SlashGear Picks 5 Cheaper Mini PCs Than Apple’s $899 M6 Mac Mini

Q: With AI performance quadrupled, does the M6 Mac mini truly justify its massive price hike over the heavily discounted M4?

For most buyers, no—the M6 Mac mini’s AI gains do not by themselves justify the price jump over a discounted M4. The M6 is clearly the faster machine. Apple’s upgrades are substantial on paper and in testing: a 12-core CPU and GPU, dual 16-core Neural Engine setup, higher memory bandwidth up to 170GB/s, and much stronger local AI performance. In direct llama.cpp tests, prompt processing on a 9B model rose from 210 tokens per second on the M4 to 742 on the M6, while time to first token fell from 2.5 seconds to 721 milliseconds. Image generation also improved sharply, with one Flux.1 Schnell run dropping from 94 seconds to 35. But the value case is weaker. The M6 starts at $899, while the M4 has recently sold for $649. That makes the real-world gap about $250, not just the nominal $100 between list prices. For everyday computing—web work, office tasks, coding, media, and even light AI—the M4 remains more than capable. Token generation speed, which matters for sustained LLM output, improved much less dramatically than prompt processing, from about 18 to 26.9 tokens per second. The M6 makes the most sense for buyers who specifically want local AI, faster graphics, Wi‑Fi 7, 2.5Gb Ethernet, and the option for 32GB unified memory. Even then, its non-upgradable memory and newly soldered storage hurt long-term value. If budget matters, the discounted M4 is still the smarter buy. The M6 is justified mainly for users who will regularly exploit its AI and GPU advantages.

1 articles · Updated · SlashGear · Nov 3

$899 for Apple’s new M6 Mac mini prompted SlashGear to name five lower-cost alternatives, led by the older M4 Mac mini at $799 and several Windows mini PCs below that.
Apple’s August 2026 refresh added an M6 chip with a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, with Apple touting up to 40% faster CPU performance, 2x graphics and 4x AI gains over the M4.
The closest substitutes on price include GMKtec’s M6 Ultra at $799.99, Geekom’s IT13 MAX at $799 and Minisforum’s UM790 Pro at $879, though the report says none match the M6’s overall performance.
Lower-priced options stretch further with the Acemagic X3 at $638.99, while several Windows rivals offer upgradeable RAM, larger storage and support for up to four displays.
The list underscores how the M6 Mac mini’s $300 jump from the M4’s original $599 entry price has shifted Apple’s smallest desktop out of its longtime budget niche.