Which M2 Pro Mac Mini? 12core? 32GB? 1TB?

[pers0n]

I've been looking at some articles and geekbench.

The 12-core M2 Pro Mini outperforms every version of the M1 Ultra Studio except the 20-core.

I also heard that the $/performance for 32gb and 16gb is too high and very minimal.

I've also read the 1tb vs 512gb SSD storage is faster.

That being said I'm not upgrading all of these.

Is the 12core worth it performance wise? Does the SSD storage matter if you are going to be using external drives as well to keep the core storage space freed up? How much memory does VirtualMachines take up and can you run VMs of Windows (xp,7,10) on MacOS these days anyway?

 

[Juicy Box]

These questions depend on a few things, such as what you do with your Mac (is it just VM?), how long you plan on keeping your Mac, and (very subjective) how patient are you?

VM does run on AS, and depending on what you are doing with the VM will impact on how well it runs.

 

[Juicy Box]

BTW, I ordered the exact spec that you mentioned above a few days ago, 12c/19c M2 Pro Mac Mini, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD.

I have a bunch of Macs that are daily used, but my current main Mac is M1 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

My reasons for choosing the configuration of M2 Mac Mini listed above is probably very different from why you would choose one upgrade over the other, but I will explain my reasons, and it may help you or someone else choose.

My main apps that I use are Handbrake for SW encoding, World of Warcraft and some other gaming, Safari for web browsing, mail, messages, and a bunch of iOS apps. I do some very light photo, and video editing, just for hobby.

With Handbrake, I was disappointed at the lack of performance increase with my M1 Mac Mini compared to my much older iMacs with the 3rd and 4th generation i7. It the time of purchase of the M1, I figured after 8 years there would have been a better multi-core performance increase. That is one reason I went with the 12c over the 10c on the new M2 Pro. The 12c would be (theoretical) at least a 20% increase over the 10c for multi-core. For me in the US, with the Veteran discount, the upgrade is $270 for both a CPU multi-core and GPU increase of about 20%.

With Intel Macs, the cost to increase the multi-core performance by just 10% was sometimes more than $270.

For the RAM, I use a lot of Safari tabs at one time. Sometimes close to 50 or more. Even when only using a few dozen, I noticed that I was using a lot of Swap. I also tend to use multiple apps at a time, along with screen sharing to other Macs in my network. Mix all that with the fact that the GPU shares the RAM which could impact gaming, I decided to go for the 32GB upgrade in RAM.


Getting back to playing games like WoW, the $270 increase for the 12c/19c GPU may have been worth it to me for just the additional CPU cores, but considering I would get an almost 20% increase in GPU performance as well, it wasn't hard for me to pick this upgrade.

Again, think about the Intel Mac days how much it would cost to get an almost 20% increase in GPU performance.


The storage size was the hardest for me. I don't need 1TB as I could work from other Macs storage and externals. So, I started thinking about getting the 512GB instead, but at one point I considering 2TB of storage just to have the fast storage in case I need it. I decided to go for the faster 1TB storage, mostly due to it being faster, but also because the cost difference between the 512GB and 1TB wasn't that bad compared to going from the 1TB to 2TB.


I plan on my new 12c M2 Pro Mac Mini to be my main Mac for many years. My last main Mac that I purchased new, my Late 2012 iMac with the i7 and 680m upgrade, I planned on replacing around 2017, but the performance difference between the 2017 and 2012 iMacs were not significant enough for me to warrant that purchase. Same with the 2019 iMacs. With the 2020 iMacs, I considered it, but AS was coming, so I decided to wait.

There isn't a 27" AS iMac yet, and who knows if there will be, so I decided to just make the M2 Pro Mac Mini, as well as all the upgrades I did, my main Mac for at least 5 years. That comes to about $33 a month for my configuration with the Veteran discount.


Not sure if the above will help you make a decision, but maybe something to think about.

 

[pers0n]

REQUIREMENTS:
Mostly design work (figma, sketch, photoshop, illustrator, indesign, affinity), lots of browser tabs, VMs for old Windows software and testing. I plan to use 3 monitors (I dont have any 4k ones, just old LCD ones).

