I tried to figure out which PC Apple compared Mac Mini against. HP Envy...but which one?

[DreamPod]

In the presentation, Apple said it was "up to 5x more powerful than the top selling desktop". What they showed was an HP Envy:

...but the question is, which one? Where did they get that statistic? The best bet I can think of is best "in its price range" which Apple used in other parts of the presentation, and if that's the case, well, there's a $699 HP Envy:

HP ENVY Desktop, Windows 11 Home, Intel® Core™ i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650

Free shipping. Buy direct from HP. See customer reviews and comparisons for HP ENVY Desktop, Windows 11 Home, Intel® Core™ i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650. Upgrades and savings on select products.

store.hp.com

...but the actual MSRP of that one is $849.99. So let's assume Apple stacked the deck, we need one with an MSRP close to $699. There we go!

HP ENVY Desktop TE01-1150xt

Free shipping. Buy direct from HP. See customer reviews and comparisons for HP ENVY Desktop TE01-1150xt. Upgrades and savings on select products.

store.hp.com

So let's look at what this computer has:
Intel® Core™ i3-10100 (3.6 GHz up to 4.3 GHz, 6 MB L3 cache, 4 cores)
Intel® UHD Graphics 630

Yeah, doesn't look that hard to beat. Doesn't leave me with much confidence, Apple should have been much more transparent about their numbers.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

You need to compare Apple with PC MSRP systems not discounted ones.

This is not something specific to Apple. When comparing two items based on price, you need to use same pricing criteria. Using MSRP on both sides is the only way to approach this fairly.

 

[DreamPod]

You need to compare Apple with PC MSRP systems not discounted ones.

This is not something specific to Apple. When comparing two items based on price, you need to use same pricing criteria. Using MSRP on both sides is the only way to approach this fairly.

That's what I did, it's why I brought up the second link with the Intel Core i3.

 

[AidenShaw]

You need to compare Apple with PC MSRP systems not discounted ones.

This is not something specific to Apple. When comparing two items based on price, you need to use same pricing criteria. Using MSRP on both sides is the only way to approach this fairly.

Horse hockey!!!
.
Nobody who shops around pays MSRP for any Windows system - there is usually a steep discount.

Compare street prices - which for Apples is usually the MSRP, but for Windows systems is usually far less than MSRP.

You absolutely do not want to "compare Apple with PC MSRP systems"

 

[Nermal]

Does this help at all?

Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction Mac mini systems with Apple M1 chip, as well as production Intel Core i5-based PC systems with Intel UHD Graphics 630 and the latest version of Windows 10 available at the time of testing. Best-selling system based on publicly available sales data over the last nine months. Tested with select industry-standard graphics benchmarks.

 

[russell_314]

It's marketing and ya'll are thinking way too hard about it. If you want to know the exact performance wait for benchmarks. It will be more powerful than the 2018 Mac mini.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

Horse hockey!!!
.
Nobody who shops around pays MSRP for any Windows system - there is usually a steep discount.

Compare street prices - which for Apples is usually the MSRP, but for Windows systems is usually far less than MSRP.

You absolutely do not want to "compare Apple with PC MSRP systems"

Have you tried to buy a current GPU like a GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER or Radeon RX 5700 XT recently?

Even a stupid 4GB RX 550 GPU is street priced around $160; I paid $65 for a 2GB version from Sapphire which appears to be close to MSRP (I didn't bother to check VideoCardz.com). My guess is that the 4GB version should be around $75-80.

The typical AIB-partner versions of GeForce 2070 SUPER are hovering around $800 right now; I bought my Nvidia reference card at the MSRP of $499 five months ago.

I have a particular Corsair 120mm AIO cooler in three different watchlists; the MSRP should be around $70 but the cheapest street price is $120.

I assure you that MSRP in the PC world is still a valid metric.

Other examples are Logitech webcams and many other PC components. For a while, PC PSUs were way overpriced. Some of the best Windows PC motherboards have been out of stock for months.

When I worked in the corporate world, sometimes I'd do a product/service trade with a vendor/merchant. We always used MSRP.

Yes, I know you're some sort of corporate IT flunkie who probably focuses on fully-appointed Dell/HP/whatever iron at corporate pricing and doesn't realize that most of us here are retail consumers without the corporate buying power leverage.