Mac mini 2018 VS Mac Pro 2013

[opeter]

If you use Macs Fan Control or similar application, you can avoid the CPU throttling... also it is wise decision, to change the default thermal paste, which the Mac mini is shipped.

 

[complaxneoda]

thank you for kindly providing those useful information. I will get a Mac Pro. 😊

I vote 2013 Mac Pro. I've had Mac minis and Mac Pros and the Pros are leagues beyond the minis. The Mac Pro with D300 graphics appears to be stable in Mojave, but not in Catalina. There's a bug in the graphics driver Apple hasn't fixed that causes an occasional freeze & restart. The associated panic says it is due to a 'watchdog timeout' and there's a big thread about it in the Catalina forum. It doesn't just affect that Mac Pro, but also the 2019 Mac Pro (I think with Navi graphics), the 16" MBP, and others. So if you want to use Catalina & beyond I recommend a 2013 Mac Pro with D500 or D700 graphics because they are stable. I've had Mac Pros with all three graphics. However, the D500 and D700 GPUs are prone to overheating under heavy use so it's imperative that you bump up the fan speed with a 3rd party program like iStat Menus. Apple never enabled a satisfactory fan profile because apparently they valued silence over stability. Heat damaged GPUs will have issues like screen flicker.

I vote for the Mac Pro because it's a server grade workstation. It will not throttle under use like the mini. The SSD and RAM are also easily swapped out. There are NVMe SSDs up to 8TB now. And of course it has GPUs. They're actually pretty good even by today's standards. The only GPU from Apple that has better double precision compute performance (FP64) than the D700 is the Vega II in the 2019 Mac Pro and it's only better by a hair. Btw, don't even think about using an eGPU. They are rubbish and totally unusable over the TB2 bus. It just doesn't have enough bandwidth. I wouldn't even use one over the TB3 bus on the mini. That's just not a good solution.

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Hello complaxneoda,


I'll just cut/paste my response (from a similar thread on the MacRumors forums).


As you decide on your next Mac acquisition, here are some other factors (in no particular order) you may wish to consider:

1. Upgrading the 2018 Mac mini SSD is impossible. Upgrading its RAM is possible, but involves a bit of careful work.

2. Upgrading the 2013 Mac Pro SSD is extremely easy. Upgrading its RAM is extremely easy.

3. It is true that for single-core performance, the 2018 Mac mini is faster than the 2013 Mac Pro. The same might be true for multi-core performance. However, the Xeon CPU (workstation class) in the 2013 Mac Pro will not throttle down under sustained workload. The CPU in the 2018 Mac mini may throttle down under heavy sustained computation.

4. My 2013 Mac Pro runs very well with macOS Mojave 10.14.6. My 2018 Mac mini does not run as well with macOS Catalina 10.15.6.

5. Some of the ports in the 2018 Mac mini are very modern (Thunderbolt 3) and greatly increases the expansion options. The 2013 Mac Pro has some Thunderbolt 2 ports, which are "antiquated."

6. Both the 2013 Mac Pro and the 2018 Mac mini are virtually silent.

I own both machines and I like them both. From a purely subjective point of view, my 2013 Mac Pro just feels more robust (compared to my 2018 Mac mini). I could imagine using my 2013 Mac Pro for another 5-7 years!

Good luck in your decision!


richmlow

OK，thank you！