27" iMac 2017 to Mac Mini M2 Pro - any benefit?

[Sal Collaziano]

Well. I guess I'll give up on a new 27" iMac. I don't want the smaller 24" displays. I don't do much in the form of graphic or video artwork - but I can have two web browsers each with 20 tabs opened simultaneously - AND Mac Mail and Thunderbird Mail opened simultaneously, each with 10 email accounts...

My current iMac is configured as such:
- 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
- Radeon Pro 580 8 GB
- 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
- 3TB Fusion Drive

Here's what the Mac Mini M2 Pro would look like:
- Apple M2 Pro with 12‑core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
- 32GB unified memory
- 4TB SSD storage
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Four Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, two USB‑A ports, headphone jack

I use three monitors, so I want those 4 ports on the Pro... Anyway - am I making a mistake here? Will I see improved performance? Or should I just stick with my 2017 iMac? Any thoughts, opinions and/or constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated...

 

[IngerMan]

Can you add your iMac internal drive, that would be huge if it is not SSD. Hybrid was in that time frame.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

You will absolutely see improved performance.

The other option is to look at an M1 Max Mac Studio. An extra two USB-C up front plus an SD card slot, and (if it matters) 10Gb Ethernet included. And M1 Mac Studios can be found on sale for hundreds of dollars off, making it significantly cheaper than the Mini.

Also, skip Apple's expensive internal SSD and go for an external Thunderbolt 4 TB SSD that is just as fast and save a few hundred dollars, or get an ultra-fast USB 3.2 SSD that still is more than fast enough for what you say you'll use it for and save a thousand dollars.

 

[Sal Collaziano]

Can you add your iMac internal drive, that would be huge if it is not SSD. Hybrid was in that time frame.

Yes, I just added that I have a 3TB Fusion drive...

You will absolutely see improved performance.

The other option is to look at an M1 Max Mac Studio. An extra two USB-C up front plus an SD card slot, and (if it matters) 10Gb Ethernet included. And M1 Mac Studios can be found on sale for hundreds of dollars off, making it significantly cheaper than the Mini.

Also, skip Apple's expensive internal SSD and go for an external Thunderbolt 4 TB SSD that is just as fast and save a few hundred dollars, or get an ultra-fast USB 3.2 SSD that still is more than fast enough for what you say you'll use it for and save a thousand dollars.

Thank you. I will consider the external drives. I guess at $3k I should also also consider the Mac Studio. Not sure I need 10Gb Ethernet...?

 

[Velin]

I am considering the same exact thing. One reason to go for the M2 Pro mini is that HDMI 2.1 port, which can give you up to 4k at 240Hz, or reduced specs if running three monitors. It can also drive two 6k displays at 60 Hz, and a third at 4k. That is pretty good.

This is the way I would go. The higher PPI displays are coming, including 6k displays like Dell's U3224KB, higher refresh rate 4k displays, and newer OLED displays. The 27" 5k iMac does have a great display, the entire computer was such a bargain at under $2k.

But at long last, even the 5k iMac display is soon going to be inferior. This is no longer theoretical; better displays already are here, and even more advanced displays are going to be released in 2023 and 2024.

If you've ever tried OLED for a monitor, it looks incredible; it's hard to go back to IPS when you've used one. Also good are Dell's IPS black panels. All of this is to say, I'd look long and hard at the significantly increased display capabilities of the M2 Pro Mini, versus the older M1 Studio.

 

[Sal Collaziano]

I am considering the same exact thing. One reason to go for the M2 Pro mini is that HDMI 2.1 port, which can give you up to 4k at 240Hz, or reduced specs if running three monitors. It can also drive two 6k displays at 60 Hz, and a third at 4k. That is pretty good.

This is the way I would go. The higher PPI displays are coming, including 6k displays like Dell's U3224KB, higher refresh rate 4k displays, and newer OLED displays. The 27" 5k iMac does have a great display, the entire computer was such a bargain at under $2k.

But at long last, even the 5k iMac display is soon going to be inferior. This is no longer theoretical; better displays already are here, and even more advanced displays are going to be released in 2023 and 2024.

If you've ever tried OLED for a monitor, it looks incredible; it's hard to go back to IPS when you've used one. Also good are Dell's IPS black panels. All of this is to say, I'd look long and hard at the significantly increased display capabilities of the M2 Pro Mini, versus the older M1 Studio.

