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Mac Mini vs. Mac Studio Buyer's Guide: 20+ Differences Compared

I've been using the i7 Mac mini with 8gb ram for a couple of years now.
I replaced my Windows i7 desktop and went full Mac along with a M1 MacBook Air.
The only thing I found was the occasional running out of memory message. Also I missed the faster GPU on my PC and that was only an Nvidia geforce 960. It isn't a deal breaker but my occasional video encodes do take longer.
I was hoping for a mid range Mac mini for about £1200 - (£2000 is too much for me) I'm guessing the M2 will cover that space.
Even if I had the money, I don't think I would make enough use of the Mac Studio's horse power so...
I've just upgraded to the M1 Mac mini with the 16gb Ram option and 512gb SSD.
I traded in the i7 for £300 off through Apple for the sake of keeping it simple (sorry Ebay) and the only other thing I'll eventually do is swap my keyboard for the new one with Touch ID when I can afford it.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's like when the M1 Pro & Max came out, I realised that not everyone needs the fastest and best Mac; even if it is shiny and new!
I'm trying to accept the truth in that but I sure would like to have an excuse (not to mention the money) to buy one :)
 
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Treq said:
A tiny hole if there is one at all. The difference between a maxed out M1 mini and a base Mac Studio is only $200. Not a lot of room for that gaping hole you speak of.
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I am talking in terms of CPU options. I get either the chip that is in the iPad Air or an absolute monster of a chip.

While I was looking through the Apple website, I did see Apple's education pricing is $200 off the studio, which would make that more stomachable for me (I am not rich, although I sure wish I was so I gotta get the most bang for my buck!).
 
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SamuelFleming said:
Except that's not a fair comparison. The maxed out Mini has 4x the storage at that price. If you keep the storage level across the two devices it's an $800 difference. I would find it hard to believe you'd seriously be looking at a device with 2TB of storage and compare it to a device with 512GB of storage.
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Still not a big hole. Really the only thing they are missing is a mini with an M1 pro or an M2 chip. I confess that’s kinda what I was looking for too, but you have to admit they just closed the gap significantly between the Mac pro and the Mac mini with the Mac Studio.
 
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This comparison is pretty useless as it doesn't tell you anything about performance relative to each other in various workloads. Most users probably won't notice any difference in performance for most tasks because most workloads don't take advantage of the additional cores.

If your workload revolves around rendering video or certain kinds of mass photo processing, or some kinds of HPC statistical modelling, then the Studio will be a beast. For most other "everyday" tasks, you're not going to see much difference, certainly not one worth jumping over $1000 in price.
 
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So what is the price / performance comparison for an iMac i9 9900k with 64GB, 1TB SSD and Radeon Pro Vega 48?

I don't see where the Mac mini as the 1 for 1 replacement but I can be proven wrong.

I still haven't been able to find reliable comparisons between the M1 line of processors and the higher end i9 chip that I am currently running.
 
SamuelFleming said:
Except that's not a fair comparison. The maxed out Mini has 4x the storage at that price. If you keep the storage level across the two devices it's an $800 difference. I would find it hard to believe you'd seriously be looking at a device with 2TB of storage and compare it to a device with 512GB of storage.
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Devils advocate: is that a fair comparison? How many cores in each? Cores are the processing muscle of these machines. How many graphic cores in each? Maybe jack counts matter more to some? As much as our crowd can worry about the paint job on some piece of Apple tech- especially showing that they've purchased "latest & greatest" because of some tangible physical redesign, maybe the new case itself- a slightly greater hunk of aluminum- matters enough to someone?

There's no clean head-to-head here. It can be easy to argue there IS a "hole" to be filled in between the two and that looks like the rumored Mac Mini Pro at about $1500 base would do it. Maybe that comes eventually. For now, Apple is probably playing a game of how much extra can we make from that crowd who will opt to pay $500 more for MAX in a new case. Once that surge demand cools, Mac Mini with M1 (or perhaps M2) PRO may pop right into the "hole" that can be subjectively defined there or subjectively refuted.
 
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antnythr said:
This comparison is pretty useless as it doesn't tell you anything about performance relative to each other in various workloads. Most users probably won't notice any difference in performance for most tasks because most workloads don't take advantage of the additional cores.

If your workload revolves around rendering video or certain kinds of mass photo processing, or some kinds of HPC statistical modelling, then the Studio will be a beast. For most other "everyday" tasks, you're not going to see much difference, certainly not one worth jumping over $1000 in price.
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Not over $1000. More like $800 if you keep storage the same and can deal with 16gigs instead of 32.
 
