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Can M2 Mac Mini drive 2 5k displays well??

C

Chiromac81

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 18, 2018
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Ontario Canada
I am very close to pulling the trigger on a new 24 gb ram 1-2 TB Mac mini (NOT pro) that will serve my needs for years to come.

My only reservation for not getting the Pro M2 mini is my want to drive duel LG 27 inch 5k displays with it eventually.

With the non pro M2 Mac Mini will I be able to do this well or will it kind of be a throttle with its specs-I know it's capable of it technically but I don't want it to be crippling the graphics card by having 2 5k displays and slow down the rest of the use if I have it for many years

Any advise or experience?
 
Hey guys, thanks for the tips and I'm very aware of the savings to be had and the apple tax with the included internal storage. But I'm anal and would prefer to get the internal tm not attatch anything to the Mac for as long as I can. Let's assume I'm ok with that decision.


My question is simply, can anyone say for sure if the non pro M2 mini can run two 5k monitors SMOOTHLY ie not an issue, won't affect running other things on it, not an issue etc
 
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This is what Apple says about the M2 mini (non-Pro):

Simultaneously supports up to two displays:
One display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with up to 5K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt or 4K resolution at 60Hz over HDMI

So yes, you can connect two 5K monitors to the TB ports. You would need a TB3/4 dock if you wanted to connect anything else to the TB/USB-C ports.

'Smoothly' I can't answer, possibly not if you are running hi-res games or video.
I don't think Apple would enable this function (it wasn't for the M1 mini) if it didn't give a useable experience in ordinary desktop use.
 
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I have an M2 Mini, too (16 GB ram; 2 TB hard drive). It sounds like our needs are similar. I didn’t want to plug in external drives etc. — I just wanted a ‘clean’ set up. Also didn’t need anything more than the base M2 chip.

I use a 5K display at the moment and plan on buying another soon. Apple says:

For Mac mini with Apple M2, you can connect up to two external displays in the following configurations:

  • Connect one display with up to 4K resolution at 60 Hz using the HDMI port.
  • Connect one display with up to 4K resolution at 60 Hz using the HDMI port and one display with up to 6K resolution at 60 Hz using a Thunderbolt port.
  • Connect one display with up to 6K resolution at 60 Hz and one display with up to 5K resolution at 60 Hz using the Thunderbolt ports.
(Source: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-mini/apd8e4fbbb97/mac.)

See final bullet point. And so yes, it’s possible. :)

Enjoy the machine if you buy it. I love mine.
 
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Thanks guys. I'm confident that I can do both at 5k...would still love if anyone actually does this currently but got my mind made up.

Also, would it look ok if I kept one 4k monitor (LG) and had the one beside it be 5k? Is that weird?
 
I had the Apple 27” Studio and returned it (thanks Costco!); too small, and no difference in quality vs. already existing monitors. i now have a Gigabyte 144 hz 2k 32” and an LG 165hz 4k 32” side by side; it’s grand. I see zero difference between the LG and the Studio, but I will concede the Studio’s fewer wires were nice.

Allow me to strongly suggest the 16GB M2 Pro. You’ll never notice the 16GB -> 24GB change; you will notice the 50% more CPU cores and 60% more GPU cores in the M2 Pro. It is a significantly faster machine.
 
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Chiromac81 said:
Thanks guys. I'm confident that I can do both at 5k...would still love if anyone actually does this currently but got my mind made up.

Also, would it look ok if I kept one 4k monitor (LG) and had the one beside it be 5k? Is that weird?
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Scaling will be different between the two monitors. Personally, I hate 4K due to scaling/DPI so I went off the deep end with a Studio Display + XDR. Then a 24" iMac right next to 'em!
 
foo2 said:
I had the Apple 27” Studio and returned it (thanks Costco!); too small, and no difference in quality vs. already existing monitors. i now have a Gigabyte 144 hz 2k 32” and an LG 165hz 4k 32” side by side; it’s grand. I see zero difference between the LG and the Studio, but I will concede the Studio’s fewer wires were nice.

Allow me to strongly suggest the 16GB M2 Pro. You’ll never notice the 16GB -> 24GB change; you will notice the 50% more CPU cores and 60% more GPU cores in the M2 Pro. It is a significantly faster machine.
Click to expand...
Doesn't seem Mac mini pro is availible on Apple Store atm
 
foo2 said:
I had the Apple 27” Studio and returned it (thanks Costco!); too small, and no difference in quality vs. already existing monitors. i now have a Gigabyte 144 hz 2k 32” and an LG 165hz 4k 32” side by side; it’s grand. I see zero difference between the LG and the Studio, but I will concede the Studio’s fewer wires were nice.

Allow me to strongly suggest the 16GB M2 Pro. You’ll never notice the 16GB -> 24GB change; you will notice the 50% more CPU cores and 60% more GPU cores in the M2 Pro. It is a significantly faster machine.
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I have 16 GM ram on my fully spec 2018 mini and it's getting a bit sluggish which is why k figured just going to M2 and more RAM (24) with 1-2 TB will be a good upgrade as long as the 5k screens are fine and cause no problems (just because Apple says it's fine doesn't mean it is-ahem Bluetooth etc)
 
You ARE buying through the Edu store though, right? For that extra $100 off base, and 10% off most upgrades?

Ah - CA - nevermind.
 
