Loving my M1 Mac Mini

[orbitalpunk]

So Ive been reading a lot of posts with people having bad experiences with the M1. I myself am loving my M1 Mac Mini. It replaced my 2013 Mac Pro Quad Core dual D300. Performance wise its a great upgrade. The CPU is twice as in the tests I've tried like Handbrake encoding and C4D Rendering. I still cant believe how fast thing thing encodes H.265. Its faster than H.264 in Compressor. The storage is more than 4x faster. The GPU is about the same which I'm OK with. My biggest concern was only having 16GB of RAM and only 2 USB-C ports. My Mac Pro had 32GB. I work on large heavy Photoshop. PSB files. I edit in Final Cut. I work on a 4GB site file in Rapidweaver. So this is not being used for casual computing and so far RAM has not been an issue. Pressure has been low and never maxed out. But I do see a swap file being used but when the SDD reads around 2800 MB/s, I guess its ok cause im not seeing any slow down in my programs with multiple large files open. As for the ports, its just enough. One USB-C goes to my 1st monitor, the other USB-C goes to my 6-bay hardrive enclosure, one USB goes to a 7-port USB hub and the other USB is for my Keyboard and Mouse switcher because i alternate between my Mac and gaming PC. And the HDMI is connected to my second monitor. And the Mac Mini has had no issues driving both at the same time in 4K.

The only two obstacles I encountered so far was Firefox crashing but its now been resolved in the Nightly Builds and its just so fast. Even loading Facebook on my Mac Pro literally took a good 5 seconds. The other issue I had was having Kernel Panic restarts but discovered it was because of Little Snitch and the company said it was an issue in Big Sur and its been fixed in the 11.1 Beta already. So I removed it till the 11.1 update comes out. No more Kernel Panics since.

A bonus is actually been able to run iOS apps. I use Amazon Blink security cameras and they only have an iOS app. Now I can manage and view my security cameras on my Mac. Very cool. Also I use a IP phone app that shows captions of what people say and it was iOS only as well and now I can make the same calls on my Mac. Lastly 2 stock brokerages i trade on, their iOS app is so much better then their web interface so now i can use their iOS app instead. Oh and now i can play Monument Valley on my Mac!

Its just been a pleasant surprise overall. I would never have upgraded to Big Sur so soon as i like to wait for a few updates first but so far so good except for Little Snitch but thats a Big Sur issue and not a M1 anyways. Oh and for you photographers out there, if you use an Xrite Color Calibrator, it doesn't work yet on a M1 Mac. They are aware of it and updates are on the way. I still have my color profiles saved so its fine for now. My Rosetta apps are about as fast as my Mac Pro so i look forward to seeing them take a leap in performance when Native versions come out. I know its going to be about double or more because I have both Photoshop 2021 and Photoshop Beta with native support and its just so so much faster at start up.

2 little side bonuses for those upgrading from older Macs. Sidecar via wireless to the iPad is very cool. And connecting the Mini to a USB-C monitor is great because now I can use the USB-C ports on the back of my monitor for other things.

Hope this helps.

 

[Spindel]

I also made a thread a while back declaring my love for my M1 Mini

I'm (currently) insanely content with the purchase of my M1 Mini

So in 2013 I bought and iMac 27" i5 4670, 24 GB RAM with a GTX780M, during 2019 I was starting to think that I would upgrade. One of the reasons was that I could not use the iMac as an external monitor for my work issued HP laptop when I had to work from home. Also the iMac was starting to show...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[tdar]

I’m not going to make a thread but I‘lol jump in here to say that I also love my m1 mini. We see so much negativity about these machines and I believe that we who are thrilled about them need to balance them out.

 

[chouseworth]

I’m not going to make a thread but I‘lol jump in here to say that I also love my m1 mini. We see so much negativity about these machines and I believe that we who are thrilled about them need to balance them out.

My M1 Mini ($899) with the Dell 27” 4K U2720Q monitor ($550) blows away my 2019 iMac for which I paid ($2800) only about a year ago. It is a terrific desktop computer. You couldn’t pry it out of my cold dead hands.

