip running macOS Monterey or later. Older Intel Macs need the longer steps on Apple's support page linked below.

References