MAYBES:
I'm thinking of doing streaming at some point. I'd like to able to run AI image generators to play around with.

Hoping to keep this machine at least 3-5yrs if not longer.

 

[JavaScript Jackal]

REQUIREMENTS:
Mostly design work (figma, sketch, photoshop, illustrator, indesign, affinity), lots of browser tabs, VMs for old Windows software and testing. I plan to use 3 monitors (I dont have any 4k ones, just old LCD ones).

MAYBES:
I'm thinking of doing streaming at some point. I'd like to able to run AI image generators to play around with.

Hoping to keep this machine at least 3-5yrs if not longer.

I would go with 12 core and 32gb ram. Skimp on the hard drive. This way you get the 20% increase in single core speed. Also, with programs you you use 32 GB ram would be beneficial. Especially with photoshop.

I have a 12 core 32 gb ram 1 tb hard drive. Upgraded from M1 mini 16 gb ram and can really tell the difference with Illustrator and Photoshop.

 

[Juicy Box]

This way you get the 20% increase in single core speed

I think you mean multi-core, but yeah, the increase with the 12c upgrade is decent alone, then have the added GPU cores as a bonus.

To get a 20% multi-core performance increase on old Intel Macs would cost at least a few hundred $ extra.

I have a 12 core 32 gb ram 1 tb hard drive. Upgraded from M1 mini 16 gb ram and can really tell the difference with Illustrator and Photoshop.

This is my exact M2 Pro MM that I just purchased, also coming from a M1 MM with 16GB of RAM. I expect a decent performance boost with the new Mac.

 

[CausticPuppy]

I've been looking at some articles and geekbench.

The 12-core M2 Pro Mini outperforms every version of the M1 Ultra Studio except the 20-core.

I also heard that the $/performance for 32gb and 16gb is too high and very minimal.

I've also read the 1tb vs 512gb SSD storage is faster.

That being said I'm not upgrading all of these.

Is the 12core worth it performance wise? Does the SSD storage matter if you are going to be using external drives as well to keep the core storage space freed up? How much memory does VirtualMachines take up and can you run VMs of Windows (xp,7,10) on MacOS these days anyway?

Remember that Apple Silicon can only run ARM-based windows in a VM. Not sure if that even exists for XP or Windows 7, but it should run ARM windows 10/11 no problem.

If you need to run x86 Windows then you’ll need an Intel Mac.

 

[JavaScript Jackal]

I think you mean multi-core, but yeah, the increase with the 12c upgrade is decent alone, then have the added GPU cores as a bonus.

To get a 20% multi-core performance increase on old Intel Macs would cost at least a few hundred $ extra.



This is my exact M2 Pro MM that I just purchased, also coming from a M1 MM with 16GB of RAM. I expect a decent performance boost with the new Mac.

Compared to single core M1 Max I saw a 20% increase with Xcode. Around 44% increase from the m1 mini for my Xcode test. I was able see a very noticeable difference with Adobe. Had beach balls constantly popping up with the m1 mini. All that is gone now.

 

[Juicy Box]

Compared to single core M1 Max I saw a 20% increase with Xcode. Around 44% increase from the m1 mini for my Xcode test. I was able see a very noticeable difference with Adobe. Had beach balls constantly popping up with the m1 mini. All that is gone now.

That is pretty impressive. Is this the 12 core M2 Pro? In the Mac Mini or MBP?

 

[KPOM]

I've been looking at some articles and geekbench.

The 12-core M2 Pro Mini outperforms every version of the M1 Ultra Studio except the 20-core.

I also heard that the $/performance for 32gb and 16gb is too high and very minimal.

I've also read the 1tb vs 512gb SSD storage is faster.

That being said I'm not upgrading all of these.

Is the 12core worth it performance wise? Does the SSD storage matter if you are going to be using external drives as well to keep the core storage space freed up? How much memory does VirtualMachines take up and can you run VMs of Windows (xp,7,10) on MacOS these days anyway?

