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Real World Mac Mini Pro Experience, and WOW!

osxhero

osxhero

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 23, 2010
106
27
I've been running on two computers for the last two years: Dec 2015 iMac loaded to the max for the time. Dell G7 maxed in late 2020 with a big Nvidia card, etc.

Got my new Mac Mini Pro fully loaded with 1TB internal drive. What I've experienced is a little mind blowing for the money.

  • Boot time: HALF A SECOND, if the Apple logo during boot brought you solace, well, I'm sorry, you'll rarely see it for more than a split second.
  • Blender 3D Heavy Render Test: Pitting the Mac Mini Pro against my beastie Dell Workstation laptop G7 (32GB Ram, Nvidia running Optix), the Mac Mini Pro still came in five minutes faster on a super complex 4k rendering. Normal render time was 20 mins. Now 15 mins.
  • World of Warcraft: Hey, I stopped playing, it was boring, looks old right? Soon after launching it on a Mac Mini Pro....whao! It's like a completely new game. The resolution hasn't been behind. My old systems couldn't render it any better, and the Dell G7 was never meant to game. I run a 27GN950 4k monitor and this brings me back to the days of wetting myself a little during game play.
  • Android Development: Launching a Google Plus (33) emulator takes about two to three seconds and your app will be running.
Thought you folks might find this feedback valuable if you're on the fence. It really is a little rocket machine.
 
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osxhero said:
I've been running on two computers for the last two years: Dec 2015 iMac loaded to the max for the time. Dell G7 maxed in late 2020 with a big Nvidia card, etc.

Got my new Mac Mini Pro fully loaded with 1TB internal drive. What I've experienced is a little mind blowing for the money.

  • Boot time: HALF A SECOND, if the Apple logo during boot brought you solace, well, I'm sorry, you'll rarely see it for more than a split second.
  • Blender 3D Heavy Render Test: Pitting the Mac Mini Pro against my beastie Dell Workstation laptop G7 (32GB Ram, Nvidia running Optix), the Mac Mini Pro still came in five minutes faster on a super complex 4k rendering. Normal render time was 20 mins. Now 15 mins.
  • World of Warcraft: Hey, I stopped playing, it was boring, looks old right? Soon after launching it on a Mac Mini Pro....whao! It's like a completely new game. The resolution hasn't been behind. My old systems couldn't render it any better, and the Dell G7 was never meant to game. I run a 27GN950 4k monitor and this brings me back to the days of wetting myself a little during game play.
  • Android Development: Launching a Google Plus (33) emulator takes about two to three seconds and your app will be running.
Thought you folks might find this feedback valuable if you're on the fence. It really is a little rocket machine.
Click to expand...
How much ram do you have on your mini Pro?

Did you heard the fan yet? Can you tell the temperature inside (using iStat menu for example)?

I'm just curious...
 
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osxhero said:
I've been running on two computers for the last two years: Dec 2015 iMac loaded to the max for the time. Dell G7 maxed in late 2020 with a big Nvidia card, etc.
Click to expand...

This is good info, but a few comments are justified.

osxhero said:
Got my new Mac Mini Pro fully loaded with 1TB internal drive. What I've experienced is a little mind blowing for the money.

  • Boot time: HALF A SECOND, if the Apple logo during boot brought you solace, well, I'm sorry, you'll rarely see it for more than a split second.
Click to expand...

There must be something wrong with mine, as it doesn't boot nearly that fast. Literally half a _second_ from reboot to login prompt?

osxhero said:
  • Blender 3D Heavy Render Test: Pitting the Mac Mini Pro against my beastie Dell Workstation laptop G7 (32GB Ram, Nvidia running Optix), the Mac Mini Pro still came in five minutes faster on a super complex 4k rendering. Normal render time was 20 mins. Now 15 mins.
Click to expand...

Comparing a desktop Mac from 2023 to a Dell laptop (granted, 2070 or so GPU) from 10th gen timeframe (2019?) isn't really fair, but that the Mac is only 25% faster / the Dell 33% slower (I think I got that right..) isn't bad for the Dell, honestly. I hear Blender isn't well optimized for M1/M2 quite yet, but it's improving.

osxhero said:
  • World of Warcraft: Hey, I stopped playing, it was boring, looks old right? Soon after launching it on a Mac Mini Pro....whao! It's like a completely new game. The resolution hasn't been behind. My old systems couldn't render it any better, and the Dell G7 was never meant to game. I run a 27GN950 4k monitor and this brings me back to the days of wetting myself a little during game play.
Click to expand...

Apple Silicon native makes this a good experience. Now if only they'd do that for Diablo IV and the totally hypothetical Starcraft III.

osxhero said:
  • Android Development: Launching a Google Plus (33) emulator takes about two to three seconds and your app will be running.
Thought you folks might find this feedback valuable if you're on the fence. It really is a little rocket machine.
Click to expand...
Here are a few XCode benchmarks you might find interesting.
github.com

GitHub - devMEremenko/XcodeBenchmark: XcodeBenchmark measures the compilation time of a large codebase on iMac, MacBook, and Mac Pro

XcodeBenchmark measures the compilation time of a large codebase on iMac, MacBook, and Mac Pro - devMEremenko/XcodeBenchmark
github.com github.com

Gist: M2 Pro (base) only 30% slower than Intel i9-13900k, and a bit faster than base i7-12700(f) CPU. (Speaking of Hackintosh.)
 
