...might be to forego the 2018 Mac mini and get a 2013 Mac Pro 8-core from eBay instead! For months I was fishing around for a spec-ed up i7 Mac mini with 1TB-2TB SSD, but they came & went quickly from Apple refurb store and eBay for $2K or more. Something held me back from buying until I got the brainstorm to look into the much-maligned trashcan Mac Pro instead, which remains overpriced ($4.8K) at Apple but MUCH more reasonably priced at eBay (about $2K). That's likely in anticipation of the imminent 2019 Mac Pro release... and when it does finally arrive, I bet the trashcan eBay price will plunge even further as upgraders resell their old workhorses.
So a week ago I made the plunge and got a beautiful-condition Mac Pro upgraded to 3.3GHz 8-core, 64GB memory, and 1TB fresh Apple SSD for $2,040... and couldn't be happier for my use cases! I was offered 2TB Intel NVMe SSD for the same price, but opted for the Apple SSD so it could host a Sierra partition cloned from another Mac (so now I've got Sierra, Mojave, and Catalina volumes cooking on it). Note a similarly spec-ed 2018 Mac mini is $2.7K new and $2.3K refurb/eBay (when available).
Advantages of 2018 Mac mini are 1-year warranty, faster single-core performance, and Thunderbolt 3 ports. But check out these 2013 Mac Pro advantages: (1) better multi-core performance; (2) less thermally-constrained so quieter under load; (3) MUCH better dual discrete GPUs; (4) four USB 3 ports; (5) six Thunderbolt 2 ports for Mini DisplayPort, FireWire adapters, etc.; (6) dual Gigabit Ethernet; (7) great upgradeability & repairability; (8) older OSes down to Mavericks and Win7; (9) gorgeous high-end design. Also consider these Mac "mediums" are nearly as portable as minis and still being sold new, so will enjoy macOSes, repairs, and support from Apple for years to come.
So a week ago I made the plunge and got a beautiful-condition Mac Pro upgraded to 3.3GHz 8-core, 64GB memory, and 1TB fresh Apple SSD for $2,040... and couldn't be happier for my use cases! I was offered 2TB Intel NVMe SSD for the same price, but opted for the Apple SSD so it could host a Sierra partition cloned from another Mac (so now I've got Sierra, Mojave, and Catalina volumes cooking on it). Note a similarly spec-ed 2018 Mac mini is $2.7K new and $2.3K refurb/eBay (when available).
Advantages of 2018 Mac mini are 1-year warranty, faster single-core performance, and Thunderbolt 3 ports. But check out these 2013 Mac Pro advantages: (1) better multi-core performance; (2) less thermally-constrained so quieter under load; (3) MUCH better dual discrete GPUs; (4) four USB 3 ports; (5) six Thunderbolt 2 ports for Mini DisplayPort, FireWire adapters, etc.; (6) dual Gigabit Ethernet; (7) great upgradeability & repairability; (8) older OSes down to Mavericks and Win7; (9) gorgeous high-end design. Also consider these Mac "mediums" are nearly as portable as minis and still being sold new, so will enjoy macOSes, repairs, and support from Apple for years to come.
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