The only Windows VMs that work on Apple Silicon are Windows 10 and 11 for ARM. Intel-based Windows will not run. That said, I use Windows 11 ARM (which Parallels lets you purchase and install) which works with most but not all 32- and 64-bit Windows apps. I give it 8GB of RAM on my 16GB M2 Pro Mac mini and it seems to work just fine.

 

[KPOM]

If you need to run x86 Windows then you’ll need an Intel Mac.

At this point in the transition, if you need to run x86 Windows, get a Windows PC. Use an RDC app like Jump Desktop if you prefer to work from within a Mac.

Windows 11 ARM is fine for most consumer productivity apps. Games may be a different story, though.

 

[NeonNights]

The only Windows VMs that work on Apple Silicon are Windows 10 and 11 for ARM. Intel-based Windows will not run. That said, I use Windows 11 ARM (which Parallels lets you purchase and install) which works with most but not all 32- and 64-bit Windows apps. I give it 8GB of RAM on my 16GB M2 Pro Mac mini and it seems to work just fine.

I was able to install regular Windows 10 Profesional x86-64 on my M1 MacBook Air 16GB, check this post. It was done through emulation with UTM. It technically works but emulation is expectedly slower than virtualization. I gave it 8GB RAM but performance is akin to a PC with 2GB and a mechanical PATA drive. The software I want to run is not ARM compatible. It works under emulation but takes more patience.

It was more a curiosity experiment and not entirely practical for regular use. To run x86 code you're better served with a spare PC, even a 15-year-old Core2Duo compared to emulation. Maybe my future M2 Pro Mini will run emulation faster.

 

[KPOM]

I was able to install regular Windows 10 Profesional x86-64 on my M1 MacBook Air 16GB, check this post. It was done through emulation with UTM. It technically works but emulation is expectedly slower than virtualization. I gave it 8GB RAM but performance is akin to a PC with 2GB and a mechanical PATA drive. The software I want to run is not ARM compatible. It works under emulation but takes more patience.

It was more a curiosity experiment and not entirely practical for regular use. To run x86 code you're better served with a spare PC, even a 15-year-old Core2Duo compared to emulation. Maybe my future M2 Pro Mini will run emulation faster.

That’s my point. If you really need native x86 compatibility just get an x86 PC. For most of us Windows 11 ARM is sufficient.

 

[JavaScript Jackal]

That is pretty impressive. Is this the 12 core M2 Pro? In the Mac Mini or MBP?

12 core pro Mac mini

 

[Mardiel8128]

BTW, I ordered the exact spec that you mentioned above a few days ago, 12c/19c M2 Pro Mac Mini, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD.

I have a bunch of Macs that are daily used, but my current main Mac is M1 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

My reasons for choosing the configuration of M2 Mac Mini listed above is probably very different from why you would choose one upgrade over the other, but I will explain my reasons, and it may help you or someone else choose.

My main apps that I use are Handbrake for SW encoding, World of Warcraft and some other gaming, Safari for web browsing, mail, messages, and a bunch of iOS apps. I do some very light photo, and video editing, just for hobby.

With Handbrake, I was disappointed at the lack of performance increase with my M1 Mac Mini compared to my much older iMacs with the 3rd and 4th generation i7. It the time of purchase of the M1, I figured after 8 years there would have been a better multi-core performance increase. That is one reason I went with the 12c over the 10c on the new M2 Pro. The 12c would be (theoretical) at least a 20% increase over the 10c for multi-core. For me in the US, with the Veteran discount, the upgrade is $270 for both a CPU multi-core and GPU increase of about 20%.

With Intel Macs, the cost to increase the multi-core performance by just 10% was sometimes more than $270.

For the RAM, I use a lot of Safari tabs at one time. Sometimes close to 50 or more. Even when only using a few dozen, I noticed that I was using a lot of Swap. I also tend to use multiple apps at a time, along with screen sharing to other Macs in my network. Mix all that with the fact that the GPU shares the RAM which could impact gaming, I decided to go for the 32GB upgrade in RAM.


Getting back to playing games like WoW, the $270 increase for the 12c/19c GPU may have been worth it to me for just the additional CPU cores, but considering I would get an almost 20% increase in GPU performance as well, it wasn't hard for me to pick this upgrade.