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Cham2000 said:
How much ram do you have on your mini Pro?

Did you heard the fan yet? Can you tell the temperature inside (using iStat menu for example)?

I'm just curious...
Click to expand...
32GB. ZERO noise. It's actually so quiet it's a big change from my iMac. My drives still whirl and make noise of course.
 
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osxhero said:
32GB. ZERO noise. It's actually so quiet it's a big change from my iMac. My drives still whirl and make noise of course.
Click to expand...
How much do you fill your memory (32GB is a lot!). What "hard workflow" are you typically doing with your mini (excluding Blender 3D rendering)?
 
Cham2000 said:
How much do you fill your memory (32GB is a lot!). What "hard workflow" are you typically doing with your mini (excluding Blender 3D rendering)?
Click to expand...
Outside of industrial FX in Blender, lots of Final Cut Pro renders for programs from one to two hours of 100% composite layering (meaning, every frame has been altered from start to finish), lots of Android / iOS development, so compiling and emulating.

The one thing I did notice is the Firewire to my external devices seems slow using some crappy cables I had hanging around. I have two new 40Gps cables coming tonight to see if that helps.
 
osxhero said:
Outside of industrial FX in Blender, lots of Final Cut Pro renders for programs from one to two hours of 100% composite layering (meaning, every frame has been altered from start to finish), lots of Android / iOS development, so compiling and emulating.

The one thing I did notice is the Firewire to my external devices seems slow using some crappy cables I had hanging around. I have two new 40Gps cables coming tonight to see if that helps.
Click to expand...
firewire? do you mean thunderbolt?? 🤔
 
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Bug-Creator said:
Sounds about right, on my M1Max Studio I can't even see a boot screen as it takes longer for the monitor to turn (via USB controlled powerstrip)....
Click to expand...
The reply you quoted mentioned reboot. Try to reboot (with monitor on) and tell me how long to do so?
 
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foo2 said:
The reply you quoted mentioned reboot. Try to reboot (with monitor on) and tell me how long to do so?
Click to expand...
I have the "base" M2 Pro Mini. Took 22 seconds from clicking 'restart' to being back on desktop. I play WoW as well on my Mini and it's shockingly good, and most surprising is the complete silence. As in no discernible noise while playing (or doing anything really)
 
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Saberon2014 said:
I have the "base" M2 Pro Mini. Took 22 seconds from clicking 'restart' to being back on desktop. I play WoW as well on my Mini and it's shockingly good, and most surprising is the complete silence. As in no discernible noise while playing (or doing anything really)
Click to expand...
Can you tell something about the temperature inside your mini, while you play WoW? I'm surprised that the fan (and noise) doesn't kick in while the temperature is rising.
 
Cham2000 said:
Can you tell something about the temperature inside your mini, while you play WoW? I'm surprised that the fan (and noise) doesn't kick in while the temperature is rising.
Click to expand...
Played for a bit, it sat at around 45C-ish. Set the resolution scale to 4K and it's up to 57C, still completely inaudible.

Ran Cinebench for 5 minutes and it was 78C, still completely silent. I mean if you put your ear against the top you can hear it (even at idle) but it's otherwise completely silent. It still surprises me to be honest.
 
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Make sure to get FAST USB-C cables. I finally settled on 40Gps to my hard drive clusters. Without fast cables, it crawls during saves.
 
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foo2 said:
Yes, that’s my experience, give or take. I’m not sure how “half a second” would work.
Click to expand...
The half a second was for booting in the original post, not rebooting. My M1 mini goes from off to the login screen in a couple of seconds, so OP’s experience sounds about right to me. My machine cold boots faster than the Intel mini it replaced woke from sleep.
 
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headlessmike said:
The half a second was for booting in the original post, not rebooting. My M1 mini goes from off to the login screen in a couple of seconds, so OP’s experience sounds about right to me. My machine cold boots faster than the Intel mini it replaced woke from sleep.
Click to expand...
I power off.

I turn my M2 Pro mini on [timer starts]; it bongs
About 10-12 secs later I see the login prompt (which is really just FileVault's login, in essence) [2nd time:12s]
<I key in my password>
About 5 seconds later, I'm at my desktop [2nd time: 7s]

That's not two seconds by any stretch. I'm going to try it again here in a second...

2nd time: Give or take, call it 20 seconds.
 
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headlessmike said:
The half a second was for booting in the original post, not rebooting. My M1 mini goes from off to the login screen in a couple of seconds, so OP’s experience sounds about right to me. My machine cold boots faster than the Intel mini it replaced woke from sleep.
Click to expand...
This is very hard to believe. You should post a video showing this.
 
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Cham2000 said:
This is very hard to believe. You should post a video showing this.
Click to expand...
I think a lot depends on how fast the mini can sync with your display. Mine takes a few seconds just to wake the display after a screen time out
 
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