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Chiromac81 said:
I have 16 GM ram on my fully spec 2018 mini and it's getting a bit sluggish which is why k figured just going to M2 and more RAM (24) with 1-2 TB will be a good upgrade as long as the 5k screens are fine and cause no problems (just because Apple says it's fine doesn't mean it is-ahem Bluetooth etc)
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I highly doubt the sluggish reason is due to RAM or disk (unless you have HDD or hybrid HDD). Why don't you find out - open Activity Monitor and tell us what's stressed when the slowdowns take place? Also, you should run either Stats https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/62638/stats or https://github.com/exelban/stats - 100% of the time on your Mac, so you can see how busy each subsystem is. Put in CPU, disk, network in there, and you can easily see where your stressors are.

Don't guess. That leads to bad decisions.

A six core i7 with 16GB should be pretty good even in 2023. I'd like to see the results.

iStat Menus from Bjango is another good monitoring product.
 
16gb on the 2018 macmini are not 16 gb in the m2. you loose at least a couple gb to the integrated intel graphic, which is not the case with the unified memory in m1-3. you could say, 16 gb in a M2 are at least in the ballpark of 24 gb on an intel chip with integrated gpu in 2018. Of course single- / multicore performance are way better than everything intel until 2022 without any throtteling.
 
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Mathew31de said:
16gb on the 2018 macmini are not 16 gb in the m2. you loose at least a couple gb to the integrated intel graphic, which is not the case with the unified memory in m1-3. you could say, 16 gb in a M2 are at least in the ballpark of 24 gb on an intel chip with integrated gpu in 2018. Of course single- / multicore performance are way better than everything intel until 2022 without any throtteling.
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You don't lose any RAM for the M1-M3 GPU? Where does the memory come from, then?

I think it's the same basic scenario for both integrated Intel and integrated M1-M3. But that's not something I'd get worried about or focus on; the overall system speed is the criteria. And at that, the M1-M3 solidly win.
 
So before I go tomorrow and buy one, would you guys recommend (both will have 2 TB)

1. Non Pro Mac Mini M2 24 gb ram $2299
2. Mac Mini Pro 16 gb ram $2499

Prices Canadian before tax


I do recall seeing a review that the memory type or speed is faster on the pro (200 vs 100) so maybe the pro 16 gb is closer to the non pros 24??
 
If you think you need 24gb, then your use case should shift to the Pro instead. And 24GB of RAM on a M2 is more than 16GB of RAM on a M2 Pro, but the Pro will still be faster, up until the point that it's RAM-starved. Do you plan to do that a lot?

That said, the Pro will be considerably faster in day to day use for CPU and GPU. It will have more ports. In most things, it will just work _better_. If I were going to spend that kind of money (and I think that's so much $ that it's highway robbery, just to be clear) I would get the Pro, no questions asked, for the speed advantage.

My recommendation, though, is the base Pro, and then add a Thunderbolt or USBC 4TB NVME for $200 for the NVME and $20 for the USBC enclosure (or $100 for the TB enclosure). Far wiser use of funds, easy to sell when the time comes, and you'll get to keep the 4TB disk. Keep the $ in your pocket, not Tim's.

The base Pro (USA-bucks) is $1199 Edu. That's a pretty good price. It's even better before the school year, when Apple knocks off another $100.
 
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Did you put Stats or Bjango's app onto your Mac Mini 2018 to try it out and see what's slow?
 
No. It's 12.99 Canadian.

I'm going to buy either way as I need to move my 2018 upstairs to a secondary office for my wife.

It seems like the 16 gb M2 mini pro is the consensus over the 24 gb M2 mini for overall performance and for a unit that will be hopefully good for 5-10 years (which is why I'm getting 2 TB)
 
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Chiromac81 said:
I have 16 GM ram on my fully spec 2018 mini and it's getting a bit sluggish which is why k figured just going to M2 and more RAM (24) with 1-2 TB will be a good upgrade as long as the 5k screens are fine and cause no problems (just because Apple says it's fine doesn't mean it is-ahem Bluetooth etc)
Click to expand...
If you "have 16 GM ram on my fully spec 2018 mini and it's getting a bit sluggish," which is what happened with my 16 GB RAM 2016 MBP, IMO going up to just 24 GB is not enough if you really do want to "serve my needs for years to come" like you said in the OP. I went up to M2 96 GB for future-proofing, but do not expect others to see the same future that I see. Nevertheless IMO just 24 GB is short-sighted thinking. Not for display reasons but for future OS/apps reasons over the life cycle of the new box.
 
Mac Mini 2018 was a very unbalanced system. It had desktop-grade CPU performance but pathetically weak graphics (Intel 630).
 
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I owned a mini 2018 i3 with 16 gb ram, and while the system itself was snappy enough, it couldn't smoothly drive my 4k display - animations and movieclip playback would occasionally stutter for instance. Especially in the mode where I would set it to 2560x1440 mode with high quality scaling (which looked best as it is a 27" display).

The m1 base model with 8gb I have now is much more balanced indeed. Faster for day-to-day use for sure and it has no issues driving my monitor. My guess would be that the sluggishness on the 2018 comes mainly from the weak graphics.
 
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My future proofing options is only the 16 pro or the 24 regular

Going to have to pick one in 4 hours when I'm at the Apple Store
 
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