I’m still leaning toward the mini. However, display power isn’t important to me. I don’t do video or graphic work outside of a little Adobe Photoshop. I’m mainly in email and on websites the entire time I’m at my desk. I never watch movies or play video games at my desk. I simply need a reliable computer that can laugh at 30 browser tabs and 20 email accounts with two web browsers and two email clients.

 

[zorinlynx]

Let me tell you right now that you're probably going to miss the 5K display on the iMac if you don't already have one. MacOS doesn't look its best on 4K displays, and the current selection of 5K displays is expensive. I have a Studio Display to use with my Macbook Pro at my desk, but I know not everyone wants to spend that much.

Other options are coming, so you may be in for a treat soon. But holy crap Apple hit the jackpot with the 5K panel they used in the 27" iMacs and hardly anything else measures up.

 

[Sal Collaziano]

Let me tell you right now that you're probably going to miss the 5K display on the iMac if you don't already have one. MacOS doesn't look its best on 4K displays, and the current selection of 5K displays is expensive. I have a Studio Display to use with my Macbook Pro at my desk, but I know not everyone wants to spend that much.

Other options are coming, so you may be in for a treat soon. But holy crap Apple hit the jackpot with the 5K panel they used in the 27" iMacs and hardly anything else measures up.

I guess I’m an oddball. I have two 27” 1080p Acer monitors at the left and right sides of my iMac and they look fine to me. But I’m also using 10 year old 50” televisions to watch movies, so I’m just not one to appreciate great visuals, I guess.

 

[Velin]

I guess I’m an oddball. I have two 27” 1080p Acer monitors at the left and right sides of my iMac and they look fine to me. But I’m also using 10 year old 50” televisions to watch movies, so I’m just not one to appreciate great visuals, I guess.

Well, prior poster is correct. You have a 27" 5k iMac with a reasonably powerful discrete GPU. For productive work, you've been using one of the greatest consumer-level monitors available on the planet, which was sold at an excellent price. The 27-inch 5k iMac panel absolutely crushed everything else out there for text, reading, creating, producing. So you've been working with the very best. Only now, in 2023, is the competition finally arriving with things that may rival the quality -- at much higher cost.

Put one of those 1080 panels as your center display, and you will hate it. I'm using a 1080p backup monitor right now (traveling), it sucks horribly. Blurry as crap. And frankly, 1080p is crap.

Also, seriously, if you can, go out and get a 55" B2 or C2 LG OLED tv. I think you'll be blown away by what an OLED panel, with true infinite contrast and lightning fast pixel response times, will do for your movies and anything else you are watching. Just try it. I think you'll change your mind about display quality pretty quick. Repeating myself, once you've seen OLED panels, it's really hard to go back to anything else.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I use three monitors, so I want those 4 ports on the Pro... Anyway - am I making a mistake here? Will I see improved performance? Or should I just stick with my 2017 iMac?

What’s wrong with the iMac - what’s the reason you want to switch “Now”? There’s no question you’d get better overal performance with the mini (my M1 mini with 16GB RAM is noticeably faster than my 2017 27” iMac - but that upgrade was for work, I didn’t have to pay for it). But if your iMac is “Good enough”… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Sal Collaziano]

What’s wrong with the iMac - what’s the reason you want to switch “Now”? There’s no question you’d get better overal performance with the mini (my M1 mini with 16GB RAM is noticeably faster than my 2017 27” iMac - but that upgrade was for work, I didn’t have to pay for it). But if your iMac is “Good enough”… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm probably just being picky but it's taking longer to start-up after I wake it up, sometimes I can't type my password for 5 seconds or so, I get the spinning beachball more and more. It just feels like it's time for an upgrade. Maybe I should just add memory...

 

[rtjstevens]

I have to admit I'm in the same boat as the OP. I have a late 2015 27 inch i5 iMac. (AMD Radeon R9 M395 2 GB). I don't need a new Mac - I just want one - (Mac mini Pro base model but with 1 tb storage). I have a Dell 27in Ultrasharp (4k) upstairs connected to a Raspberry Pi and Minix mini (J50C) Windows 11 machine, so could use that, but with Samsung and Dell about to release 5k monitors, I was going to see what they cost. I've been lurking on this site constantly since the new Mac Minis were announced. I'm not really into Games but do play Rail Sim from Dovetail Games using Parallels . It's just about OK on my Mac. The Fusion Drive and thus the screen were replaced 3-4 years ago.

