Apple's Next Mac Mini Refresh: Everything We Know

[paradox00]

There is no way in hell the Mini will have pro and max chips. If they do, they will be altered (gimped) in a drastic way. Think the difference between a GeForce 3090 TI and 3060. Both 3000 series cards based on the same chip, but drastic hit to performance.

Apple has NEVER allowed the mini to fully compete with the larger MacBook pros and higher end iMacs. This has always been a pipe dream of mini fans for many years, and it’s just not happening.

Apple only has pro and max chips for larger MacBook pros and the new 27” iMac FOR AT LEAST the next 18 months.

There is no way in hell they are going to let their cheapest product (the mini) that has always been a value product cannabinolize sales of their $3000-8000 high dollar premium pro product range.

Just not happening guys. Sorry.

You're definitely wrong on the Pro and I have no idea where your confidence comes from.

Let's look at the facts: We know that the Intel Mac Mini is still for sale. We know it is more expensive than the M1 Mac Mini. We also know the M1 Mac Mini outperforms it (despite costing less).

So here's the first question: why did Apple keep it up for sale if a better product can be had for less? Obviously they plan to replace the Intel Mac Mini with something that out performs the M1 Mac Mini. If they weren't, they would have either discontinued it, dropped the price, or raised the M1 price above it.

Next question: what chip options does Apple have that are better than the M1? In theory, the options are M2, M1 Pro and M1 Max. We can rule out the M2 though, because that's what the M1 macs will be upgraded to when they are refreshed. No need for an additional product line. That only leaves the M1 Pro and M1 Max. There are no other options. So at the very least, it's getting the M1 Pro.

The M1 Pro does have two versions: 8CPU/14 GPU and 10CPU/16GPU, so maybe you'll get part marks and the binned version will be the only version Apple ships. I doubt it though. The rules are different now that they are producing their own chips. They don't have to build products in power envelopes set by Intel, released on a timeline partially set by Intel.

Apple can set whatever prices they want so as to not cannibalize the rest of their product line. The M1 Pro 14" Macbook Pro (binned version) starts at $2000, not $3000. If we look at prices of the 512 GB configurations: the M1 Mac Mini is $899, the 13" M1 MBP is $1499, and the 14" M1 Pro MBP is $1999. Based on this, Apple values the M1 Pro (plus and inch) configurations at $500 more than M1. If we add $500 to the Mac Mini price we'd get $1399 for an M1 Pro variant of the Mac Mini. That's $600 less than the equivalent laptop, which is the same price difference between the M1 Mac Mini and the M1 MBP. Maybe they add $100 so it doesn't come out cheaper than the M1 13" MBP, but the Mac Mini is definitely getting the M1 Pro, and probably the M1 Max. Prices will just be set accordingly.

BTW: I would argue that the reason we didn't see higher priced and higher specced intel Mac Minis had nothing to do with cannibalization of the MBP. There was simply a limit to what people would spend on a headless desktop with an Intel laptop CPU in it.

 

[Fomalhaut]

13” MBP has always been the value MBP. All higher end MBP absolutely crush the 13” and mini and always have.

But you guys believe what you want. I’m sure apple is absolutely going to offer a product with the exact same performance at the $1000-2000 price point as it offers in the $4000-8000 price point. Obviously, that makes complete sense from a business standpoint and I’m sure customers looking for performance will absolutely decide to drop $6000 when the same performance can be had for $2000.

I’m sure the stock price will reflect what a great decision this would be.

Not sure how you draw that conclusion. Here is the last Intel Mac Mini GB5 multicore score:

Here are the 2018 MacBook Pro 15" from the same year & mid 2019

From the CPU front, I am not seeing any "crushing" there, quite the contrary..... Sure, the 8-core i9s launched in mid-2019 beat it by about 10% and the Mini doesn't have a discrete GPU so doesn't compete in that space, but for servers or non-graphical workstations it seems to do rather well. And you can add an eGPU to the Mini to match the best MacBook Pro dGPUs.

As for the price point, Apple will not be releasing an M1 Pro/Max at the same price as the last Intel i7. It will be priced in line with the current difference between M1 Minis and MBPs, so somewhere between $500-800 cheaper than the corresponding MBPs. That is "the same performance for $1800-2000 as they offer for $2500" not between $1-2000 and $4-8000. The M1 Max version will be proportionally more expensive to align to the M1 Max MBPs.

I've no idea where you are pulling those numbers from. Perhaps you are comparing a future M1 Max Mini to the current Intel Mac Pro? It does compare favourably here, but within 6-9 months we might expect an Apple Silicon Mac Pro that will then raise the bar again.

 

[ahurst]

Mac mini in my opinion. I hate disposing of perfectly good displays when iMacs are no longer useful.