 

[Mr. Awesome]

From what everyone is saying about these new M1 Macs, I cannot wait until I upgrade to an M2 or M1X MBP.

 

[Ethosik]

I still cant believe how fast thing thing encodes H.265. Its faster than H.264 in Compressor

Are you saying its faster working on HEVC vs h.264?

 

[VitoBotta]

I have had my Mac mini for a week now and I absolutely love it. It's really fast, but sometimes it does slow down a bit due to high memory pressure. I wish I had gone for less storage and 16GB of ram instead of 8. But it's OK. It doesn't happen often.

I have had issues with very few apps that I could easily replace or for which I found easy workarounds. For me the only annoying issue at the moment is that the screen connected to the HDMI port doesn't always wake up when I wake up the Mini from sleep. I know that many other people have the same issue, even with older models. I hope it's a software issue that can and will be fixed. In a couple of days I should receive a BenQ display which I will use as primary connected to one Thunderbolt port, so the HDMI one will be secondary. I hope I don't have to try many times to wake both displays each time the computer wakes from sleep!

 

[Einz]

This is the headless Mac most people always wanted. It is also a lot less waste than upgrading an iMac. Do we need a new monitor every time we needed something faster? it is also the fastest and cheapest Mac I ever bought.

 

[mathpunk]

I am loving mine as well, best $9 I ever spent (traded in my 2018 i7 Mini for $690 and got the base M1 Mini).

 

[orbitalpunk]

Are you saying its faster working on HEVC vs h.264?

Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s crazy. On about a 1 minute video single pass, h.264 takes about 1 minute to encode. In h.265 it takes about 45 seconds to encode.

 

[orbitalpunk]

I have had my Mac mini for a week now and I absolutely love it. It's really fast, but sometimes it does slow down a bit due to high memory pressure. I wish I had gone for less storage and 16GB of ram instead of 8. But it's OK. It doesn't happen often.

I have had issues with very few apps that I could easily replace or for which I found easy workarounds. For me the only annoying issue at the moment is that the screen connected to the HDMI port doesn't always wake up when I wake up the Mini from sleep. I know that many other people have the same issue, even with older models. I hope it's a software issue that can and will be fixed. In a couple of days I should receive a BenQ display which I will use as primary connected to one Thunderbolt port, so the HDMI one will be secondary. I hope I don't have to try many times to wake both displays each time the computer wakes from sleep!

Consider trying another high quality HDMI cable. I had used one cable and it was freezing my display. Changed to another and now it’s fine. And the USB-C monitor would have these green screens at start up. Then I changed the cable to an active USB-C cable and now no more green screens at start up. the two monitors I have are two different brands and they both without issues now. Brands I like are monoprice and cable matters.

 

[m1mini]

This is the headless Mac most people always wanted. It is also a lot less waste than upgrading an iMac. Do we need a new monitor every time we needed something faster? it is also the fastest and cheapest Mac I ever bought.

Yup, and when you upgrade it in 3-4 years, the old m1 gets to be an Apple tv 8k!

 

[jazz1]

Consider trying another high quality HDMI cable. I had used one cable and it was freezing my display. Changed to another and now it’s fine. And the USB-C monitor would have these green screens at start up. Then I changed the cable to an active USB-C cable and now no more green screens at start up. the two monitors I have are two different brands and they both without issues now. Brands I like are monoprice and cable matters.

Can you recommend the specific cable by brand/model/length?

 

[Einz]

Try any HDMI cable you have first before spending money a new one. I bought a cheap USB-C off amazon, that worked fine too.

 

[jazz1]

Try any HDMI cable you have first before spending money a new one. I bought a cheap USB-C off amazon, that worked fine too.

Many thanks! I will.

 

[Binary Wizzard]

The new M1ni is simply awesome, man!

I came from a Windows PC that I built years ago with 4GB of RAM and a Pentium CPU. Unsurprisingly the M1ni is light years ahead of that!

