People are already asking if it is worth upgrading to the new M2 Pro Mac mini or how the M1 Max Mac Studio compares to the new M2 Pro Mac mini. If that is you, in this article, we share what we know.

In this article, we are going to compare the new M2 and M2 Pro Mac mini with its predecessor, the M1-powered Mac mini, before we go on to compare the M2 Pro Mac mini with the M1 Max-powered Mac Studio.

Please note that as Geekbench data has surfaced for the new M2 chips, we have updated this article.

M2 And M2 Pro Mac Mini Compared To M1 Mac Mini

On Tuesday, January 17th 2023, Apple announced the latest M2-powered Mac mini models. But unlike in 2020, when Apple only released an M1-powered Mac mini, in 2023, Apple announced two models, one powered by the M2 base processor and one powered by a new M2 Pro chip. The Mac mini is the cheapest Mac model in the Apple catalogue, so let’s take a look at what we know about the new Mac mini models and what they can do.

To start with, here is a table of the specs of the original 2020 M1-powered Mac mini alongside the specs for the two new M2-powered models.

Memory Capacity And Bandwidth

When it comes to memory, as you can see from the table, the M1 Mac mini came with either 8GB or 16GB unified memory options. What you may not be aware of is that the memory bandwidth of the M1 version was 68.25GB/s.

With the M2 model, Apple has increased the memory capacity up to a maximum of 24GB and the memory bandwidth to 100GB/s. Moving onto the M2 Pro model, the maximum memory capacity is 32GB, and the memory bandwidth has been doubled to 200GB/s.

Apple Media Engine

With the M2 models, even the standard M2 SoC comes with the Apple Media engine built-in on the chip. this means that the M2's Media Engine comes with dedicated video decode and engines, including some specific to ProRes and ProRes RAW, designed to make it more useful for video editing applications. Whereas although the M1 was able to handle encoding and decoding H.264 and HEVC video with hardware acceleration, it was not able to handle the ProRes and ProRes RAW that is included in the full-blown Media Engine.

Benchmark Data - Updated 19/02/2023

When the M2 models came out, we quickly learnt that the M2 was faster than the M1, with the M2 at 1,869 for a single-core test, compared to 1,707 for the M1. When it comes to multi-core, the M2 comes in at 8,900, compared to the M1 at 7,395.

Apple is already claiming that the M2 Pro is 2.5 times faster graphics performance in Affinity Photo and up to 4.2 times faster ProRes transcodes in Final Cut Pro compared to the M1.

Update: 19/02/2023

We have seen the first leaked Geekbench scores for a 12-core M2 Pro in a Mac mini with 16GB of unified memory with a single-Core score of 1952 and a Multicore score of 15013. This gives the M2 Pro a higher Geekbench than an M1 Max, say in a 2021 MacBook Pro or Mac Studio.

We have also seen the first leaked Geekbench scores for a MacBook Pro with an M2 Max SoC with 96GB unified memory with a single-Core score of 2027 and a Multicore score of 14888.

It’s interesting to note that the scores are very similar between the M2 Pro and M2 Max as they were between the M1 Pro and M1 Max, which perhaps isn’t that surprising as the M2 Pro and M2 Max share the share number of CPU cores. The difference between them is in the number of GPU cores, which don’t appear to show up on the Geekbench headline scores.

Update: 20/01/2023 - GPU Benchmark Data Released

With reviewers getting their hands on the latest M2-powered Apple computers, we are starting to see some actual data on Geekbench rather than Apple’s marketing data. As a result, we are seeing Geekbench Metalal scores, which give a much more targetted measure of GPU performance, which is lacking from the Geekbench headline scores for Single-Core and Multi-core benchmarks, which are a measure of CPU performance.

These results seem to confirm Apple’s claim of a 30% improvement with the M2 Pro and M2 Max over the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips. However, what is also interesting is that even the M2 Max isn’t better than the M1 Ultra, with the M1 Ultra still being about 9% faster than the M2 Max. But all this data points to the as yet, unreleased M2 Ultra as offering a very high score once it is released in a future version of the Mac Studio and/or Mac Pro.

Moving on to a Video Export comparison undertaken by YouTuber Brian Tong, this confirms Apple’s claim that the M2 Max’s dedicated dual ProRes encode and decode engines delivered just shy of 2x faster than the M1 Max export and even beat the M2 Ultra by 7 seconds! However, it should be noted that the M1 Ultra in the Mac Studio is still the fastest for exports from apps like Adobe Premiere and scored the highest in a Geekbench Metal GPU performance test.