I mean, if you sell or gift your old Macs when you upgrade, the built-in screen definitely has worth in terms of resale value (if selling) or the lack of need for a separate monitor (if gifting).

If you keep them around as secondary machines for old apps and nostalgia (like I do) I personally find it handy to not have to share a screen with my main machine, but that may not be everyone’s preference. You also have Target Display Mode and Luna Display (for older iMacs) and AirPlay display (for newer ones) to get extra mileage out of an old iMac as a display for another Mac.

 

[Fomalhaut]

You're definitely wrong on the Pro and I have no idea where your confidence comes from.

Let's look at the facts: We know that the Intel Mac Mini is still for sale. We know it is more expensive than the M1 Mac Mini. We also know the M1 Mac Mini outperforms it (despite costing less).

So here's the first question: why did Apple keep it up for sale if a better product can be had for less? Obviously they plan to replace the Intel Mac Mini with something that out performs the M1 Mac Mini. If they weren't, they would have either discontinued it, dropped the price, or raised the M1 price above it.

Next question: what chip options does Apple have that are better than the M1? In theory, the options are M2, M1 Pro and M1 Max. We can rule out the M2 though, because that's what the M1 macs will be upgraded to when they are refreshed. No need for an additional product line. That only leaves the M1 Pro and M1 Max. There are no other options. So at the very least, it's getting the M1 Pro.

The M1 Pro does have two versions: 8CPU/14 GPU and 10CPU/16GPU, so maybe you'll get part marks and the binned version will be the only version Apple ships. I doubt it though. The rules are different now that they are producing their own chips. They don't have to build products in power envelopes set by Intel, released on a timeline partially set by Intel.

Apple can set whatever prices they want so as to not cannibalize the rest of their product line. The M1 Pro 14" Macbook Pro (binned version) starts at $2000, not $3000. If we look at prices of the 512 GB configurations: the M1 Mac Mini is $899, the 13" M1 MBP is $1499, and the 14" M1 Pro MBP is $1999. Based on this, Apple values the M1 Pro (plus and inch) configurations at $500 more than M1. If we add $500 to the Mac Mini price we'd get $1399 for an M1 Pro variant of the Mac Mini. That's $600 less than the equivalent laptop, which is the same price difference between the M1 Mac Mini and the M1 MBP. Maybe they add $100 so it doesn't come out cheaper than the M1 13" MBP, but the Mac Mini is definitely getting the M1 Pro, and probably the M1 Max. Prices will just be set accordingly.

BTW: I would argue that the reason we didn't see higher priced and higher specced intel Mac Minis had nothing to do with cannibalization of the MBP. There was simply a limit to what people would spend on a headless desktop with an Intel laptop CPU in it.

Well thought-out response!

For your last point, I agree; I can't see any technical limitation why the Mini couldn't have had the 8-core i9 apart from the price, and a desire to limit the options with the top specs, thereby funneling more buyers towards the more-expensive MBP15/16

 

[boss.king]

Please, please, please allow 4, 6 or even 8TB of internal flash storage...It's such a great mini server...having a ton of internal storage would be great..so an external can be a backup, not the primary like we have had to do for so many years..

Can I ask why you’d want to pay that much for fixed internal storage rather than just spend it on a larger bank of hard drives? Or even SSDs? I get the logic for a laptop, but a non-upgradeable desktop seems like a no-brainer go for minimal internal storage and max out on external.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I thought the same at first glance but look at the speed of Apple’s incarnation of internal storage.

 

[appleArticulate]

It won't have 4 TB ports.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Can I ask why you’d want to pay that much for fixed internal storage rather than just spend it on a larger bank of hard drives? Or even SSDs? I get the logic for a laptop, but a non-upgradeable desktop seems like a no-brainer go for minimal internal storage and max out on external.

I expect there are a few use cases where having very fast storage is useful if you have to either move or process a *lot* of data internally at the best possible speeds but I would think it could be bandwidth limited if you need to actually move it somewhere else, even with 40Gbps Thunderbolt or 10Gbps Ethernet.

For lots of concurrent small I/O request, I would also expect the actual speed to be a lot less than the >5GBps speeds we see from BlackMagic Speed Test, so there may be case for having a lot of headroom.

The problem with the internal drives is that there is no redundancy, and they are probably not designed to be server disks with extreme concurrency, and you might generate high write volumes that will use up TBW capacity for the SSD - which of course can't be replaced....

For most people a fast TB3/4 enclosure, RAID, or even a collection of USB3.2 SSDs is going to be plenty fast enough, and a lot cheaper.

 

[JippaLippa]

Too many rumours...
At this point it HAS to ship on the 8th.

 

[Boil]

Can we have a Mac Mini in Product Red or Matte/Jet black, please. I really want my Mac Mini to stand out.

