M2 Pro Mac mini Base Model - DON'T BE FOOLED!

Apple has done a great job recently with their entry-level Apple silicon lineup providing multiple options like the new low price M2 Mac Mini and even in their laptop lineup they offer low-cost Solutions like the MacBook Air that punch way above their weight class in performance however what Apple has done a poor job of not only in the modern Apple silicon lineup but also throughout the company's history was providing a mid-range level desktop computer that focused not only on power but also on value well at least until now because apple is now putting forth its best effort with a new M2 Mac Mini with Apple's M2 Pro chip so I have some questions like is this 1300 M2 Mac Pro Mini really that much faster than the regular M2 version how well does that 10 core M2 Pro to perform do you need to upgrade this Mac to Mac Studio pricing to make it a pro computer and above all is the M2 Mac Mini something you should buy or is it something you should avoid I don't know why we got so serious but we're gonna find that out all right so out of the box you would be forgiven for thinking that this M2 Mac Mini is exactly the same as the base model M2 Mac Mini with the only difference being that Apple swapped out the weaker M2 Chip with a more powerful M2 Pro chip however that is not quite the case here well the mini on the outside looks nearly identical the back reveals what is indeed a different machine with two additional high-speed Thunderbolt 4 ports on the back of this device and even an upgraded HDMI 2.1 cable that lets this small desktop box Drive either an 8K or a 4K display at faster refresh rates but the ports aren't the only change the inside of the M2 Pro Mini also reveals a different logic board a longer heatsink and a slightly different fan position and those internal differences do make sense when you consider this M2 Pro Mini is 0.2 pounds heavier than the regular M2 version so even though they both have the same aluminum enclosure and while both computers fit inside this same small enclosure to call them the same computer would kind of be disingenuous this M2 Pro equip mini is its own unique machine now that we've gotten that out of the way let's focus on how this base model performs and when I say base model what I mean is the stock configuration on Apple's website which comes with 512 gigabytes of storage 16 gigabytes of unified memory and most importantly a Bend M2 Pro chip which features a 10 core CPU with four high performance cores and four energy efficient cores which is two performance CPU cores less than a fully binned M2 Pro chip which Apple sells as an additional 300 upgrade this 300 version also comes with all 19 GPU cores enabled while the base model has only 16 of those GPU cores active now for me personally this was the M2 Pro Mac Mini that I was excited to test out specifically that binned version because when you start adding on that 300 M2 prochip up grade this cheaper M2 Pro machine starts to creep quickly into Mac Studio pricing territory so I think for most users this 1299 starting configuration is going to end up being the more sensible choice and really this 1300 version in my opinion it has to be the one that performs decent enough to make sense to to make this product have a reason for existing because if it doesn't then why even bother making this product when the Mac Studio already exists now unlike other reviews where I have to cover the display the webcam the keyboard the speakers we don't have to cover any of that on the mini because the mini doesn't have any other well it does have a speaker the mini does have a speaker and it's not good so get get some dedicated uh desktop speakers if you're going to get a mini but what we really have to cover inside of this machine is just the chip itself the chipset is what we have to cover so right off the bat I want to run some benchmarks to see how this chip Stacks up now the first thing I actually did want to test is actually the SSD speeds to see if we are dealing with the slower speeds that appear to be in the base model M2 MacBook Pro and as we run the disk speed test it appears that we have the same chipset here it's not like Apple's making different like chipsets for the MacBook Pro and this uh M2 Pro Mac Mini now technically the Mac Mini has never had any of these Pro variant chips before so it's not like there's like a previous model where you would say it was slower but it is slower than what you would find on last year's entry-level MacBook Pros but hey it's not a slow SSD I think it's fine for the price point and it's twice as fast as what you would find on the base level uh M2 Mac Mini with the 256 gigabyte Drive okay now that we got that out of the way let's turn to CPU performance to see how well this M2 Pro chip Stacks up with its two missing CPU cores so in geekbench we can actually