Graphics

As you can see from the table above, the M1 Mac mini came with one GPU option - 8 cores. With the M2, you get two more graphics cores, which Apple claims will offer up to 2.4 times faster ProRes transcode in Final Cut Pro. When you make the jump to the M2 Pro SoC, you have the choice between 12 cores or 19 cores in the GPU, offering up to 4.2x faster ProRes transcode in Final Cut Pro.

This also impacts the number of screens and their resolution. The 2020 M1 could handle just two screens, the first could be a 6K display at 60Hz, but the second screen could only be a 4K 60Hz display.

For the standard M2, it’s still a maximum of two screens, but you can have one 6K 60Hz screen together with a 5K 60Hz display on Thunderbolt or a 4K 60Hz over HDMI.

A Mac mini with an M2 Pro SoC offers up to a maximum of 3 screens, two 6K 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one 4K over HDMI. Other configuration options are available, enabling you to push it to an 8K resolution for a single 60Hz display over HDMI or have a 4K resolution screen with a 240Hz refresh rate.

Connectivity

The connectivity options are the same between the M1 Mac mini and the M2 Mac mini. There are two 40Gb/s-capable Thunderbolt 4 ports, which can be used as DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 3, USB 4, and for earlier connection standards. Then there are two USB-A ports, capable of up to 5Gb/s, together with a Gigabit Ethernet port that can be configured to a 10-gigabit version, as well as an HDMI port and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The only difference is that with the M2 Pro model, the SoC enables two more Thunderbolt 4 ports bringing the TB4 port count up to four.

When it comes to wireless connectivity, the M1 Mac mini had Wi-Fi 6 support, as well as Bluetooth 5.0. In comparison, both the M2 models have been upgraded to Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

Storage

When it comes to storage, the M1 Mac mini had built-in SSD storage, starting at 256GB, with options to increase it to 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB when ordering your computer. The M2 Mac mini offers the same options. When it comes to the M2 Pro model, the starting point is a 512GD SSD with upgrade options for 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB. But be aware, although the larger storage options are more expensive, because they are not user upgradable you need to decide what size you want for an SSD when you order your Mac mini. If you want extra storage afterwards, you will have to go to external storage options.

SSDs Are Slower In The Base Models - Updated 26th February 2023

Although this is unlikely to impact most people buying a new Mac for the studio, it has come to light that the new M2 Mac mini with a 256GB SSD and new M2 MacBook Pro laptops with a 512GB SSD (the base model) have slower read and write speeds compared to their M1 powered predecessors.

As we reported in our article Apple M2 MacBook Pro - Another Reason To Think Twice Before Buying it seems that Apple has done something similar with the new M2 powered Mac mini computers. In the base model of the latest Mac mini, Apple has chosen to use one 256GB NAND chip, whereas in the M1 version, Apple used two 128GB NAND chips, and the key here is that two chips performing read/write functions are faster than a single chip doing the same thing.

What makes this worse is that when an Apple Silicon-powered computer runs out of unified memory, it effectively uses the SSD as what we used to call virtual memory and is now called a swapfile. The problem is that if the SSD is slower, then it takes longer for the SSD to do the swapfile, and that will impact the computer’s overall performance.

To avoid this we recommend that you go for a M2 Mac mini with at least 512GB of storage.

Pricing

The headline here is that the M2 base model is $100 cheaper than the M1 base model, with 8GB of Unified Memory, a 256GB SSD, and Gigabit Ethernet, with the upgrade fees for the M2 Mac mini being identical to the M1 Mac mini, except you can pay an additional $200 to get the maximum to 24GB of memory from the 16GB maximum with the M1 model.

You can get an M2 Mac mini with 24GB of memory, a 2TB SSD, and 10 Gigabit Ethernet for $1,899. With the M2 Pro model, a similar spec machine with a 2TB SSD and 10 Gigabit Ethernet will cost $2,699.

As to whether the M2 or M2 Pro Mac mini is a good deal, it does depend on where you are coming from.

If you have an M1 Mac mini and it is working for you, the cost of replacing it with an M2 or M2 Pro version probably isn’t worth it. But if you have an Intel Mac mini, then the M2 Pro Mac mini is well worth considering. But before you decide, please read on to see how an M1 Max Mac Studio lines up alongside an Mw2 Pro Mac mini, you may be surprised.

M2 Pro Mac Mini Compared To Mac Studio

For this exercise, we are going to compare the M2 Pro Mac mini with 32GB of RAM and 512GB of storage compares to the M1 Max Mac Studio with 32GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. We have made this choice because we have no idea when an M2-powered Mac Studio will be released, so looking at your options today, we are choosing to compare two similar speced computers.