Again, think about the Intel Mac days how much it would cost to get an almost 20% increase in GPU performance.


The storage size was the hardest for me. I don't need 1TB as I could work from other Macs storage and externals. So, I started thinking about getting the 512GB instead, but at one point I considering 2TB of storage just to have the fast storage in case I need it. I decided to go for the faster 1TB storage, mostly due to it being faster, but also because the cost difference between the 512GB and 1TB wasn't that bad compared to going from the 1TB to 2TB.


I plan on my new 12c M2 Pro Mac Mini to be my main Mac for many years. My last main Mac that I purchased new, my Late 2012 iMac with the i7 and 680m upgrade, I planned on replacing around 2017, but the performance difference between the 2017 and 2012 iMacs were not significant enough for me to warrant that purchase. Same with the 2019 iMacs. With the 2020 iMacs, I considered it, but AS was coming, so I decided to wait.

There isn't a 27" AS iMac yet, and who knows if there will be, so I decided to just make the M2 Pro Mac Mini, as well as all the upgrades I did, my main Mac for at least 5 years. That comes to about $33 a month for my configuration with the Veteran discount.


Not sure if the above will help you make a decision, but maybe something to think about.

Hello friend and how did it go?
I think we are similar users

 

[Dockland]

I did order the 12/19 core with 32 GB and 1 TB drive earlier today.
Doing some heavy editing with 10 bit high frame rate 5.3K clips and unfortunately my M1 mini didn’t really handle those well. Took ages to transcode just a couple of hours of footage in FCP.

I hope the M2 will keep up.
Adobe Photoshop works well editing RAW-files on the M1 so I assume it will work as smoothly on the M2 as well.

It’ll arrive in a couple of weeks

 

[Juicy Box]

Hello friend and how did it go?
I think we are similar users

I have been very busy, and have not had enough time with my new Mac to make a final decision, but based off of everything I have done so far, I have been mostly impressed with the performance of the 12c M2 Pro MM over the 8c M1 MM. Although, I have discovered an issue that I was not counting on with one of my most used apps (Handbrake).


While it isn't that noticeable, the overall "snappiness" of the 12c M2 Pro Mac Mini has improved over the M1 Mac Mini.

WoW - I have only tested Dragon Flight areas so far, but with the graphic settings set to "10" on both the M1 and M2 Pro Mac Minis, the fps has more than tripled on the 19c GPU of the M2 Pro MM over the 8c GPU M1 MM. The downside, the M2 Pro MM gets hotter more quickly when the graphic settings were set to the max, while the M1 MM did get hotter, but at a much slower rate. It is also important to note that while I was experiencing was above 100C on the M2 Pro, neither Macs' fans went above idle.

I did have something strange happen though, when I set both Macs to graphical setting "5" (default for the M2 Pro), the fps gain dropped from 200%-300% higher on the M2 Pro, to about only 50% higher. It didn't make any sense. Maybe it was because I had V-Sync turned on.

I am planning on doing more graphical settings testing between the two Macs, and next time with V-Sync turned off.

Another thing I noticed when comparing WoW on the two Macs, was that the load screen duration was about 25% slower on the older Mac Mini.

Warcraft III: Reforged - This game is a x86 app, not optimized for AS, and I didn't expect much improvement, but there was a huge improvement in performance on my new Mac Mini. On the 12c M2 Pro MM, I was able to turn all the graphical settings to the max, and the game runs great. While still playable, the M1 Mac Mini runs at a low frame rate, even with lower graphic settings. I am unsure of the actual fps, there is a new tool built into the macOS to see frame rates, but I don't think it works for x86 apps.

Handbrake - Most of my testing have been with Handbrake. I am comparing the performance between four different Macs, with the following: 3rd Gen i7, 4th Gen i7, M1, and 12c M2. I am testing two different codec settings (H.264, H.265), at two different video preset level (Medium, Placebo). I am using two different sources to compare, one is a movie from a DVD and the other is a movie from a Bluray. I am almost done with the DVD movie.