Would I notice any benefit from upgrading to a MacMini Pro? (I believe the game predominately uses a single core). 'Crossover' will also play the Sim I believe. I may well wish to explore more games in the future (AA/AAA)

I'm marooned forever on Monteray of course - another factor ("excuse"?) for upgrading.


I'm lucky in that I move from Sheffield to Bath (UK) and both have Apple Shops. Unfortunately, the MacMini Pro I want is a BTO. It does mean returning items is relatively easy.

Any advice is very much welcomed!

 

[ChrisA]

My current iMac is configured as such:
- 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
- Radeon Pro 580 8 GB
- 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
- 3TB Fusion Drive

The new Mini would be much faster, mainly because of the internal SSD vs your current Fusion drive. You could gain a lot by buying an SSD in an external enclosure and connecting that to your current iMac and using the external SSD as your system/boot disk and simply ignoring the internal Fusion drive.

You could also open up the iMac and swap the fusion drive for an SSD and be a little faster but it is such a hassle to open up an iMac. The external Thunderbolt enclosure is almost as good.

But you MUST use this as the system/boot drive to see any improvement.

 

[rtjstevens]

Thanks Chris, I do have a 1tb and 500gb Samsung T5 SSDs (not in an external enclosures). I feel surprised that booting from either of these would be faster than the FusionDrive. Opening up the iMac is a nightmare. When I had the FusionDrive replaced the guy said that he broke 50% of the screens in trying to get to the internal gubbins (a technical term!).

Anyway, food for thought. If I did go down the external SSD boot route than this wouldn't have any effect on graphical performance would it?

l feel like Jason tying himself to the mainmast in order to stop the sultry and persuasive song of the Apple Sirens!

Thanks for your input.

 

[ChrisA]

Thanks Chris, I do have a 1tb and 500gb Samsung T5 SSDs (not in an external enclosures). I feel surprised that booting from either of these would be faster than the FusionDrive. Opening up the iMac is a nightmare. When I had the FusionDrive replaced the guy said that he broke 50% of the screens in trying to get to the internal gubbins (a technical term!).

Anyway, food for thought. If I did go down the external SSD boot route than this wouldn't have any effect on graphical performance would it?

l feel like Jason tying himself to the mainmast in order to stop the sultry and persuasive song of the Apple Sirens!

Thanks for your input.

To get real data you need to use the "performance meter" app on your curruent system. If the CPU is not close to beig "maxed out" then buyig a faster CPU will not make the computer faster. Ideially you like to see no more then 50% CPU utilization. If you are not at 50% now, a faster CPU is no help.


It's like a car, if you typically drive with your foot only 50% down on the gas, buying that Ferrari will not get you to work faster. The Ferrari is only faster if you are already pushing the pedal to the floor and need a bigger engine.

As long as you are not aving to daisy chance thunderbolt devices, I don't think one will impact the perfromance of another.

That said, the new M2 is very respnsive nd an upgrade. But maybe you get 80% of the benifet for 20% of the cot buy going all SSD and loosing the spinning disk. There is little risk because you can always find a used for the external SSD with your new M2pro Mini. Use if for Time machine.

 

[Sal Collaziano]

You could gain a lot by buying an SSD in an external enclosure and connecting that to your current iMac and using the external SSD as your system/boot disk and simply ignoring the internal Fusion drive.

Hmm... Maybe I should just do this first and see how it goes... If I were to get an external USB SSD (how's THIS?), is there a tutorial you'd like to recommend for switching to it as a system/boot disk?

 

[rtjstevens]

Chris: using Activity Monitor:
CPU readings:
Windows 10 - 35-140% (not a typo)
Music: 42%
System 13 -38%

Cloudd :6%

This forum: 7% !

Idle :66 - 82%

When running RailSim under Parallels:
System 34%
User 20%

Does any of that make sense?