I would think if Apple did a black Mac mini it would be Space Black...?

A smaller mini could have ports on more than 1 side. Having everything at the back (one side) would limit how small overall it can be.

Ports on the side of a desktop would not be very Apple...

For the Mn-series Mac minis, a smaller chassis could be feasible (which would mean two separate chassis designs for the Mac mini, one for low-end & one for high-end); same 2021 MBP design cues as I outline below, just smaller...

With an external power brick that also carries Ethernet, and the fact that the M1 Mac mini only has two TB ports, not as much rear panel space is needed for ports...

Apple could also go with a WiFi only model, like the current 24" iMac has; they could even offer the option to attach to a new Apple-branded display via a VESA mount adapter...

They will probably ditch those elegant rounded corners and make it a square box. And will also add those feet from the MacBook Pro product line:

View attachment 1957198

Square box would not be very Apple...

I have said in other threads, 2021 MBP-style rounded corners/edges & feet; so the above image could basically be a bottom corner of the 2022 M1 Pro/Mac-powered Mac mini (also available in Space Gray)...

 

[boss.king]

I expect there are a few use cases where having very fast storage is useful if you have to either move or process a *lot* of data internally at the best possible speeds but I would think it could be bandwidth limited if you need to actually move it somewhere else, even with 40Gbps Thunderbolt or 10Gbps Ethernet.

For lots of concurrent small I/O request, I would also expect the actual speed to be a lot less than the >5GBps speeds we see from BlackMagic Speed Test, so there may be case for having a lot of headroom.

The problem with the internal drives is that there is no redundancy, and they are probably not designed to be server disks with extreme concurrency, and you might generate high write volumes that will use up TBW capacity for the SSD - which of course can't be replaced....

For most people a fast TB3/4 enclosure, RAID, or even a collection of USB3.2 SSDs is going to be plenty fast enough, and a lot cheaper.

Yeah, that’s why I’m confused that they want it built in.

 

[Boil]

It won't have 4 TB ports.

So, less TB ports than the 2018 Intel Mac mini it is replacing...?

 

[paradox00]

Random, and probably incorrect prediction: The new Mac Mini will be in a rectangular chassis, not square. Why? The square design is based on the need to accommodate a DVD drive... which hasn't been around for a while; and Apple's ARM chips are usually on rectangular(ish) motherboards and the internal power supply is being removed. There's no internal components to add beside the board to force a square shape. They could make a square motherboard and shrink the chassis, but you run into a problem: ports. I have an old asus chromebox and it's a tiny square, but it has ports on THREE sides. Apple would never do that. They will place them all on one long side. I'm going to guess that if they shrink the footprint by any substantial amount, the Mac Mini will become rectangular: like the chin off a miniature iMac.

Edit: not entirely random if I had read the comments. Shape was discussed just above, although not a rectangle.

 

[ZipZilla]

Take my money, Tim!!!! Vacuum the funds straight out of my account with Apple Pay!!!!

 

[Fomalhaut]

Yeah, that’s why I’m confused that they want it built in.

Maybe they'll re-think when they see how much 8TB of Apple SSD costs....

There was some guy a while back who thought MacBook Pros were lacking because they needed at least 32TB of SSD storage to enable his game collection to run correctly...

It would be interesting to see how the internal SSDs hold up as file servers, but I'm not wearing out my own SSD to run these tests.

Linus Tech Tips had an interesting YouTube video a few months ago testing the 10GbE capabilities of the M1 Mini, and it passed his tests with flying colours, even after attaching a huge number of SSDs to the machine via various docks and hubs.

 

[allenvanhellen]

I can’t fathom Apple using more plastics (plexiglass).

 

[Piggie]

Given this is designed to run on mains power 100% of the time, unlike MacBook's where you need to concern yourself with battery life and thermal size constraints.
There is zero reason why the M1 chips could not be clocked higher in this making it the fastest M1 machine so far.
The only reason not for it to be this way is Apple don't want it to be faster than a MacBook.
Let's hope they don't do this, and allow this new machine to take full advantage of the extra cooling space and mains power.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Please bring back optical audio output! It’s absurd to have to run a dongle for audio playback.

I thought optical audio was basically dead as an inferior option to any 3.5 port or digital audio

 

[MacsRgr8]

let's wait and see what and when apple actually announces this ...
I'm looking to eventually replacing my 2017imac, but I can easily wait til next year ...

Exactly the same boat.
I do have a 24" M1 iMac which I occasionally use, but my 27" iMac 2017 model (with Radeon Pro 580) is my main "work and play-horse" which would be nice to be replaced...

The 2 things which should work well which drive my purchase decision:
1. FCP X
2. X-Plane
Especially as X-Plane 12 will be Apple Silicon native, I am so looking forward to the performance of an M1 Max based desktop. I already make use of an ultra-wide display, so a Mac mini would make sense.

