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Should I upgrade from Mac mini M2 Pro to Mac mini M4 base

M

Mac_Professor

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I have a Mac mini M2 pro which works flawlessly with tahoe 26.4 (my main driver is MacBook M4 Max) , the M2 pro is still quite fast, I was thinking of replacing it with a M4 base, is it worth the money to replace it or just hold on to the M2 pro for now. I use my MacBook with Ivanky fusion dock Max 1 but can swap it with the Mac mini M2 pro as needed as the dock works flawlessly with both.

Would you upgrade it or just sell the unit and let it vanish?

Thanks!
 
My last mac mini upgrade was from a M2 Pro to a M4 base model. It really didn't feel like much of an upgrade, so I used it for a week or two and returned it and got a M4 Pro with 24GB ram. Huge difference.

I enjoyed using the M2 Pro for a year or two, and it's a powerful machine. I'd be keeping it over the base M4.
 
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Ask yourself this question: What, on your M2 Pro is too slow for you? And would the M4 base speed that up?
Ask @Ben J. this question (I want to know too): What programs/workflow do you use that the M4 Pro/RAM increase showed a huge increase?

I'm still on M1, but only do hobbyist photo editing, no video/coding/rendering/modeling (my intel-based iMac still worked fine for photo editing). I'm curious as to what folks here do on their machines to notice a huge difference between the different Mx series/models.
 
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BotchQue said:
Ask @Ben J. this question (I want to know too): What programs/workflow do you use that the M4 Pro/RAM increase showed a huge increase?
Click to expand...
Adobe Lightroom Classic and Pro Tools digital audio workstation. Both apps very demanding in terms of both cpu and memory, but in slightly different ways. In Lightroom you can easily determine the general performance of the mac when browsing thru previews of hundreds and thousands of images and see when it's lagging behind or not. In Pro Tools; basically how much extra processing it can handle when adding 'plugins', like virtual instruments, symphony orchestras and such, and reverbs, delays etc.
 
Ben J. said:
Adobe Lightroom Classic and Pro Tools digital audio workstation. Both apps very demanding in terms of both cpu and memory, but in slightly different ways. In Lightroom you can easily determine the general performance of the mac when browsing thru previews of hundreds and thousands of images and see when it's lagging behind or not. In Pro Tools; basically how much extra processing it can handle when adding 'plugins', like virtual instruments, symphony orchestras and such, and reverbs, delays etc.
Click to expand...
Thanks! I do photos in Affinity, and haven't done music editing since Notator went away (I'm sure Hans Zimmer and Peter Gabriel are breathing a huge sigh of relief!) 😀
 
A friend has the m2pro Mini, and it still seems to be doing fine with Tahoe.
I have an m4 (non-pro) Mini, 32gb/1tb.
For everyday stuff, hard to notice a difference between them.

You asked for advice, here's mine:
KEEP the m2pro for now.
WAIT FOR the m6 (or m6pro) when it comes out.
Probaby another year or so.

I don't think you'd see a big enough jump from an m2pro Mini to an m4 Mini to really be worth it. M2 to M6 ... that's a different story.
 
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ChipSingle-coreMulti-core
Mac mini M2 Pro~2660–2663~14,400–14,500
Mac mini M4 (base)~3840–3846~14,900–15,000
 
Yep you answered my question not a big difference, I think I will keep it and wait for the M8 when its ability really stinks, when I need to do really big tasks I simply plug in the M4 and I'm ready to go.
 
Mac_Professor said:
Yep you answered my question not a big difference, I think I will keep it and wait for the M8 when its ability really stinks, when I need to do really big tasks I simply plug in the M4 and I'm ready to go.
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Should have kept your advice from before which is what I decided to do. The M2 pro still sits at desk and I can simply unplug the 2 thunderbolt cables from the M2 pro and plug them into the M4 MacBook Pro and the Ivanky dock works flawlessly. Good to have a desktop for desktop things and a laptop for laptop things!
 
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