Mac Mini “2020” and Three 4k Monitors?

[jeffreyk]

My Late 2013 MacPro is pretty much at the end of its life and I was thinking of getting a fully speced current Mac Mini as its replacement. I also use three BenQ 32-inch 4k monitors (2 w/Thunderbolt and the other thru the HDMI) for my displays. I don’t do heavy graphics processing or any tasks that would tax or push the system. I was wondering if a fully speced Mac Mini will work smoothly with my current three 4k monitor setup or will I experience sub-par performance. Thanks!

 

[sergioarista]

My Late 2013 MacPro is pretty much at the end of its life and I was thinking of getting a fully speced current Mac Mini as its replacement. I also use three BenQ 32-inch 4k monitors (2 w/Thunderbolt and the other thru the HDMI) for my displays. I don’t do heavy graphics processing or any tasks that would tax or push the system. I was wondering if a fully speced Mac Mini will work smoothly with my current three 4k monitor setup or will I experience sub-par performance. Thanks!

I have the base model with 2 21.5” LG UltraFine 4K DCI(usb C) and a LG oled 4K UHD (hdmi)

review:it works pretty well, plays 4K video w/o issues except small video stutter or drop frames when bringing up the app launcher, it works pretty well for video editing, working with raw and using many apps and windows simultaneously (I upgraded ram to 16 GB)

the problem with some animations in the OS is more related to programming issues.

Honestly except for that I would consider Mac Mini performance pretty solid and if you got an i5 or i7 I think you would not have any issues (ram upgrade is almost mandatory) also consider that internal ssd is not upgradable, I use an external thunderbolt ssd so no problem)

 

[djc6]

review:it works pretty well, plays 4K video w/o issues except small video stutter or drop frames when bringing up the app launcher

the problem with some animations in the OS is more related to programming issues.

If you go System Preferences -> Accessibility you can "Reduce Motion" to address this. And "Reduce Transparency" also helps performance. I don't miss these very subtle UI "enhancements" - and it really helps with performance.

 

[N9JIG]

I have a tricked out 2018 Mac Mini and up until recently I was using 3 Asus 32-inch HD monitors (2560x1440), two connected to TB3/USB-C jacks with USB-C to HDMI cables and the third to the HDMI with a straight HDMI cable. I had no problem doing this, they all worked well.

Recently I wanted to add a 4th identical monitor to the mix and bought a Sonnet eGPU from the AppleStore. After a minor hookup issue (Who knew the power cord actually had to be plugged in to make it work?) it all installed just fine and dandy and all 4 monitors worked just fine. The eGPU even installed itself into MacOS and the icon is on the desktop.

I have not noticed any video issues. The only thing I have seen is that one of the monitors tends to have its video slide partly over to the right a minute or two after waking from display sleep or startup, it returns immediatly and does not occur again until the display sleeps or the computer restarts. I don't know if it originates from the monitor or eGPU or even the cable.

I do not do much video editing, most of my work is browser based so I usually have 4 different browsers running in order to keep them clean from cookies affecting our sales commissions. The Mini gets pretty toasty but since I stopped running Parallels the temps and loads are more reasonable.

From what I have read this setup will support 4 4K monitors and if the CFO (aka wife) ever allows it I might spring for some.

I work from home and also have a similarly configured Hades Canyon NUC so as a backup I set it up on the desk on a separate monitor but also arranged things so that if the Mac should fail for some reason I can swap out the eGPU and the USB-3 hub that supports my webcam and mic to the NUC and be up and running again in less than 2 minutes.

 

[Fishrrman]

If it was me, I'd want an external GPU of some sort to "take the load off" the Mini's internal graphics processor...