Design

The main differences between the Mac mini and Mac Studio are height and internal volume. The Mac Studio is higher, and it has more ports and more cooling capability.

However, it would appear that the extra cooling may not be an actual benefit. Although we have seen reports from Mac Studio users saying that the cooling fan runs continuously, even without a load. Thanks to all of you who have replied so far. It would seem that for the work we do, it is virtually impossible to get the fan to run on a Mac Studio, which is great news for those of us who have the computer in the same room and need to record with microphones.

The smaller size of the Mac mini also means it is more portable and can more easily slip into a backpack for travel, for example.

Performance

The M2 Pro SoC has a 10-core CPU and a 16-core GPU with a 16-core Neural Engine, whereas the M1 Max has a 10-core CPU and a 24-core GPU with a 16-core Neural Engine.

To try and make it as fair as possible, we have configured both machines with 32GB of unified memory. But one thing to note is that the However, M1 Max has a memory bandwidth of 400GB/s versus 200GB/s for the M2 Pro so that data can travel from CPU and GPU to the unified memory twice as quickly with the Mac Studio.

When it comes to the Media Engine, even though the Media Engine for the M2 Pro has been improved over the M1 Pro, the M1 Max offers twice as many encode and decode engines, so the Mac Studio wins out on that one too.

Although there aren’t any hard numbers to compare the performance between the Mac Studio and the M2 Pro Mac mini, looking at the stats Apple has released, comparing each machine with an Intel powered Mac with a Core-i7 processor, Apple claims that the Mac Studio with M1 Max has a 2.5 times CPU performance increase over that iMac, compared to the Mac mini with M2 Pro, which offers closer to 2 times for certain tasks like compiling code.

Looking at the GPU performance of each of the machines, we have seen reports that suggest that if you were to bump up the Mac mini to the version with a 19-core GPU Apple claims it to be 2.5 times more powerful at graphics tasks like gaming or image rendering over the M1 processor. Compared to the M1 Max Mac Studio with a 32-core GPU, Apple claims four times more GPU performance over the M1. The suggestion is that at 16-cores, the Mac Studio would have comparable performance to the maxed-out M2 Pro graphics. Whereas with the selected SoC, the 16-core GPU in the M2 Pro wouldn’t be quite as good as the M1 Max with a 24-core GPU, but only by a small amount. But please note these comparisons are based on extrapolated data from Apple PR, and we cannot be sure of the true performance of the M2 Pro chip in the Mac mini until real tests are undertaken once the M2 Pro Mac mini is released.

Ports

When it comes to ports, the M2 Pro Mac mini offers four 40Gb/s-capable Thunderbolt 4 ports, which can be used as DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 3, USB 4, and for earlier connection standards. Then there are two USB-A ports, capable of up to 5Gb/s, together with a Gigabit Ethernet port that can be configured to a 10-gigabit version, as well as an HDMI port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. When it comes to screens, an M2 Pro Mac mini offers up to a maximum of 3 screens, two Pro Display XDRs and one 4K monitor over HDMI simultaneously.

Looking at the Mac Studio, you get four 40Gb/s-capable Thunderbolt 4 ports, 10Gb Ethernet as standard, two USB-A, HDMI, and a 3.5mm headphone jack in the rear. The front has two USB-C ports, capable of up to 5Gb/s and an SDXC card slot. With regard to screens, the M1 Max Mac Studio supports up to four Pro Display XDRs and one 4K monitor over HDMI simultaneously.

On the other hand, the M2 Pro Mac mini does bring some new advantages that the Mac Studio doesn't have in terms of connectivity. The HDMI port on the new Mac mini has been upgraded to support higher resolutions and frame rates, depending on the monitors in use.

Price

The M2 Pro Mac mini configuration we've selected is priced at $1,699. In comparison, the Mac Studio baseline configuration comes in at $1,999.

You could take the option of bumping the Mac mini CPU up to 12 cores for a total price of $1,999, which adds two efficiency cores that the Mac Studio doesn't have in the M1 Max base chipset. It will mean a small gain in performance for certain tasks but won't likely be overly noticeable in day-to-day operations.

That $300 difference might be enough to convince most to select the Mac mini for its lower price. But from our perspective, if you have to make a decision today or at least before Apple releases an M2 Max-powered Mac Studio, then the extra $300 is money well spent.

That said, for those on the fence, the Mac mini with an M2 Pro SoC is much more capable than ever at a better price.