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HazardousT said:
Mac Studio + Display is $3500 with the minimum configuration. To me that's not a middle ground
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Bandaman said:
The Mac Studio is not even remotely mid-ranged at this point.
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If you define Macs only by their price, then all Macs are "high end" when compared to Windows and Linux.

I choose to define each model by their performance within the overall Mac family, so I disagree with you.
 
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One tiny little datapoint I've amassed...

I use Handbrake to transcode videos from time to time. My preset uses the VTB h.265 codec. I've tried on both my M1 mac mini and M1 Max MBP. Both work at the exact same speed.

I have no doubt the hardware acceleration makes it faster than it would be otherwise, but it's clear that the chunk of the die that Handbrake is able to leverage is the same across the M1 family.
 
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CWallace said:
If you define Macs only by their price, then all Macs are "high end" when compared to Windows and Linux.
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This is an old, lazy trope. Macs have been reasonably competitive with equivalent hardware from other manufacturers for a while now. Apple just doesn't make ****** chromebook class garbage, that's all, so the cheapest mac is more expensive than the cheapest from other makes.
 
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CWallace said:
I'd argue Mac Studio is the middle ground choice.

Mac mini is the lower ground (I hate calling it "low end" because it can handle serious workloads in certain areas) and Mac Pro is the "no limits" high ground.
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Apple offers 4 "tiers" at the moment:
M1
M1 Pro
M1 Max
M1 Ultra

A 5th tier might be coming for the Mac Pro
 
Kulfon said:
I need to say that I am confused now. Nothing negative, just not very clear. We now have Mac Mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro. How to really understand it?
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Studio is like mini but with more cores and memory. Single-core performance isn't much better (if at all) with the Studio, so it only helps if your workflow is using lots of CPU and GPU cores. Mac Pro is also optimized for multi-core workloads but comes with the more powerful and compatible Radeon GPUs, PCIe expansions, and of course the Intel CPUs, so it's more about compatibility with specialized workflows than anything else now.

It's pretty easy. If you don't know whether you'll benefit from the Studio, you probably won't. It's not even a "nice to have," it'll just not help you at all. Same with the Pro. I have the mini, which replaced my older Mac Pro.
 
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now i see it said:
It’s a pretty easy task trying to decide between the Studio or the Mini: if you’ve got the cash, the Studio is the clear choice.

The hard decision is choosing a Mac Studio over a Mac Pro. Now that conundrum will lead to sleepless nights and drive you mad
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I clearly have enough money to afford a Mac Studio, doesn't mean I need it.
If my employer didn't give me big, scalable servers to run stuff on, it'd be a different story.
 
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HazardousT said:
In a day and age when gas prices are at an all time high, inflation is going through the roof, and your dollar is losing more and more value Apple decides to practically double the price of a consumer level product.

the problem I have with this is with Apple you never know what to expect next. We can speculate all we want but we have no idea what comes next or when it will happen.

The Mac Pro is a business related item and definitely not something a home user would ever need but $3500 is not a good starting point for a middle ground product. Some argue that you don't have to buy the display, and that's true, but why would I want to downgrade from the display I currently have which is essentially the same screen being offered in a separate package for an additional $1600?
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If you are worried about the price of gas you really shouldn't be looking at a new computer.

I already have good monitors so am not planning to spend $1600 additional. Many, many years ago there were posts here how it would be cheaper in the long run to buy a desktop and a monitor rather than having an all-in-one such as an iMac.
 
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CWallace said:
Mac mini is capable of handling less-demanding workloads.
Mac Studio is a mid-ranged system that is capable of handling demanding workloads.
Mac Pro is a "no limits" system, capable of handling the most demanding workloads.
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But the Pro isn't strictly faster than the Studio. Only its GPUs are faster, not the CPUs, RAM, disk, etc.
 
HazardousT said:
So what is the price / performance comparison for an iMac i9 9900k with 64GB, 1TB SSD and Radeon Pro Vega 48?

I don't see where the Mac mini as the 1 for 1 replacement but I can be proven wrong.

I still haven't been able to find reliable comparisons between the M1 line of processors and the higher end i9 chip that I am currently running.
Click to expand...
The differences in GPUs makes that comparison impossible without looking at particular workflows.
 
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sudo-sandwich said:
But the Pro isn't strictly faster than the Studio. Only its GPUs are faster, not the CPUs, RAM, disk, etc.
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Well it's complicated because Mac Pro is currently on Intel. Once it moves to Apple silicon, it will have the most powerful Apple silicon SoCs available so it will anchor the high end.
 
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