The outcome so far have been both good and kind of disappointing. For H.264, the new M2 pro has a decent improvement over the M1 and older Intel Macs. For H.265, I noticed that not all the cores are being utilized to 100% on the M2 Pro. It is still faster than the M1, but the performance improvement has decreased a lot. I am unsure if this is a limitation or bug of Handbrake, or a limitation of H.265.

I do not use H.265 currently, but was considering using it in the future to reduce the file size of my encodes, but based off of the performance (or lack of) of the M2 Pro, I will continue using H.264 for now.

After seeing the issue on H.265, I started doing some research, and it appears that Handbrake can fully utilize up to 6-cores, and each additional core has reduced performance. This isn't really noticeable on the 8c M1, but with the 12 cores on the M2 Pro using iStat Menus, you can see the cores randomly dropping with H.265.

For H.264, all the cores are almost fully used. So again, not sure if this is a Handbrake issue or a H.265 issue.

If your primary workload is using SW Encoding on Handbrake, and you are using the H.265 codec, it may not be worth it to pay for the extra two performance cores.

Some people ask about HW encoding on Handbrake, so maybe I might add that to my testing on all Macs as well.

Other than the above, I haven't done much else on my new Mac, yet.

 

[Freida]

I wouldn't get the 12 core and I wouldn't get the 32gb ram. I would probably only consider the 1TB as the price of the upgrade is not bad and you get better speed.

32gb is almost useless unless your scenario is super specific. Its been proved by tons of benchmarks that 16 vs 32 gives you almost no advantage so that is money wasted right there.

And for 12 core, sure its a bit better but I don't think its worht it for the price.

And the 'excuse' for future proofing is just that - an excuse to validate unnecessary purchase.

The money you save now will be better used in the meantime (AAPL stock for example with dividends)
and will be used towards your device in the future that is actually miles ahead of today's one. M3 is meant to be bigger leap and if you plan to upgrade in 3-5 years than just buy what you need NOW/TODAY and not what you may or may not need. Wasting money now is often a bad decision.

Thats my 2c

I've been looking at some articles and geekbench.

The 12-core M2 Pro Mini outperforms every version of the M1 Ultra Studio except the 20-core.

I also heard that the $/performance for 32gb and 16gb is too high and very minimal.

I've also read the 1tb vs 512gb SSD storage is faster.

That being said I'm not upgrading all of these.

Is the 12core worth it performance wise? Does the SSD storage matter if you are going to be using external drives as well to keep the core storage space freed up? How much memory does VirtualMachines take up and can you run VMs of Windows (xp,7,10) on MacOS these days anyway?

 

[Mardiel8128]

I have been very busy, and have not had enough time with my new Mac to make a final decision, but based off of everything I have done so far, I have been mostly impressed with the performance of the 12c M2 Pro MM over the 8c M1 MM. Although, I have discovered an issue that I was not counting on with one of my most used apps (Handbrake).


While it isn't that noticeable, the overall "snappiness" of the 12c M2 Pro Mac Mini has improved over the M1 Mac Mini.

WoW - I have only tested Dragon Flight areas so far, but with the graphic settings set to "10" on both the M1 and M2 Pro Mac Minis, the fps has more than tripled on the 19c GPU of the M2 Pro MM over the 8c GPU M1 MM. The downside, the M2 Pro MM gets hotter more quickly when the graphic settings were set to the max, while the M1 MM did get hotter, but at a much slower rate. It is also important to note that while I was experiencing was above 100C on the M2 Pro, neither Macs' fans went above idle.

I did have something strange happen though, when I set both Macs to graphical setting "5" (default for the M2 Pro), the fps gain dropped from 200%-300% higher on the M2 Pro, to about only 50% higher. It didn't make any sense. Maybe it was because I had V-Sync turned on.

I am planning on doing more graphical settings testing between the two Macs, and next time with V-Sync turned off.

Another thing I noticed when comparing WoW on the two Macs, was that the load screen duration was about 25% slower on the older Mac Mini.

Warcraft III: Reforged - This game is a x86 app, not optimized for AS, and I didn't expect much improvement, but there was a huge improvement in performance on my new Mac Mini. On the 12c M2 Pro MM, I was able to turn all the graphical settings to the max, and the game runs great. While still playable, the M1 Mac Mini runs at a low frame rate, even with lower graphic settings. I am unsure of the actual fps, there is a new tool built into the macOS to see frame rates, but I don't think it works for x86 apps.