If exactly the same CPU/GPU as the MBP will become available inside the Mac mini, I do hope the price won't be too high. Feels a bit "too easy" to simply put the MBP based M1 Max/Pro inside a small desktop enclosure and make it more expensive than a reasonably high-powered desktop PC.
To me it's okay for a desktop to consume a bit more power than notebook. The performance of the M1 Pro and Max are great for notebooks. GPU-wise specifically not great at all for a desktop.

 

[Fomalhaut]

I thought optical audio was basically dead as an inferior option to any 3.5 port or digital audio

Eh? Optical audio (via fibre-optic cable) is always digital and used to be included on Macs in the form of a hybrid 3.5mm sockets (analog & optical digital), which are still common today in lots of gear:

An alternative connector (TOSLink) is also found on lots of AV gear, often with the 3.5mm optical connector on the other end:

The beauty of the older Macs was that you could output headphones, line-level analog audio and digital audio to connect to other equipment (audio interfaces, speakers, home cinema etc.). Now you need an audio interface like this that connects to USB and outputs digital (optical or co-axial) and analog outputs:

Perhaps you are thinking of the original "optical audio" on analog film stock?:

 

[Bandaman]

Exactly the same boat.
I do have a 24" M1 iMac which I occasionally use, but my 27" iMac 2017 model (with Radeon Pro 580) is my main "work and play-horse" which would be nice to be replaced...

The 2 things which should work well which drive my purchase decision:
1. FCP X
2. X-Plane
Especially as X-Plane 12 will be Apple Silicon native, I am so looking forward to the performance of an M1 Max based desktop. I already make use of an ultra-wide display, so a Mac mini would make sense.

If exactly the same CPU/GPU as the MBP will become available inside the Mac mini, I do hope the price won't be too high. Feels a bit "too easy" to simply put the MBP based M1 Max/Pro inside a small desktop enclosure and make it more expensive than a reasonably high-powered desktop PC.
To me it's okay for a desktop to consume a bit more power than notebook. The performance of the M1 Pro and Max are great for notebooks. GPU-wise specifically not great at all for a desktop.

The performance of the Pro and Max are also great for desktops. That's kind of the point of them.

 

[sudo-sandwich]

Just please fix the wireless weirdness of the existing design.

It's literally a deal breaker for many of us.

What's the wireless weirdness? I have an M1 mini, and I'm not sure what you mean.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Eh? Optical audio (via fibre-optic cable) is always digital and used to be included on Macs in the form of a hybrid 3.5mm sockets, which are still common today in lots of gear:

An alternative connector (TOSLink) is also found on lots of AV gear, often with the 3.5mm optical connector on the other end:

The beauty of the older Macs was that you could output headphones, line-level analog audio and digital audio to connect to other equipment (audio interfaces, speakers, home cinema etc.). Now you need an audio interface like this that connects to USB and outputs digital (optical or co-axial) and analog outputs:
View attachment 1957316

Perhaps you are thinking of the original "optical audio" on analog film stock?:
View attachment 1957308

I see, I actually ment the toss link. As I have sen it more disappear to be replaced by standard hdmi

 

[Fomalhaut]

Given this is designed to run on mains power 100% of the time, unlike MacBook's where you need to concern yourself with battery life and thermal size constraints.
There is zero reason why the M1 chips could not be clocked higher in this making it the fastest M1 machine so far.
The only reason not for it to be this way is Apple don't want it to be faster than a MacBook.
Let's hope they don't do this, and allow this new machine to take full advantage of the extra cooling space and mains power.

Actually there may be technical reasons why the M1 can't be clocked higher than it currently is (3.2GHz). You can't just "turn up the volts" and get higher frequencies without all sorts of design considerations.

Apple may very well be producing different versions of the M1 Pro/Max with more cores and possibly different design frequencies for desktop machines without the same power and thermal limits.

However, you are probably correct that the Mini is unlikely to be given the fastest processors even if it could support them thermally. The Mini historically has laptop CPUs and is not positioned to have the same options as the best MacBook Pros, which is why there was no Intel i9 version.

That said, a Mini with the same 10/32 core M1 Max SoC as the MBPs would be a pretty serious machine that would probably match the lower end of the Mac Pro configurations (e.g. 8 & 12 core Xeon, Radeon Pro W5500X, W5700X) - for a lot less money, albeit with limited expansion.

 

[Fomalhaut]

The performance of the Pro and Max are also great for desktops. That's kind of the point of them.

Indeed, they are not bad at all for a laptop GPU, and may well perform better than the equivalent Intel + GPU combination due to the unified memory and hardware codecs:

Metal Benchmarks - Geekbench