Thanks

 

[CausticPuppy]

I have to admit I'm in the same boat as the OP. I have a late 2015 27 inch i5 iMac. (AMD Radeon R9 M395 2 GB). I don't need a new Mac - I just want one - (Mac mini Pro base model but with 1 tb storage). I have a Dell 27in Ultrasharp (4k) upstairs connected to a Raspberry Pi and Minix mini (J50C) Windows 11 machine, so could use that, but with Samsung and Dell about to release 5k monitors, I was going to see what they cost. I've been lurking on this site constantly since the new Mac Minis were announced. I'm not really into Games but do play Rail Sim from Dovetail Games using Parallels . It's just about OK on my Mac. The Fusion Drive and thus the screen were replaced 3-4 years ago.

Would I notice any benefit from upgrading to a MacMini Pro? (I believe the game predominately uses a single core). 'Crossover' will also play the Sim I believe. I may well wish to explore more games in the future (AA/AAA)

I'm marooned forever on Monteray of course - another factor ("excuse"?) for upgrading.


I'm lucky in that I move from Sheffield to Bath (UK) and both have Apple Shops. Unfortunately, the MacMini Pro I want is a BTO. It does mean returning items is relatively easy.

Any advice is very much welcomed!

My wife has the 2015 27" iMac too. It's still entirely usable, as I specced it with 256GB SSD (no spinning disk) with some USB3 external storage, and added 16GB of memory totaling 24GB. The memory is useful for fast user switching as it has 3 accounts active at once (hers, mine, kids). Even though it still performs well for its main tasks (office, email, etc) it's no longer supported by current MacOS and that reason alone might drive an upgrade soon.

I'm waiting for the new 5K Samsung monitor, and if that is significantly cheaper than the Apple Studio Display, I might pair it with an M2 Mini.

 

[ToastedCashew]

The samsung is a no-go for me with a matte display. I’d rather have the LG 5k.

 

[Sal Collaziano]

Regarding using the 27" iMac as a monitor, wouldn't THIS work? More info HERE.

 

[startergo]

Regarding using the 27" iMac as a monitor, wouldn't THIS work? More info HERE.

It should work. See here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/using-imac-late-2015-27-retina-as-a-display-with-new-mac-studio.2378773/post-32019405

 

[Freida]

Well. I guess I'll give up on a new 27" iMac. I don't want the smaller 24" displays. I don't do much in the form of graphic or video artwork - but I can have two web browsers each with 20 tabs opened simultaneously - AND Mac Mail and Thunderbird Mail opened simultaneously, each with 10 email accounts...

My current iMac is configured as such:
- 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
- Radeon Pro 580 8 GB
- 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
- 3TB Fusion Drive

Here's what the Mac Mini M2 Pro would look like:
- Apple M2 Pro with 12‑core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
- 32GB unified memory
- 4TB SSD storage
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Four Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, two USB‑A ports, headphone jack

I use three monitors, so I want those 4 ports on the Pro... Anyway - am I making a mistake here? Will I see improved performance? Or should I just stick with my 2017 iMac? Any thoughts, opinions and/or constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated...

I wouldn’t upgrade if I were you. Your machine is fine for what you do with it and those little details don’t matter that much. Especially for the price.

 

[Sal Collaziano]

Well. I guess I'll give up on a new 27" iMac. I don't want the smaller 24" displays. I don't do much in the form of graphic or video artwork - but I can have two web browsers each with 20 tabs opened simultaneously - AND Mac Mail and Thunderbird Mail opened simultaneously, each with 10 email accounts...

My current iMac is configured as such:
- 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
- Radeon Pro 580 8 GB
- 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
- 3TB Fusion Drive

Here's what the Mac Mini M2 Pro would look like:
- Apple M2 Pro with 12‑core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
- 32GB unified memory
- 4TB SSD storage
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Four Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, two USB‑A ports, headphone jack

I use three monitors, so I want those 4 ports on the Pro... Anyway - am I making a mistake here? Will I see improved performance? Or should I just stick with my 2017 iMac? Any thoughts, opinions and/or constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated...

Would this make more sense?

 

[rpmurray]

My wife has the 2015 27" iMac too. .... Even though it still performs well for its main tasks (office, email, etc) it's no longer supported by current MacOS and that reason alone might drive an upgrade soon.

You may want to investigate using OCLP to install newer versions of macOS.

 

[rpmurray]

The samsung is a no-go for me with a matte display. I’d rather have the LG 5k.

I seem to remember seeing some videos on how to remove the matte film from a display to get it glossy. Most people probably wouldn't want to do that to a new display still under warranty, but if I saw that someone had done that successfully with a new 5K or higher resolution matte display I may be tempted.