Need Advice Buying Older Generation Mac Mini ?

[marcusalwayswins]

Hi Guys,

Because of budget constraint I cannot buy the current generation M1 Mac Mini. Let’s say If I am looking to buy an older generation Mac Mini which is the oldest generation Mac Mini I should buy ? Which even old would do a good job in terms of performance for atleast couple of years ? Should I buy the 2014 or 2018 Model ? And would even the i3 Model be Ok ?

 

[Fishrrman]

Don't buy an i3.
Get an i5 or 7.

2012 -- should be the oldest you consider. These have USB3. 2011 and earlier have only USB2. Get the i7 version if you can.

2014 -- DO NOT buy one with 4gb of RAM. RAM is soldered into the 2014 Minis and IS NOT expandable. Buy 8gb or 16gb.

2018 -- remains a good buy. If your RAM needs are 16gb or lower, buy with the RAM pre-installed. RAM installation on the 2018 is "user-possible" but it's NOT a trivial procedure and there are risks involved in doing so.

For 2012 and 2014, get an internally-installed SSD if at all possible.
2018's have SSDs from the factory (no internal HDDs on these).

 

[Boyd01]

I have 2012, 2014 and 2018 Mini's. I would forget the 2012 and 2014 models and go for 2018. The geekbench rating of the 2018 i3 is about the same as the 2.6ghz quad-core 2012 Mini, but because of other improvements the 2018 will be much faster, has better ports, supports more/larger screens and up to 64gb RAM. I see they have the entry level i3/8gb 2018 Mini in the Apple refurb store for $599, although this is the older version that only has a 128gb SSD which is pretty small. For $579 you could get the base 8gb M1 Mini too. There are a variety of other configurations available

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On the 2018 Mini, get 16gb RAM for most uses, the integrated graphics use 1.5gb of system RAM which only leave 6.5gb for everything else on the 8gb model. I have the top-spec 2012 quad Mini, and it was a respectable performer in its day, I edited a lot of audio and video on mine. It's also about 1.5x faster than the top-spec 2014 Mini (there was no quad core option in 2014). But it's just getting old, doesn't have USB-C, only takes 16gb RAM and is hampered by the integrated HD4000 graphics.

The 2014 Mini is not very compelling. RAM is soldered and can't be upgraded. I got a good deal on the 2.8ghz/8gb model several years ago when B&H Photo was clearing them out and use it as a media server. Works very well for that, but I would not want to use it for all-around computing.