 

[amartinez1660]

Enjoyed the post through and through, just wanted to chime in on this one:

because i alternate between my Mac and gaming PC

Judging by all the wave of people testing “AAA” gaming on the Mac (in quotes not because it’s bad, but because I don’t think it is yet at the RTX 3080 or equivalent levels). People playing Native, Rosetta translated and windows emulated games left and right most with great performance, maybe you might find yourself not needing to swap for most games soon?. Some videos show the windows version of The Witcher 3 on a Rosetta 2 translated app (CrossOver), using a DirectX to Vulkan layer to play the game (sounds complicated but it isn’t). So, it’s like 3 emulation layers cascaded, one of which is for the GPU, and the damn thing runs amazingly well, perfectly playable.

I’m not going to make a thread but I‘lol jump in here to say that I also love my m1 mini. We see so much negativity about these machines and I believe that we who are thrilled about them need to balance them out.

Yeah! I don’t get what’s up with that! I totally think Apple gets free hate for real... there are statements like:
- “yeah but Apple forces you to throw your devices on the bin and can’t repair it” (I have never ever had to or seen a MacBook or iPhone on a trash can ever, my first MacBook 2011 13" is still alive and well on a brother of mine... same with tons others, iMac 2013, iPhone6S, MBP 2013 13" and many more are still alive and well in full use in the hands of some family member).
- “Yeah but I don’t care TDP, XY cpu trashes the M1”... sure, could not care about price, size, power, reliability, longevity also then fine, pick any supercomputer available and that’s the one then.
- “Intel has designs that we don’t know about, they just unleash it when they need it”. Somehow Intel has fun losing market share and billions of dollars in opportunity cost... just because. And somehow Apple or AMD don’t have any more designs and RnD that we don’t know about. Only Intel.

kudos for bringing it up, I’m seriously getting tired for random negative emotional comments from non-users.

Yup, and when you upgrade it in 3-4 years, the old m1 gets to be an Apple tv 8k!

By any chance, especially that the architectures are even closer than ever, would it be possible to somehow hack around these M1 Macs and install tvOS on them? That would be literally an AppleTV 4K, but maybe a downgrade from a full MacOS.

 

[Ethosik]

Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s crazy. On about a 1 minute video single pass, h.264 takes about 1 minute to encode. In h.265 it takes about 45 seconds to encode.

Interesting. I work on h.264 since I only deal with 1080p video. I might try h.265 if its some improvement.

 

[orbitalpunk]

Can you recommend the specific cable by brand/model/length?

ok, so it looks like i got my cable brands mixed up. I have a Mono Price and Amazon Basics and its the Amazon Basics that connected to my Mac Mini and working perfectly so there are the links and also I link to the one that was giving me problems. The Mono Price was the one connected to my gaming PC. And all my cables on 10-15ft in length so that says a lot about their quality being able to handle such long lengths with no issues.

So here is the Amazon Basics HDMI cable i confirm works perfectly

Amazon Basics Flexible and Durable Premium HDMI Cable (18Gpbs, 4K/60Hz) - 10 Feet, Black

Amazon Basics Flexible and Durable Premium HDMI Cable (18Gpbs, 4K/60Hz) - 10 Feet, Black

www.amazon.com

Here is the Cable Matters Active USB-C cable for video that also works perfectly

Cable Matters Unidirectional Active USB C Cable 16.4 ft with 4K Video and 5 Gbps Data Transfer for Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest 3 VR Headset, Portable Monitor and More

Cable Matters Unidirectional Active USB C Cable 16.4 ft with 4K Video and 5 Gbps Data Transfer for Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest 3 VR Headset, Portable Monitor and More

www.amazon.com

This HDMI cable cause my screen to freeze when videos played in web browser or VLC so avoid this one/brand

HDMI Cable 4K – 15ft – with A.I.S Shielding – Designed in Germany (Supports All HDMI Devices Like PS5, Xbox, Switch – 4K@60Hz, High Speed HDMI Cord with Ethernet, Black) – by CableDirect

HDMI Cable 4K – 15ft – with A.I.S Shielding – Designed in Germany (Supports All HDMI Devices Like PS5, Xbox, Switch – 4K@60Hz, High Speed HDMI Cord with Ethernet, Black) – by CableDirect

www.amazon.com

 

[orbitalpunk]

Enjoyed the post through and through, just wanted to chime in on this one:

Judging by all the wave of people testing “AAA” gaming on the Mac (in quotes not because it’s bad, but because I don’t think it is yet at the RTX 3080 or equivalent levels). People playing Native, Rosetta translated and windows emulated games left and right most with great performance, maybe you might find yourself not needing to swap for most games soon?. Some videos show the windows version of The Witcher 3 on a Rosetta 2 translated app (CrossOver), using a DirectX to Vulkan layer to play the game (sounds complicated but it isn’t). So, it’s like 3 emulation layers cascaded, one of which is for the GPU, and the damn thing runs amazingly well, perfectly playable.


