M2 Mac Mini (2023) - 20 Things You NEED to KNOW!

two days ago Apple unveiled the new 2023 Max MacBook Pros and some mac minis in the last video we focused on the MacBook Pro but in this one it is all about the Mac Mini which I think is actually the true star of this show so you are not five not ten not 15 but actually 20 things you need to know about the new Mac Mini number one is that we actually have not one but two models of the Mac Mini the low end which comes with the M2 Chip in the high end which comes with the empty Pro chip and also a couple of extra features which I'm going to cover in just a bit and this higher end model now replaces the previous Intel model so yes the Intel Mac Mini has finally been discontinued the second thing that you should know is that this Mac Mini offers you an insane amount of value especially the base M2 model that's because Apple doll made it cheaper so now it starts from 600 compared to 700 and even in the UK where usually you know it everything's more expensive it is cheaper as well so 649 pounds compared to 700 which is what it used to cost but the best part is that if you are a student you can get it with Apple's educational discount so in that case you can get it for 500 which is an insane value for an M2 Mac the only other M2 Max so the MacBook Air M2 and the 13 Chicago Pro M2 these are way more expensive the M2 Mac Mini is essentially half the price of the M2 air that number three this base M2 Mac Mini actually offers you not the MacBook Air m2's performance but a 13-inch MacBook Pros performance or even better than that and that's because unlike the MacBook Air which comes with no fan and the bins 8 core GPU the Mac Mini comes with a fan and the full 10 core GPU just like the MacBook Pro however thermals are likely going to be better than on the 13 Chicago Pro because we have more space inside and also a more powerful fan so you should be able to get more performance out of this Mac Mini we will be doing in-depth testing so you do subscribe and stay tuned for that starting from next week but yeah essentially this new Mac Mini M2 is a 13 Pack I'm throwing two I just without a keyboard screen and trackpad and at less than half the cost speaking of screens number four you can actually connect more external displays now previously with the M1 Mac Mini you could connect to this place one 6K through the thermal port and then one 4K via the HDMI port and now with the Mt Mac Mini you can connect two 6K displays so that's an upgrade but then of course you also have the higher end Mac Mini the M2 pro model which allows you to connect three displays now so two 6K monitors and then one 4K which is awesome if you're on a Mac that supports three monitors because before if you wanted that you had to get an M1 Max Max studio or an M1 Max 14 or 16 inch MacBook Pro number five we also get more ports with these new Mac minis so the base M2 model is unchanged we get ethernet which can be 1 or 10 gig up to you when you configure it and we get two Thunderbolt 4 ports HDMI two USB A's and a a headphone jack however if you upgrade the chip to the empty Pro then you get four Thunderbolt 4 ports just like the outgoing Intel model so this Mac Mini especially is very very good in terms of connectivity speaking of the Intel model at number six we can say goodbye to the space gray color option because that was also discontinued alongside the Intel Mac Mini sadly now you can only get the Mac Mini in silver just like the Mac Studio then number seven we also get more storage so even though the base storage is still 256 now you can upgrade your Mac Mini up to four and eight terabyte of storage options whereas before the maximum was two terabytes but this only applies to the M2 pro model and not the M2 which still maxes out at two terabytes then number eight the Disney Mac Mini also offers you a higher supported refresh rate a 4K 240 hertz as opposed to 4K 60 which we had on the previous model now this is thanks to the upgraded HDMI 2.1 Port compared to HDMI 2. 0.0 so you have a high reference rate 4k monitor you can connect it to your Mac Mini and even do some gaming thanks to a No Man's sky and Resident Evil 8 now being available on Mac OS number nine a higher resolution so also thanks to that upgraded HDMI port you can now connect up to an 8K monitor at 60 hertz from the previous 4K 60hz Max that we had through that HDMI port number 10 multi-channel audio so also thanks to this new HDMI port you can connect your Mac Mini to a surround sound system and get the full 7.1 surround sound experience this wasn't doable before at least through that HDMI port at number 11 we likely have a new cooling system inside these new Mac Minis and that is because we have a difference when it comes to the weight so the M1 Mac Mini had a weight of 1.2 kilograms the M2 is actually lighter at 1.18 but the M2 Pro is actually heavier at 1.28 and likely because of a beefier cooling system and that is very important because number 12 the M2 pro version of the Mac Mini can also draw more power up to 185 watts compared to up to 150 which is what the M2 model and the M1 model of the Mac Mini can draw so for part draw a better cooling system what sort of performance are we actually expecting to see from these new Mac minis well let's start off with the M2 model compared to the M1 we have an 8 core CPU which Apple claims is 18 faster and a 10 core GPU up from 8 core which Apple claims is 35 faster there's also a brand new neural engine which is 40 faster which according to Apple would help with video and image processing and we also have New Media engines for prores encode and decode so prores work would actually be significantly faster it stems faster according to Apple than with the M1 version of the Mac Mini in terms of real world