see some pretty impressive results right off the bat so this M2 Pro chip in single core performance is no surprise it's going to have the same level of performance or at least be in the ballpark of every other M2 Chip on the market but the multi-core performance is what you really have to look at here and you get a respectable 12 011 score which kind of puts this at the same level of multi-core performance as a full 10 core M1 Pro chip and that's great to see apple is making the value of this base level chip pretty much the same as their Flagship laptop chips from the last models and if you wanted to compare it against the base level M2 mini to see if it was worth spending more money on this Mt prochip well it is because you're getting a 30 increase in multi-core performance all right next I want it to load up a more intensive Benchmark so this time I went with cinebench and the M2 Pro Mini didn't break a sweat in fact I didn't even audibly hear the fans spin up in this last test overall the M2 Pro Mini got a score of 11 694 which is a little lower than last year's full 10 core CPU and the M1 Pro but still in the ballpark range the full 12 core M2 Pro chip in CPU performance scored 14802 that's a respectable 23 performance increase the binned M2 Pro chip did favorably against the regular M2 Chip once again basically kind of repeating the results we saw in our geekbench multi-core performance uh basically getting a 31 performance jump from the regular M2 Chip so in CPU performance this base model is holding up extremely well yes you can get a more powerful CPU by going for that full 12 Court option as we can see uh in the geekbench and cinebench results but hey this thing is still performing really well and basically performing at the flagship level of the last m one pro and M1 Max models in terms of CPU performance now let's check on GPU performance first up let's go for the best possible scenario let's load and optimize program that can take advantage of Apple's metal architecture so for this test I loaded up gfx bench we're going to do the Aztec Ruins height here off screen 4K Benchmark so if we're comparing against the entry level M2 mini with this bind M2 Pro chip we can see the M2 Pro scores 78 FPS compared to 49 FPS on the M2 Chip that's a huge 45 increase even on this binned M2 Pro chip so that GPU difference is a pretty big difference now you might be asking yourself what if I upgrade to the M2 Pro chip with the 19 GPU cores well I see a noticeable difference in this Benchmark and you do get a modest 16 performance boost so you are getting a performance boost by going for those 19 GPU cores but it's not as big of a jump as going from the regular M2 to the bin end M2 Pro another important take out of this Benchmark is that the GPU is faster on the bend model compared to last year's M1 Pro Flagship model so we are seeing really nice GPU gains even if you're getting this bin chip you are getting a better GPU than what you would get on the last year's full core model that costed extra money so that's actually a really good value now I actually wanted to test the max chip against this as well so I wanted to test it my 16 inch MacBook Pro to kind of see like what would a theoretical M2 Max Max studio look like like I assume Apple's eventually going to release that product they have an M1 Max version why wouldn't they make an M2 Max version so on my 16 inch uh with the full 38 GPU cores we see a really big jump here so that actually scored 179 FPS overall that's a whopping 78 increase in GPU performance so if you were thinking about upgrading the Mac Mini to get a better GPU for 300 more and it's getting close to that like like two thousand dollar entry level Mac Studio pricing territory I don't know it might be smarter to kind of hold off on that if if that's what's really important to you but as you probably know Macs aren't really meant for gaming and most games aren't optimized to take advantage not only of Mac OS but they're not even fully optimized Now for Apple silicon so it's kind of like two different unoptimized things at once so in a game like shadow of the Tomb Raider I was expecting the Mac Mini with only 16 GPU cores not to offer much but the M2 Pro to my surprise seemed like it might be decent enough scoring an overall 57 frames per second on the highest Benchmark at 1080p that's only 5 frames less than the 19 core GPU variant and still a huge increase over the regular M2 Chip which couldn't even hit 30 FPS marking a massive 65 Improvement in gaming on this M2 Pro chip now again if you're curious about the theoretical performance of a Mac Studio with a with a full M2 Max chip you can expect to get 103 FPS on that same bed Benchmark and that does give it a 50 performance jump over the 19 core M2 Pro but let me take a moment here to appreciate that this new Mac Mini is the most powerful it has