Yeah! I don’t get what’s up with that! I totally think Apple gets free hate for real... there are statements like:
- “yeah but Apple forces you to throw your devices on the bin and can’t repair it” (I have never ever had to or seen a MacBook or iPhone on a trash can ever, my first MacBook 2011 13" is still alive and well on a brother of mine... same with tons others, iMac 2013, iPhone6S, MBP 2013 13" and many more are still alive and well in full use in the hands of some family member).
- “Yeah but I don’t care TDP, XY cpu trashes the M1”... sure, could not care about price, size, power, reliability, longevity also then fine, pick any supercomputer available and that’s the one then.
- “Intel has designs that we don’t know about, they just unleash it when they need it”. Somehow Intel has fun losing market share and billions of dollars in opportunity cost... just because. And somehow Apple or AMD don’t have any more designs and RnD that we don’t know about. Only Intel.

kudos for bringing it up, I’m seriously getting tired for random negative emotional comments from non-users.



By any chance, especially that the architectures are even closer than ever, would it be possible to somehow hack around these M1 Macs and install tvOS on them? That would be literally an AppleTV 4K, but maybe a downgrade from a full MacOS.

yeah, i remember seeing someone playing some game, i forgot, in crossover. My primary game is Battelfield 1 in 4k maxed out and my 1080ti GTX just makes it past the 60fps mark. I dont think I could hit that when emulated. I also play Forza, GTAV and up coming Cyberpunk an Battlefield 6 so all pretty intensive games. But you make a good point for other games for some. I do emulate Nintendo Switch games on my PC, even though I actually do own a Switch and the games, but thru emulation, i can play them in 4k. But maybe that could be an option for some in Crossover. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[amartinez1660]

yeah, i remember seeing someone playing some game, i forgot, in crossover. My primary game is Battelfield 1 in 4k maxed out and my 1080ti GTX just makes it past the 60fps mark. I dont think I could hit that when emulated. I also play Forza, GTAV and up coming Cyberpunk an Battlefield 6 so all pretty intensive games. But you make a good point for other games for some. I do emulate Nintendo Switch games on my PC, even though I actually do own a Switch and the games, but thru emulation, i can play them in 4k. But maybe that could be an option for some in Crossover. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ah yes, forgot emulation, also saw that working. There are videos where they try Redream, openEMU and Dolphin, with which they play like everything? Saw GTA PSP, crazy taxi Dreamcast, resident evil classics, goldeneye n64, assorted GameCube/Wii/WiiU games... mind blown.
Will leave a link with some of that over here for the interested:

Granted, the M1 gpu cores are at least two steps below your ti GTX.
At least looks like that things might be finally moving in a better direction relating to raw power for gaming.

 

[VitoBotta]

Consider trying another high quality HDMI cable. I had used one cable and it was freezing my display. Changed to another and now it’s fine. And the USB-C monitor would have these green screens at start up. Then I changed the cable to an active USB-C cable and now no more green screens at start up. the two monitors I have are two different brands and they both without issues now. Brands I like are monoprice and cable matters.

I got the HDMI cable I was using with the XBOX 360 a while ago and I had never used it before. I am testing now with a USB-C to DVI cable to see if that's better.

 

[Einz]

Apple Silicon Games

curated by Mac Gamers for Mac Gamers

applesilicongames.com

 

[Dimwhit]

I haven't heard much negative about these machines, but maybe others have. That said, I love my mini!

 

[Maconplasma]

From what everyone is saying about these new M1 Macs, I cannot wait until I upgrade to an M2 or M1X MBP.

Haha people are now making up model numbers of future unannounced processors.