Creating web content isn’t as demanding as making, say, 3D effects for a major movie or TV show. Let’s take that a step forward and say that creating any kind of content won’t be demanding with Apple’s new Mac Mini by your side. Last updated in 2020 when Apple added the M1 chip, signalling a shift away from Intel, the new version of the Mini offers the M2 and M2 Pro chips.
The refreshed Mini is for a bunch of target audience —content creators, live streamers as well as gamers. Many have a Mini that’s five to seven years old and before these become chuggy and if you’re someone who works with software like Final Cut Pro, Illustrator or Adobe Dimension, it’s time to upgrade.
The Mini’s baseline configuration includes the M2 chip,8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage, besides featuring an HDMI port, gigabit ethernet, and a standard headphone jack, alongside two USB-A ports and two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports on the rear of the device — an upgrade from the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the previous generation.
The M2 Pro configuration comes with 16GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD storage, and an additional two Thunderbolt 4 ports alongside the ports already available on the standard M2 model. Users can also add an additional 16GB of RAM.
We are talking about a lot of power here. With the M2 version, Photoshop performance can increase up to 50 percent compared to the M1 version and 2.4x faster in transcoding in Final Cut Pro. On the M2 Pro version, it can be up to 4.2x faster than the M1 Mac Mini in Final Cut Pro. Paired with Studio Display and Magic accessories, along with the power and ease of mac OS Ventura, Mac Mini offers a desktop experience that takes productivity and creativity to the next level.
The M2 version features an eight-core CPU with four high-performance and four high-efficiency cores, along with a 10- core GP. The M2 model can also simultaneously play up to two streams of 8K ProRes 422 video at 30fps, or up to 12 streams of 4KProRes 422 video at 30fps. Apple says that the Mac mini is up to 5x faster than the bestselling Windows desktop.
With its powerful media engine with ProRes acceleration, Mac Mini with M2 Pro delivers unbelievably fast video processing
The M2 Pro version features up to a 12-core CPU with eight high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, along with up to a 19-core GPU and M2 Pro has 200GB/s of memory bandwidth— double the amount in M2. It can simultaneously play up to five streams of 8K ProRes 422 video at 30fps, or up to 23 streams of 4K ProRes 422 video at 30fps.
Musicians and video editors may prefer the M2 Pro version over the M2. For example, musicians can produce music with powerful plug-ins and effects while photographers can adjust huge images in an instant. Content creators can seamlessly work in multicam with multiple camera formats, including ProRes video, and gamers can play demanding titles in console quality.
The M2 Mac Mini can support up to two displays (one display of up to 6K / 60Hz over a Thunderbolt connection and a second display of up to 5K / 60Hz over Thunderbolt or a 4K / 60Hz over HDMI) while the M2 Pro option can support either three displays (two displays up to6K / 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and one 4K / 60Hz display over HDMI) or a single 8K display.
And the best part is that it’s priced well. Building a PC is no longer in expensive. Throw in the cost of RAM, PSU, Windows license and so on, having a good Windows PC is not cheap, besides consuming a lot of energy. Keeping this in mind, Mac Mini makes for a great purchase and it has a smaller footprint.
All this also means it’s the end of the line for the Intel Mac Mini.