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M2 Pro Mac Mini Specs: Up to 32GB of RAM, Up to Three External Displays, 240Hz Support, and More
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Right but with the Mac mini you can scale back the specs. Most people don't need the full power of the Studio. That was my biggest complaint, paying for a ton of specs I didn't need. The entry level Mini for $499 is going to be more than enough for most users, but for power users the M2Pro is going to be more than enough at close to $1000 less than the Studio. Most semi-pro users wont notice a difference between the M2 Pro and the Studio. Didn't hesitate to order an M2 Pro Mini today as soon as they announced it. I've been wanting a new Mac for years, but no Silicon iMac 27" came out, the prev Mini didn't support multiple monitors and was dated, and the Studio was overkill, so finally they have something for users like me.
Yeah.
Once you start configuring the M2 Pro mini with Mac Studio level specs, it quickly starts to make less and less sense to go with an M2 Pro mini.
For $2,599.00 you can go for
Apple M2 Pro with 12‑core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine (200GB/s memory bandwidth) + 32GB unified memory + 2TB SSD storage. Includes 1 video encode engine
+ 1 ProRes encode and decode engine + Support for up to three displays + Wifi 6E + Bluetooth 5.3 + (presumably) same cooling system as M1 mini
or
Apple M1 Max with 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine (400GB/s memory bandwidth) + 64GB unified memory + 512GB SSD storage. Includes two video encode engines + two ProRes encode and decode engines + support for up to four Pro Display XDRs and one 4K display + Wifi 6 + Bluetooth 5.0 + two USB-C front-facing ports + SDXC card slot + (presumably) much better thermal system compared to M2 Pro mini
Sure, $2599 isn't exactly a tight budget. But I'd gladly go with the 512GB and rely on external harddrives to get a much more powerful Mac.
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Did you think we wouldn’t notice that you skewed the comparison by configuring the mini with 2TB of Apples hilariously overpriced storage, and the Studio with the base level 512MB?
Don’t see where there is a $1000 difference if you compare similar machines. More like $300 I think. You cant just dismiss the hard drive and ram sizes if you are making a true comparison. I get that some will not need the larger ram and hd specs so in that case you are correct. My M1 Max studio has 32 MB and 1TB drive. A similar Mini M2 Pro with same hd and ram is just $300 less and I got my Studio discounted $200 when I bought it. i Can see the great value in the lower model M2 Mini but not once you start upping the specs. YMMV as always!
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Just buy with your needs and be done with it. To be honest.
I just took delivery of an Apple refurbished base Studio + 1TB upgrade. I mostly got the studio for the ports, SD card slot, and performance overhead (32GB ram, etc). I don't need all of the performance, but I figured it was nice to have (the most taxing thing I do is edit a very large library of Lightroom photos with large RAW files).
Now I'm wondering whether I'd be better off with an M2 Pro Mini. Going that route, I lose the SD card slot, 2 USB-C ports, but I gain a size advantage and a little bit of cash. Curious as to how the M2 Pro will compare to the M1 Max.
I'm thinking I'll stick to the Studio (I already have it and the price difference with everything else equal is not that much), but it does have me thinking.
Edit: FWIW, the refurb Mac Studio I bought was ~$1979. The M2 Pro Mini with the same equivalent specs (32gb ram, 1TB SSD) is $1899. Not that different.
Now I'm wondering whether I'd be better off with an M2 Pro Mini. Going that route, I lose the SD card slot, 2 USB-C ports, but I gain a size advantage and a little bit of cash. Curious as to how the M2 Pro will compare to the M1 Max.
I'm thinking I'll stick to the Studio (I already have it and the price difference with everything else equal is not that much), but it does have me thinking.
Edit: FWIW, the refurb Mac Studio I bought was ~$1979. The M2 Pro Mini with the same equivalent specs (32gb ram, 1TB SSD) is $1899. Not that different.
I literally JUST bought a Mac Studio M1 Max last weekend because I wanted a desktop that wasn't underpowered. Anyone think the M2 Pro is better than the M1 Max? I'd be paying about the same as I did for the studio for a comparable M2 Pro Mini.
I literally wrote a whole paragraph explaining that I'd rather do 512 Studio over 2TB M2 Pro.
I had to upgrade the M2 Pro mini's SSD to get to $2599 as there are no other specs left to bump up apart from the $100 ethernet upgrade.
But it doesn't matter how I configure them: If you pit the baseline 512SSD/32RAM $1999 Studio against a CPU-maxed $1999 512SSD/32RAM M2 Pro mini, the Studio still comes out on top with M1 Max with 10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine vs the M2 Pro mini's M2 Pro with 12‑core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine.
And the $1999 Studio also gets two front-facing USB-C and SDXC card slot and superior thermal management.
I'm curious to see if the upgraded monitor/resolution support is a good indicator that Apple will be releasing higher spec'd monitors. I know what the rumors are, but they are still fairly murky when it comes to the core resolution and refresh rates as far as I can find. I'm pleasantly surprised by the Mac Mini Pro specs and this has re-invigorated my faith that Apple will push better GPU and display support going forward, especially bi-yearly which looks to be the early "trend"
This should be possible. Even on the M1. The base models come with HDMI 2.0 which can handle 1440p at 144hz. For the second display connect it with USBC to DisplayPort which can easily handle 1440p 144hz.
I should have posted my questions here: I am wondering if the 200GB/s M2 Pro Mac minis (the one with HDMI 2.1) have 8k codec capability? My Sony Z9J TV is 8k but doesn't have native 8k codec capability. If I hook it up with the new Mac mini and play an 8K Youtube video, should I be able to see native 8k instead of upscaled 4k?
Coming from a late 2012 iMac 27", this was the set of specs I was waiting for. Looking forward to it arriving at my doorstep next week.
It just holds 32 GB RAM when the Intel 2018 peaks at 64GB I already have. Good lord. This is sad. I routinely have single vocal mixes alone that draw 28GB on Intel. More and more I will be forced to move to Pro Tools and leverage effing Windows on a secondary server.
Apple doesn't like mentioning the HDMI numbers for some reason. But I believe the ones with 100GB/s bandwidth chips are equipped with HDMI 2.0 while the ones with 200GB/s bandwidth are equipped with HDMI 2.1.
Does anyone have an opinion on the M2 Mini vs the M2 Pro Mini? I don't do much graphics or coding so my understanding is that the extra multicore performance with the Pro might be wasted on me (although 2 extra thunderbolt ports might be nice). I'd probably go with 24 GB of RAM if I get the non-pro version. Is there anything obvious I am overlooking that the non Pro M2 is missing? Any thoughts from the smart folks here?
As an aside one thing I can't find a good answer to - does the M2 model support a 5k display or just 4k?
As an aside one thing I can't find a good answer to - does the M2 model support a 5k display or just 4k?
Unless it says HDMI 2.1 explicitly it's not the latest one. Only AMD put HDMI 2.1 on their RDNA 3.0 cards [Nvidia hasn't and no one cares what Intel is selling this time around] so expect only the Pro to have the HDMI 2.1.
Just wondering can you run VMware fusion pro - using windows 10 pro (64-bit) for the Mac mini m2 pro. I’m currently using Mac mini 2018 intel model I5, 8gb.
If that's the case then the new MBP's also don't have the latest one because the tech specs have the exact same wording as the tech specs on the top tier Mac minis. Also no explicit mentioning of 2.1.