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Apple has made big strides in improving the efficiency of the M2 Pro chip, and while that is arguably more important when it comes to the MacBook, as better efficiency can lead to longer battery life, it’s also welcome with the Mac mini. Due to its compact size, the Mac mini can keep working without producing too much heat, and that means it also doesn’t need to use its fans that often, leading to a pleasingly silent PC. In these days of ever-higher energy bills, the efficiencies brought in by the M2 and M2 Pro are certainly welcome, especially if you’re planning on using the Mac mini for long periods of time. The Mac Mini M2 Pro has a couple of advantages, as well. It comes with two additional Thunderbolt 4 connections, enabling up to three displays or up to a single 8K monitor. It can even support 4K monitors at 240Hz if you wanted to pair a gaming display like the Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 with your Mac Mini (you probably shouldn’t). If you were worried that the move from Intel hardware to its own silicon would be a blow to the Mac mini's performance, you needn't have worried. The Apple Mac mini (M1, 2020) performs incredibly well, with macOS Big Sur running smoothly. We tested a few native and legacy apps (Apple’s Rosetta 2 tool allows you to continue to run older apps without any major issues), and they ran well – you wouldn't notice that some of them are not running natively. We've criticized Apple for not innovating with the design of the MacBook Air (M1, 2020) and MacBook Pro 13-inch (M1, 2020), but in the case of the Mac mini we feel a bit more relaxed about the fact that its design hasn’t changed significantly.
AppleCare+ for Mac provides expert technical support and additional hardware coverage from Apple, including up to two incidents of accidental damage protection every 12 months, each subject to a fee. The M2 Pro model finally makes the Mac mini a PC worthy of consideration if you’re looking at doing intensive creative work on it, and you can get two variants of the M2 Pro: the 10-core CPU/16-core GPU version (with six performance and four efficiency cores) and a 12-core CPU/19-core GPU version (with eight performance cores/four efficiency cores). Testing conducted by Apple in November and December 2022 using preproduction Macmini systems with AppleM2Pro, 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 32GB of RAM, and 8TB SSD, preproduction Macmini systems with AppleM2, 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 24GB of RAM, and 2TB SSD, production Macmini systems with AppleM1, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 2TB SSD, and production 3.8GHz 8-core Intel Core i7-based iMac systems with AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT with 8GB of GDDR6, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD, as well as production 3.2GHz 6-core Intel Core i7-based Macmini systems with Intel Iris UHD Graphics 630, 64GB of RAM, and 2TB SSD. Tested with Adobe Photoshop 24.0.0 using the following filters and functions: mesh from layer, difference clouds, lighting effects, tree, and spherical panorama. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Macmini andiMac. Before joining How-To Geek, Joe worked at XDA-Developers as Managing Editor and covered news from the Google ecosystem. He got his start in the industry covering Windows Phone on a small blog, and later moved to Phandroid where he covered Android news, reviewed devices, wrote tutorials, created YouTube videos, and hosted a podcast. The Mac Mini M1 still has its place, however. If you need a simple computer without a ton of storage space, you can save a couple of hundred dollars with a refurbished Mac Mini M1. It’s not as fast and doesn’t come with the same connectivity, but it still supports the same apps and operating systems as the M2.
Small, but with big ambitions
You can also get the Mac mini (2023) with the new M2 Pro chip, which launched alongside the PC, and features in the MacBook Pro 16-inch (2023) and MacBook Pro 14-inch (2023). This is an exciting development, as it’s the first time a professional-grade chip has been included in the Mac mini, turning it into a viable compact workstation for creatives, and anyone who wants extra power in a small PC, but finds the asking price of the Mac Studio to be too high.
If you’re looking for a case for your Mac Mini, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve been scouring the Internet to find some of the best cases I could get my hands on, and I’ve rounded them up here for your convenience. However, when you finally replace an iMac, you end up disposing of the screen, as well as the rest of the machine. In my case, it was pre-Retina, and due for an upgrade anyway. But if you’re replacing your computer more often, then this is a significant waste. Also, if there’s a task that’s using up a lot of memory on the graphical side of things, that could have repercussions for CPU performance.
AirPods Max
With M2 Pro, Mac mini users can run high-performance workflows that were previously inconceivable in such a compact form factor. Musicians can produce music with incredibly powerful plug-ins and effects without missing a beat, while photographers can adjust huge images in an instant. Creators can seamlessly work in multicam with multiple camera formats, including ProRes video, and gamers can play demanding titles in console quality. Gaming performance is up to 15x faster than the fastest Intel-based Mac mini. 3
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