usage Apple claims that photoshop worked is now 50 faster on the M2 Mac Mini of course that we will be doing our own testing to verify and add to these claims as well now when it comes to the M2 pro model according to Apple the CPU is now 1.9 times faster than the M1 and that is because we have a 12 core CPU compared to the 8 core that we had before and the M2 is also an 8 core chip when it comes to the GPU this is now 2.6 times faster than the M1 Mac Mini as we now have 19 GPU cores compared to 10 on the M2 or 8 on the M1 and according to Apple this new Mac Mini is now 14 times faster than the fastest configuration of the Intel Mac Mini that they used to sell up until just a few days ago in terms of how it compares to the M2 model code compiling is almost twice as fast Final Cut exports are twice as fast as the M2 Mac Mini and Photoshop is 25 faster than the M2 model so the M2 Mac Mini is a good upgrade over the M1 but the M2 Pro is a significant upgrade over the M1 model 15 these new Mac minis also supports more RAM so previously the M1 maxed out at 16 gigabytes now with the M2 you can configure it to up to 24 gigabytes of RAM and when it comes to the M2 pro version this can go up to 32 gigabytes not only that but we also have a much faster memory bandwidth so on the M1 we had 68 gigabytes per second on the M2 we now have 100 and with the M2 Pro we have 200 gigabytes per second so everything that you do switching between apps and just loading apps in general will feel much faster on these new models compared to the M1 then speaking of faster we also have a much faster Wi-Fi at number 16 with Wi-Fi 6E which is now almost twice as fast at 2.4 gigabits compared to about 1.5 with Wi-Fi 6. and we also get a dedicated 6 gigahertz band so if you have a y56a router you're going to get significantly less congestion because the new Mac Mini would only use that six gigahertz band and we also get a newer Bluetooth standard with Bluetooth 5.3 as opposed to 5.0 which means that if you have any Bluetooth 5.3 enabled earbuds such as the airpods pro 2s they would connect bit faster and consume less power that number 18 do avoid the base 256 gigabytes of storage model and that's because the storage speeds would be half of what you would get with the 512 as Apple would very likely be using the same SSD as in the base M2 air and the base M2 13-inch MacBook Pro especially if you keep the Ram at 8 gigabytes it would use swap memory and in that case the storage speed would impact your usage of the new Mac Mini so do keep all of this in mind and something else that you should keep in mind is number 19 the M2 pro version of the Mac Mini is by far the best overall choice for creatives more specifically the 1300 version that comes with a 10 core CPU and the 16 core GPU yes this is the bin version but this actually matches the M1 Pro chip in terms of the CPU and the GPU core account this version also comes with 16 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage and the only other Mac with this version of the M2 Pro chip is the base 40 inch MacBook Pro which starts from two thousand dollars so you're essentially saving seven hundred dollars with this configuration of the Mac mini um and you're likely getting better cooling as well if you do any 4K video anything this Mac Mini would easily be able to handle that uh even when it comes to complex projects or simple 8K projects that won't be an issue a coding again won't be an issue 3D modeling and even some rendering to some extent as you do have a fast enough CPU and GPU for that so this is a great overall machine for creatives so how does this compare to the Mac Studio well the Mac Studio starts from two thousand dollars and it comes with the M1 Max chip not the M2 Max very interesting so they will likely be updating that at some point in the near future but yeah that's the 10 core CPU 24 core GPU 32 gigs of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage now you do get more ports with a Mac Studio as you do get an extra SD card reader and two extra USB C ports on the front you also get a better cooling system but also a slightly more outdated HDMI port which is 2.0 and maxes out at 4K 60. now here's the thing if you configure a Mac Mini with similar specs which would be 32 gigs of RAM the 12 core M2 Pro CPU and the 19 core GPU so essentially a better CPU but worse GPU it would cost you the same two thousand dollars so you might as well just get the Max studio in that case as deep in mind that those extra CPU cores that's the Mac Mini comes with those are only efficiency cores so you're not really going to notice that much of an improvement in your everyday workflow because the high performance cores are still the same number so in that case the absolute best M2 Pro Mac Mini configuration is indeed the base model with a 10 core CPU 16 core GPU 16 gigs of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage and if you really want to upgrade anything I would say upgrade the RAM to 32 gigabytes but even that would Bond the price to 1700 which is just 300 dollars less than the Max studio and by the way if you do want to get some great deals on the Mac Studio you can find them by tapping on the YouTube shoppable cards down below but yeah you check out our MacBook Pro video as well I'm Daniel Tech and I'll see you guys in the next one son of tech signing out cheers [Music]

Channel: ZONEofTECH

Views: 174,236

Keywords: Mac mini m2, m2 mac mini, m2 pro mac mini, mac mini m2 pro, mac mini 2023, 2023 mac mini, new mac mini, mac mini vs mac studio, mac mini m2 pro vs m1 max, mac mini m2 pro vs macbook pro, mac mini vs macbook pro, mac mini, apple mac mini, zoneoftech, zone of tech

Id: JRZrIyDmvDo

Length: 11min 26sec (686 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 19 2023