ever been in GPU performance I mean the previous minis to this either had the regular M series chip or in the Intel days only the option for really and I mean really lackluster Intel integrated gpus so while this may not be theoretical Mac Studio level or the new 16-inch MacBook Pro level of Graphics this is like the best option we have ever seen in terms of relative GPU performance on a Mac Mini and that is really exciting that is one of the things I've Loved about this apple silicon transition is that when you were going for lower end bottles like the 14-inch MacBook Pro which which replaced the 13-inch model or now this new Mac Mini which replaced that Intel model you're actually able to get respectable GPU performance in machines were before you really couldn't hope for much in terms of GPU performance all right finally for my own personal reasons I wanted to test a Final Cut Pro 10 minute 4K export I wanted to see just how much of a difference some of these chips are so I want to do from you know the M2 Mac Mini this M2 pro version and then the best possible outcome with an M2 Max MacBook Pro so for an h.264 export we can see that the M2 Pro offers only some slight Time Savings for a simple 4K clip exporting it only 21 seconds faster the M2 Max proved to be a bigger gain from the M2 to the M2 Pro exporting the clip around two minutes faster than the M2 Pro chip for a prores export we see a much bigger difference on the M2 Pro chip versus the M2 Chip the M2 Pro export it in just one minute and 32 seconds while the M2 Chip took 4 minutes and 53 seconds around 3 minutes and 20 seconds faster than the regular M2 Chip meanwhile for the prores export the M2 Max was only 17 seconds faster than this M2 Pro chip showing just a very slight advantage and for a future update editing performance itself in the timeline on the 10 core M2 Mac Mini was smooth without hiccups render times were fast scrubbing and Playback in the timeline was smooth even with multiple 4K streams and added Graphics so I think we've done enough tests and I'm sorry if I couldn't run every Benchmark out there or every comparison out there I know there's a lot of different workflows so if you have a suggestion for tests for a future video please let me know in the comments below but you'll be kind about it but I think I can answer some questions at this point on if this base model M2 Pro Mac Mini is worth it and I think the answer is it's a resounding yes this thing is obviously worth it this thing is a really good value you really aren't losing too much by going for this bin model when I compared it against the fully binned M2 Pro chip and I'm not sure that the added performance for most people is worth that extra three hundred dollars I think the first upgrade those users might want to look at instead is adding in more memory or storage and still making it come out ahead and price point to something like the Mac Studio overall I am really impressed with the base model machine and there doesn't seem to be a catch here this really is in my opinion the first modern Mac in this price range that appears to fulfill the promise of a mid-range Mac that just runs like a dream and honestly when you compare it to Max from a few years ago in its same price range like a 21 inch iMac or even that older space gray Intel Mac Mini they just don't compare it to the levels of performance you can get out of this machine it's even better than a lot of the pro level Max Apple sold a few years ago like the iMac Pro or the Mac Pro with their five thousand dollar plus price ranges for the Target customer that this Mac Mini is targeting it's a no-brainer purchase this is the best valued Pro Mac that I have ever seen and I think it only really gets beaten out in overall value to something like the regular base model M2 Mac Mini but even that might be arguable depending on how much performance you need but all right let me know in the comments below what do you think of this new M2 Pro Mac Mini or can we just call it a Mac Mini Pro at this point if you plan on picking one up consider purchasing one through my affiliate link obviously if you like the video don't forget to give me a like if you want to see more from the channel don't forget to subscribe and I'll catch you in the next one

Channel: GregsGadgets

Views: 67,291

Keywords: Mac mini, Mac mini m2 pro, Mac mini 2023, Mac mini m2 pro review, Mac mini 2023 review, Mac mini m2 pro vs m2, Mac mini m2 pro base model, Mac mini 10 core vs 12 core, Mac mini m2 pro 10 core vs 12 core, Mac mini m2 pro 16 core vs 19 core, Mac mini m2 pro base model worth it, Mac mini m2 pro 16 vs 32 memory, Mac mini m2 pro video editing, Mac mini m2 pro gaming, Mac mini m2 pro base model gaming, Mac mini m2 pro base model video editing, Mac mini m2 pro development

Id: sX5XDskA-V4

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 27 2023