imac 21.5 i7 vs mac mini i7 2020

[Silenus3]

I'm having a hard time deciding between both as a mac mini + screen(not as good but larger) + egpu will cost just a bit more then the imac 21.5 2018 and I could get a much better GPU rather then the outdated radeon pro 560x.

I don't care that much for an apple keyboard and mouse ..

on the face of it - the mac mini makes much more sense , also its ram is upgradeable.

my main uses will be music production along with general computer use and some light Unity game development (2D mostly)
along with some gaming on bootcamp.

I know the imac 5k is even better for this but it has the same problem of having an outdated gpu (the base 580x) which I will be stock with.
if I take the i5 instead of the i9 its price is almost the same to the two option above .. but I will be getting a 6 core with higher single core speeds but lower multicore as it has no hyper threading but could be loaded with more ram.

also there is no sign of an Imac refresh coming anytime soon .. which would made things easier if they only bumped the gpu on the base models for a recent one.

 

[Silenus3]

its almost as if Apple don't give a sh*t about their respective costumers by offering overpriced and outdated hardware , as tablet and smartphone centered company their stocks are way overpriced too ..

 

[EDLIU]

If you decide to get a Mac mini, get a Dell display. Samsung products are poor quality and bad customer service.

 

[iAssimilated]

I very much enjoy my 2018 Mac mini, it is blazingly fast and handles everything I throw at it with ease. I like the flexibility it provides for the future as well; I can upgrade my GPU card if/when I need to, easily add additional storage with TB3, and upgrade my monitor without having to replace the whole system. Also, the desktop class processor Apple put in the 2018 mini has aged better than most people will let on.

 

[Azrael9]

I'm having a hard time deciding between both as a mac mini + screen(not as good but larger) + egpu will cost just a bit more then the imac 21.5 2018 and I could get a much better GPU rather then the outdated radeon pro 560x.

I don't care that much for an apple keyboard and mouse ..

on the face of it - the mac mini makes much more sense , also its ram is upgradeable.

my main uses will be music production along with general computer use and some light Unity game development (2D mostly)
along with some gaming on bootcamp.

I know the imac 5k is even better for this but it has the same problem of having an outdated gpu (the base 580x) which I will be stock with.
if I take the i5 instead of the i9 its price is almost the same to the two option above .. but I will be getting a 6 core with higher single core speeds but lower multicore as it has no hyper threading but could be loaded with more ram.

also there is no sign of an Imac refresh coming anytime soon .. which would made things easier if they only bumped the gpu on the base models for a recent one.

A dilemma of Apple's own making. If they offered a proper mini tower the iMac need not exist. Remember those old G3 towers? Perfect.

Mac Mini. £1000. Another £500 for eGPU and GPU. 580 is now low end and outdated. 5700XT is what I'd reach for in that eGPU enclosure. A 6 core Mini is the MINImum. Shame they don't offer 8 core. But you do get SSD standard now. 512 SSD looks with 6 core looks like the model to go for. It's tempting. That and an external eGPU.

And by the time you spend that money. You're upsold (Apple nickle politics...) on to the 5k Retina iMac. Great screen but the lack of SSD, meh 6 core, even more meh 8 gigs of ram and the underwhelming gpu options.

Mini gives you screen replacement options or gpu replacement options if either 'dies.' (Tell me about it, my iMac's screen is still great but my GPU is fried. :/ ) The mini gives you 'less' pain later if something goes wrong. Plus, you could prob' add another later and 'grid compute' them later via a 'link' cable for eg 3D rendering and game dev? And add even more powerful eGPUs over time. Again, prob' important for game dev'. Whether 2D or 3D.

iMac? Underwhelming and over due an update. It's old.

I've long considered a Mini option. And after two iMacs...I'm thinking about it. That or a hackintosh...or both.

Azrael.

 

[Silenus3]

I recon egpu's are not ideal either , its much better to have an internal one so far that the 580x in the imac can rival much better external gpu's, but its not powerful enough to actually drive that 5k screen in all its glory and the upgrade to the vega 48\56 is just too expansive overall.

 

[Aika]

I would wait to see what Apple do with the iMac this year before deciding but if I had to buy something today, I would choose a 5K iMac. It rankles me that all Apple did with the Mini is change the storage prices and the baseline storage and yet they call it "new", with the same 2018 CPU.

 

[Silenus3]

the more I think about it - the more it makes sense to go for the mini as a music production station alone and additionally get a powerful windows pc tower for everything else, then again maybe I'm just hyped over the mac which does have a better OS for music production but .. if I get a well cooled pc tower with ssd's maybe I might be able to get the same results . as far as thermals go's both the imac and mac mini throttle eventually never actually achieving the turbo frequency for extended times which leads to the final and optimal option - a well cooled hackintosh.
but I don't have any technical know-how with macOS so its problematic.
[automerge]1586609052[/automerge]

I would wait to see what Apple do with the iMac this year before deciding but if I had to buy something today, I would choose a 5K iMac. It rankles me that all Apple did with the Mini is change the storage prices and the baseline storage and yet they call it "new", with the same 2018 CPU.

the Intel 10 gen chips focus is more on lower power usage , but there are newer 9th gen coffee-lake chips with even more cores then the 8 they sell which I expect in the new imac's whenever they arrive ..

 

[EDLIU]

Mac mini(2020 release) - still as versatile as ever (9To5Mac)