Mini 2012 i7 or 2014 i5

[jimleaman]

Hi all

Recently sold my MacBook Pro Retina 13inch 2019 as really not using it massively and would prefer a desk machine

Looking at one of the below, for web design/coding and general browsing, maybe a little bit of photoshop.
Two machines that I’ve got my eye on are;

Mac Mini 2012 - i7 Quad Core 2.3GHZ, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD

Mac Mini 2014 - i5 2.6GHZ, 8GB RAM, 1TB SSD

Hard drive space is not massively important, I’m more interested in speed.

I understand that the 2012 is only useable up too Mac Catalina, but again not a massive issue.

For my requirements what would you go for?

Many Thanks!

 

[Amethyst1]

Quadcore 2012 all the way. The 2014's dual-core starts to choke when more than one task is running at the same time.

 

[Boyd01]

I have two similar Mini's but each is "one click" higher spec than those - 2012 i7 2.6ghz/16gb and 2014 i5 2.8ghz/8gb. There is little question that the 2012 is faster and generally a better machine, especially since you cannot upgrade the RAM on the 2014. But the 2014 does have some advantages - much faster wifi (802.11ac), 50% faster internal SSD interface and two thunderbolt 2 interfaces. The intel iris graphics on the 2014 has better specs than the hd4000 in the 2012, but not sure how much difference that makes.

But I would give this some further consideration. If you need Intel, the 2018 Mini is far superior to either of those choices, even the base i3 version. Internal ssd is about 6x faster than the 2012 and 4x faster than the 2014. USB-C ports are at least twice as fast as the USB-3 ports on the older Minis - makes a big difference for external SSD's. RAM is upgradeable to 64gb. And it will be supported for much longer.

 

[Fishrrman]

Neither of the above.

Get a 2018 Mini.
Far, far superior.

 

[grandM]

That discount must be huge not to buy the cheapest M1.

 

[MacsRgr8]

I have a 2012 i7 as a (2nd) HTPC, so yes a different usage, but I hate the fact it cannot run Big Sur or higher. Also have an M1 mac mini which is superb.
I think you'll regret getting the 2012 version quickly. 2014 Mac mini i5 is just too slow.

Mac mini 2018 is better.... But, I would try to find a bit more cash and get an M1 mac mini with 16 GB RAM, and enjoy many years of speed and supported software.