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Which Mac Mini to purchase M6 vs. M5 Pro

Traveller604

Traveller604

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I currently have an Intel iMac 27" w/i7 processor & 32 GB RAM and it's time to upgrade. I need help/guidance on deciding which Mac Mini to purchase.

Set up considerations:
1. Mac Mini M6 with 24 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD
2. Mac Mini M5 Pro with 24 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD

I currently use the iMac for the following:
  • Browsing the internet, emails, etc
  • Online meetings, recording podcasts via Google Meet, etc
  • Editing photos on Lightroom and Photoshop, I have a Canon 5DII camera and may upgrade to a newer camera that outputs bigger RAW files in the future. When using Lightroom and Photoshop, I often do panorama and HDR merging & rendering
  • Excel spreadsheets and writing documents in Word
  • Editing audio podcasts using an online tool, not editing files locally but transferring files locally and to the online tool

My kids also play Minecraft on the computer. I may play some games as well, but nothing graphic intensive.

We also have a Mac Air M4 w/16GB RAM, used mostly for browsing the internet and online meetings.
I currently do not do any video editing or local AI modelling, but may do some video editing in the future, although the editing may utilize an online video editing tool rather than a local one (TBD). It remains to be seen whether the kids will do coding and AI modelling in the future or not. Plan to keep the new Mac Mini for ~5 years.

Based on what I can find, looks like the M6 is the way to go. But I'm wondering if 24 GB RAM is sufficient, as I typically have 20 or more browser tabs open while using other apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, and Excel at the same time.

When I looked at M6 w/32GB, the price delta between that and the M5 Pro w/24 GB isn't huge ($200 CAD). So I'm curious if it's better to go with the M5 Pro with 24 GB only because it has a higher memory bandwidth.

Pricing between the models (in Canadian dollars)
$1,849 Mac Mini M6 with 24 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD
$2,149 Mini M6 with 32 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD
$2,349 Mini M5 Pro with 24 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD

Thank you!
 
Last edited:
I would not "go forward" from the 32gb RAM you have now, to a 24gb Mini of ANY kind.
That's simply "going the wrong way".

For the tasks you outlined, m6 CPU should do fine. This might be different if you were to start editing 4k video in large quantities, etc. But for still photos... fine, more than enough.

You're going to find that a 512gb drive becomes "constrained" in the future.
I'd recommend 1tb internal SSD as "the minimum" these days.

So...
m6
32gb RAM
1tb SSD

You will pay more "up front" for this, but you will be "paid back" in longevity and an overall smoothness of operation.

That's my opinion, and I'm stickin' to it.

Aside:
Canon 5DII?
It's time for mirrorless...!
Look at the EOS r6 mark 3.
Or even the upcoming EOS R8 mark 2, to be announced around Sept. 15...
 
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I was thinking 512 GB SSD and supplement with an external SSD. I assume for photo editing I can read and save files from the external SSD and won't see too much of a performance hit.

I was under the impression that unified memory is a lot better than iMac so I might not as much?

It was a typo, 5DIII but yea still an old camera. A mirrorless would be nice. 🙂
 
It's a $200 difference between M6 32 GG/512 GB and M5 Pro 24G/512 GB. What is better based on my usage? The extra 8GB of memory or the higher memory bandwidth (307 GB/s on M5 Pro vs 170 GB/s on M6)?
 
My initial thoughts:

The Minis never came with anything but a power cable, so you'll need a display, a small camera for video meetings, and the mini speaker is lousy, compared to an imac. I would also recommend investing in a Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, Touch ID being extremely practical.

Your idea of having an internal 512GB for system, apps, and user account files, while using external NVMe drive(s) for big storage like photos, video, music etc, is IME perfectly fine. I've not had a bigger than 512GB internal for many years, and it's usually ~50% free space.

I have no hard numbers, but regarding the memory bus speed, I have owned both M2 base and M4 base models and switched both of them to the Pro models and the perceived performance was pretty big in both cases. Same cpu clock speed, a few more cores to the Pros, but I really feel that the ram bus speed played an important role.

I'm fine with 24GB ram, using Lightroom and music creation software and a little video sw, but I never need to run them simultaneously - anyway, the speed of these M processors, SSDs, and memory speeds, makes quitting and launching apps takes only a few seconds.
 
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Traveller604 said:
I was under the impression that unified memory is a lot better than iMac so I might not as much?
Click to expand...
Remember that your iMac has RAM on the graphics "card". Lightroom will be making use of that for processing. The new Mac may be more efficient, but some of it will be used for graphics. If you need that current 32GB plus 4 or 8 graphics RAM, then replace it with a new 32 GB Mac.
 
With the kind of basic use cases you have, 24 GB should be more than adequate for 3-5+ years. In fact for the next 2-3+ years even 16 GB should do great.

Your existing M4 16gb should last 2-5 years if you want.

You certainly don't need 32 gb.

Besides 24gb with Apple Silicon should be comparable or better than 32gb with Intel.
 
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