Handbrake - Most of my testing have been with Handbrake. I am comparing the performance between four different Macs, with the following: 3rd Gen i7, 4th Gen i7, M1, and 12c M2. I am testing two different codec settings (H.264, H.265), at two different video preset level (Medium, Placebo). I am using two different sources to compare, one is a movie from a DVD and the other is a movie from a Bluray. I am almost done with the DVD movie.

The outcome so far have been both good and kind of disappointing. For H.264, the new M2 pro has a decent improvement over the M1 and older Intel Macs. For H.265, I noticed that not all the cores are being utilized to 100% on the M2 Pro. It is still faster than the M1, but the performance improvement has decreased a lot. I am unsure if this is a limitation or bug of Handbrake, or a limitation of H.265.

I do not use H.265 currently, but was considering using it in the future to reduce the file size of my encodes, but based off of the performance (or lack of) of the M2 Pro, I will continue using H.264 for now.

After seeing the issue on H.265, I started doing some research, and it appears that Handbrake can fully utilize up to 6-cores, and each additional core has reduced performance. This isn't really noticeable on the 8c M1, but with the 12 cores on the M2 Pro using iStat Menus, you can see the cores randomly dropping with H.265.

For H.264, all the cores are almost fully used. So again, not sure if this is a Handbrake issue or a H.265 issue.

If your primary workload is using SW Encoding on Handbrake, and you are using the H.265 codec, it may not be worth it to pay for the extra two performance cores.

Some people ask about HW encoding on Handbrake, so maybe I might add that to my testing on all Macs as well.

Other than the above, I haven't done much else on my new Mac, yet.

When will be good to have the extra two performance cores.
I will use for light video and photohsop. Most of the time for office, excel, games (dota2, starcraft), and open a lot of tabs at the same time.

 

[NeonNights]

I wouldn't get the 12 core and I wouldn't get the 32gb ram. I would probably only consider the 1TB as the price of the upgrade is not bad and you get better speed.

32gb is almost useless unless your scenario is super specific. Its been proved by tons of benchmarks that 16 vs 32 gives you almost no advantage so that is money wasted right there.

And for 12 core, sure its a bit better but I don't think its worht it for the price.

And the 'excuse' for future proofing is just that - an excuse to validate unnecessary purchase.

The money you save now will be better used in the meantime (AAPL stock for example with dividends)
and will be used towards your device in the future that is actually miles ahead of today's one. M3 is meant to be bigger leap and if you plan to upgrade in 3-5 years than just buy what you need NOW/TODAY and not what you may or may not need. Wasting money now is often a bad decision.

Thats my 2c

I am seriously leaning towards this direction of thinking.

I previously planned to get an M2 Pro 10c/16c and 32GB/1TB. My prior main laptop was a 2015 MBP 13 that I loved and it's still being used in our family, going on 8 years. However, in reality I upgraded to the M1 MBA and stopped using the 2015 MBP after five years. I didn't expect to want to upgrade from my 16GB M1 this soon after only ~2.5 years. It takes every conceivable app open (multiple browsers, multiple development suites, and multiple photo editing apps, FCP, etc) to get memory pressure in the yellow with 16GB. I've been trying to convince myself I need 32GB for the "next machine" but honestly I don't. I definitely need the 1TB internal, plus some external drives, no question there. But yea, the 32GB RAM upgrade is a 33% price increase that I may not benefit from on a daily or regular basis. Ironically, I already returned a 16GB/1TB M2 Pro Mac Mini last month, lol. Still debating if I want to keep my 16GB/512GB M1 MBA and add a Mini, or replace MBA with MBP 14 with 16GB/1TB.

 

[Mardiel8128]

I am seriously leaning towards this direction of thinking.

