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M2 Pro Mac Mini Specs: Up to 32GB of RAM, Up to Three External Displays, 240Hz Support, and More

I guess it's a nice upgrade, but not a compelling reason to move from my Studio. My M1 Mini was always just a little wonky, whereas the Studio is solid as a rock. Though the Mini since I relegated it to us as a Roon music server has been running 24/7 for several months without a glitch.
 
My Luck. old iMac (2010) died at holidays, so I had to replaced with a M1 Mac mini
 
I've been waiting to see how the new Mac Mini and M2 Pro/Max compares to the old base Mac Studio and I'm going to buy the Mac Studio. It gives the best GPU performance for the money. Here is my comparison. Prices are converted from Swedish Crown:

Mac Mini M2 Pro 12c CPU/19c GPU/32 GB/512 GB $2,735
Mac Studio M1 Max 10c CPU/24c GPU/32 GB/512 GB $2,447

Even without 10Gb Ethernet the Mac Mini costs $2 606. Mac Studio has also been sometimes on sale here with 10% discount and when the new ones with M2 come in March? the old ones going to be on sale so the base model will cost as low as $2 202.

Mac Studio has also other advantages GPU-wise:

Mac Mini M2 Pro 19c - 6.8 TFLOPS, 200 GB/s
Mac Studio M1 Max 24c - 7.8 TFLOPS, 400GB/s

It's also better to buy Mac Studio 32c GPU than the new M2 Max with 30 GPU cores. Seeing the prices went up here by ca 21.5% the new Mac Studios with M2 Max 30c GPU will cost ca $3,264. The current M1 Max 32c costs $2,687.

M2 Max 30c - 10.7 TFLOPS, 400GB/s
M1 Max 32c - 10.4 TFLOPS, 400GB/s
 
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As someone who has been waiting for this machine with bated breath, I was thrilled to see the announcement - until I actually priced one on the Apple Educational store.

An M2 Pro Mac mini with 12 core CPU, 19 core GPU, 32 GB and a 4 TB SSD (10 Gbit Ethernet) taps out at U.S. $2999.

An M1 Max Mac Studio with 10 core CPU, 32 core GPU, 32 GB and a 4 TB SSD (10 Gbit Ethernet) is US $3059.

I don’t know the performance specs on the M2 Pro but I certainly did not expect the cost to be essentially the same. (For just over half the graphics cores and two less ports to boot.)
 
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d5aqoëp said:
Yeah HDMI 2.1 (48gbps) is a “Pro only” feature just like 120hz iPhone Pro displays in Apple world. Weird upselling they do.

Not buying M2 mac mini purely for this reason. I don’t intend to spend double amount just to get 4k 120/144 hz available on “Pro” model. They lost my sale due to such cunning tactic.
Click to expand...

The M1 had support for USB-C to DisplayPort 1.4 with Display Stream Compression, which in turn allowed for higher refresh rates. See below for an example:


Obviously no confirmation yet whether M2 supports this, but iirc it's a by-product of Thunderbolt/USB 4 and enabled on macOS from Monterey onwards.
 
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HDMI now supports 4K @ 240Hz. Great!

What about DisplayPort? The specs only mention 60Hz configurations, such as 6K60. We can safely assume it will support 4K120 DisplayPort AltMode. Right? Right??
 
Riot Nrrrd said:
As someone who has been waiting for this machine with bated breath, I was thrilled to see the announcement - until I actually priced one on the Apple Educational store.

An M2 Pro Mac mini with 12 core CPU, 19 core GPU, 32 GB and a 4 TB SSD (10 Gbit Ethernet) taps out at U.S. $2999.

An M1 Max Mac Studio with 10 core CPU, 32 core GPU, 32 GB and a 4 TB SSD (10 Gbit Ethernet) is US $3059.

I don’t know the performance specs on the M2 Pro but I certainly did not expect the cost to be essentially the same. (For just over half the graphics cores and two less ports to boot.)
Click to expand...

There's 2 takes of this observation:
  • Is updated Mini fairly "loaded" OVERpriced?
  • Is older Studio fairly "loaded" UNDERpriced?
The question this alludes to: Does M2 Studio maintain M1 Pricing? Or does Apple "fix" this problem by jacking up M2 Studio config pricing? That's mostly rhetorical: we likely KNOW what modern Apple Inc will do to resolve this issue.

Right now, we're simply in the period where one is priced for profit maximization in early 2022 and the other is priced for profit maximization in 2023.
 
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Lozza013 said:
Slightly off topic but I assume Apple is now going to speed up the depreciation of Intel support on MacOS?
Click to expand...
Hopefully those of us with last-generation Intel Macs will at least get the usual 6-7 years of support from their release year, but after that we may be SOL on any unsupported install methods. 2025 is quite probably the last year for Intel Macs.

Edit: 2025 being the last year of new MacOS on Intel is a reasonable conservative guess given that the new Mac Pro with M-series has yet to release. That's only Ventura and two more releases so I hope for longer though.
 
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Any power specifications posted for idle power consumption for M2/M2 Pro mac minis? I only see the maximum energy specs…
 
ApplesAreSweet&Sour said:
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.
Click to expand...
I’m not going to argue that the mini is necessarily the better buy. (I own a Studio Max myself.)
It comes down to if you value the higher CPU performance (not really, personally), or the more up to date wireless and HDMI (I actually do!) of the Mini.

The Studio is bulkier, has a fan that unfortunately always runs at an audible level and has nice frontal connectivity and looks … nicer.

Pretty equivalent boxes, and values, in my book.
 
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