I previously planned to get an M2 Pro 10c/16c and 32GB/1TB. My prior main laptop was a 2015 MBP 13 that I loved and it's still being used in our family, going on 8 years. However, in reality I upgraded to the M1 MBA and stopped using the 2015 MBP after five years. I didn't expect to want to upgrade from my 16GB M1 this soon after only ~2.5 years. It takes every conceivable app open (multiple browsers, multiple development suites, and multiple photo editing apps, FCP, etc) to get memory pressure in the yellow. I've been trying to convince myself I need 32GB for the "next machine" but honestly I don't. I definitely need the 1TB internal, plus some external drives, no question there. But yea, the 32GB RAM upgrade is a 33% price increase that I may not benefit from on a daily or regular basis. Ironically, I already returned a 16GB/1TB M2 Pro Mac Mini last month, lol. Still debating if I want to keep my 16GB/512GB M1 MBA and add a Mini, or replace MBA with MBP 14 with 16GB/1TB.

After reading a lot I would go for 16gb ram.
About m2 o m2 pro I can't decide yet, a pro will be 3 monitors and have more thunderbor ports but i use my windows laptop with one external monitor, 3 usb ports (keyboard, mouse and iphone cable) but 1 thunderbort can candle this and more i think

 

[Freida]

I wouldn't get 14 MBP unless you really need that power on the go. The notebook is too expensive and honestly still not that great (compared to 16").
By your description it sounds that you are ok with the MBA so why not just keep it?
Adding Mini is probably sensible here as otherwise you would already have something different if you really needed it.
People often buy stuff out of desire/lust but not actual need which is why the confusion happens about which model to get.
What I often do if I am on the fence is to use Apple's 14 days return policy. I get the bare minimum machine that I think is not enough and I test it with my workflow. (M2 Pro in this case) By doing so I realise that I actually don't need more stuff but the base is just fine (for the purpose of the machine). So if anyone is on the fence, just get the lower spec model and test it in your environment. That is the best way to decide what you actually need.

And for crying out loud, don't worry about bloody future proofing nonsense.

I am seriously leaning towards this direction of thinking.

I previously planned to get an M2 Pro 10c/16c and 32GB/1TB. My prior main laptop was a 2015 MBP 13 that I loved and it's still being used in our family, going on 8 years. However, in reality I upgraded to the M1 MBA and stopped using the 2015 MBP after five years. I didn't expect to want to upgrade from my 16GB M1 this soon after only ~2.5 years. It takes every conceivable app open (multiple browsers, multiple development suites, and multiple photo editing apps, FCP, etc) to get memory pressure in the yellow with 16GB. I've been trying to convince myself I need 32GB for the "next machine" but honestly I don't. I definitely need the 1TB internal, plus some external drives, no question there. But yea, the 32GB RAM upgrade is a 33% price increase that I may not benefit from on a daily or regular basis. Ironically, I already returned a 16GB/1TB M2 Pro Mac Mini last month, lol. Still debating if I want to keep my 16GB/512GB M1 MBA and add a Mini, or replace MBA with MBP 14 with 16GB/1TB.

 

[Juicy Box]

And for 12 core, sure its a bit better but I don't think its worht it for the price.

If you compare to Intel Mac CPU and GPU upgrade prices, the amount of performance gained from the two extra performance cores and three extra GPU Cores is pretty cheap.

Now if it is "worth it" depends on many different things. With the Veteran discount, the 12c/19c upgrade was $270 for me, and I think it was well worth it for me for about the 20% potential increase for multi-core CPU and GPU performance.

When will be good to have the extra two performance cores.

For the CPU performance, any apps that can take advantage of having more CPU cores. Not all apps can (or do) take advantage of having more CPU cores. Although, with the core count increasing in the past few years, more and more apps are being updated to make use of those cores. I think Photoshop just recently added multi-core support.

For the GPU performance, the extra three GPU Cores could provide a decent bump in GPU performance, especially in games.

Now, whether or not the upgrade will be "worth it" totally depends on the user, what they do with their Mac, how patient they are.

And the 'excuse' for future proofing is just that - an excuse to validate unnecessary purchase.

And for crying out loud, don't worry about bloody future proofing nonsense.

I don't agree with this, at least in a general statement sense.

There are many possible examples of where future proofing would pay off.

Just one of countless examples is the 64GB option for the 2015 ATV4 (HD). At the time of launch, it was literally impossible to fill up the storage of the 32GB ATV, mostly due to the ridiculously tiny static storage size of apps on tvOS, but also due to the lack of available apps.

After Apple backtracked on several problematic decisions they made on tvOS including raising the static storage size, apps, especially games started launching on the tvOS App Store. In a very short period of time, the 64GB option went from pointless to necessary for some users, and if those users "future proofed" their purchase, they were most likely not going to have to deal with "Out of Storage" issues as much.

The same can be said with the storage size on the 2017 ATV4K before and after Apple Arcade launched.

That is not to say that everyone would have benefited from future proofing, but depending on what the user does or plans on doing in the future with their device, future proofing could really pay off.

 

[Freida]

Paying for something that you won't need is useless.
Same goes for your future proof examples. The only reason to upgrade is when one KNOWS that their needs will change in the near future - otherwise its wasted money.

Living under the umbrella of 'feel good about my upgrade' is not enough to justify that. I've seen tons of people wasting so much money for something they don't need even if its cheap.

In your case, I could argue that even that $270 could be used better and not for some form of 'potential'.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all up for power and when I do 3D etc. I need every bit of it. (luckily work provides render farm). So, I set my devices for my needs and my needs only. No extra expense is spared as that would cost me more in the long run. $270 today will be worth maybe $400 in those 5 years so in your case I would rather buy almost 2 shares of APPLE and get some dividends with also possible growth (most likely) that would beat inflation and I would protect the money.

Advice is: don't spend more than you need. Simple as that

If you compare to Intel Mac CPU and GPU upgrade prices, the amount of performance gained from the two extra performance cores and three extra GPU Cores is pretty cheap.

Now if it is "worth it" depends on many different things. With the Veteran discount, the 12c/19c upgrade was $270 for me, and I think it was well worth it for me for about the 20% potential increase for multi-core CPU and GPU performance.



For the CPU performance, any apps that can take advantage of having more CPU cores. Not all apps can (or do) take advantage of having more CPU cores. Although, with the core count increasing in the past few years, more and more apps are being updated to make use of those cores. I think Photoshop just recently added multi-core support.

For the GPU performance, the extra three GPU Cores could provide a decent bump in GPU performance, especially in games.

Now, whether or not the upgrade will be "worth it" totally depends on the user, what they do with their Mac, how patient they are.





I don't agree with this, at least in a general statement sense.

There are many possible examples of where future proofing would pay off.

Just one of countless examples is the 64GB option for the 2015 ATV4 (HD). At the time of launch, it was literally impossible to fill up the storage of the 32GB ATV, mostly due to the ridiculously tiny static storage size of apps on tvOS, but also due to the lack of available apps.

After Apple backtracked on several problematic decisions they made on tvOS including raising the static storage size, apps, especially games started launching on the tvOS App Store. In a very short period of time, the 64GB option went from pointless to necessary for some users, and if those users "future proofed" their purchase, they were most likely not going to have to deal with "Out of Storage" issues as much.

The same can be said with the storage size on the 2017 ATV4K before and after Apple Arcade launched.

That is not to say that everyone would have benefited from future proofing, but depending on what the user does or plans on doing in the future with their device, future proofing could really pay off.

 

[Juicy Box]

Paying for something that you won't need is useless.
Same goes for your future proof examples.

Again, you are making a general statement on future proofing, without thinking beyond what one currently needs.

This is an extreme example, but if I currently need 450GB of storage, should I get the base model, because I will not currently using over 512GB?

Probably not a good idea.

What one needs right now, may not be what they need tomorrow. Nothing wrong with planning ahead.

Advice is: don't spend more than you need. Simple as that

I get what you are saying, but you are trying to provide a simple solution to a complex problem.

What "need" means to someone is very subjective. Many people don't need a new Mac. They could continue using a 10 year old Mac, as it gets the job done.

You said yourself, you "need" all the power you can get when working 3D, but I bet if your rig was less powerful, you could probably still get the job done. It might take more time with a slightly slower set up, but "need" might be an exaggeration.

The same could be said for many Mac users.