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Studio for Home Office - overkill?

Well I saw some refurbed m2 pro minis for around 1269 with 16gb and 1tb ssd.
So far best I can do for the Mac Studio m2 is veteran price 1979 with 32gb and 1tb ssd.

If price was closer I would get the Mac Studio it is just a bit too much.

I am hoping a refurb m2 comes out for 1600 with 32gb and 1tb ssd that I would get
 
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The base model of the M4 Max studio offers a number of advantages over the Mini, but it does depend on your use case.

Imo, what the M4 Max has in abundant quantity, is GPU cores, and given the increased reliance on AI, the studio is well suited, also if you're interested in game playing. The studio, along with crossover allows me to play nearly any game on steam.

For me it was a slippery slope, I wanted a Mac, and felt that M4 Mini would be fine, doing my due diligence, it came to light that the base mini with its ram/storage was not a good fit and upgrading to the Pro seemed to make sense. I bought a M4 Pro, but the tiny enclosure was truggling to evacuate the heat efficiently. Plus trying some of my older games on Crossover, the Mini was producing poor framerates, and the games were quite laggy.

I returned the mini and got the studio and its been smooth sailing since. This computer is one of the best desktops that Apple has produced.

The studio. has a number of upsides that the mini does not. Better thermal management, more cores, and more head room for the future. That is, this computer will handle my tasks and needs for the foreseeable future.

Just my $.02
 
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Spend half (or less) on a Mac mini and replace at 3-5 years not 10.

Expecting a computer, any computer to last 10 years is a fools errand.

hardware fails (more likely after 5 years), and over-spending initially to try and make something last 10 years just means spending a lot more up front to have much worse performance on average over the long run - and maybe not even make it due to age related hardware failure.
 
haralds said:
perhaps a mini Pro
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The only downside to the mini pro is the lack of sufficient cooling. The little guy warms up more easily. When I owned the M4 Pro Mini, the temps would easily hit 90c, and Id have to manage the temps by manually increasing the fan. Apple's fan curve valued quietness over cooling. That's probably ok for many people but I was not happy with that.
 
I had a similar conundrum to the OP. I kept finding myself upgrading from a base Mac mini M4 to a M4 Pro with 1TB, 1-up on the CPU and 10Gb/s Eth and coming so close to a Studio each time. So I got the Mac Studio M4 Max model - and it comes with 36GB ram (not 32GB). I love having the two USB-A ports on the back, and it's future proofed with 10Gb/s Eth. Gee she's a sweet thing, after coming from my beloved but tired cMP Mac Pro 5,1. SHe's quiet, and merely sniffs electricity - doesn't devour it like the cMP. I said to myself I was still going to keep using my cMP, but I haven't touched it once since I got the Studio.
 
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10 years is a long time, at least in the Microsoft and MacOS ecosystems. A Linux box would probably do fine, but then you have to struggle with compatibility issues with all new windows and mac apps you would like to use, which would cost a lot in time and/or software licenses to solve.

I would, as many others, suggest a shorter time frame, five years(?), and go for a relative low specced box.
 
Based on my experience with Mac and Windows machines, five years minimum is reasonable and eight to 10 is possible. For example, I bought a Dell XPS 27 All-in-One in 2014. It's no longer my daily driver but it still runs fine with Windows 10. My 2012 MBA ran fine until the charger cable finally frayed beyond repair last year.
 
CoMoMacUser said:
Based on my experience with Mac and Windows machines, five years minimum is reasonable and eight to 10 is possible. For example, I bought a Dell XPS 27 All-in-One in 2014. It's no longer my daily driver but it still runs fine with Windows 10. My 2012 MBA ran fine until the charger cable finally frayed beyond repair last year.
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Hardwarewise 10 years is not a problem. But both Apple and Microsoft have tightened up who long their OSes support older machines. Win 10 loose support this autumn. For simple Office programs you could easily find 15 year old machines that hold up good.

Linux longterm support is generally much better, but then you better use Linux native software. There are very competent programs for Linux, but there is always a risk of incompatibility issues with the latest program versions for for Win and MacOS.
 
Massively overkill for your needs. I have a Studio M2 Ultra. It is an absolute beast and my astronomy software and FCP with Logic. For general photography stuff and office related tasks it is massively overkill.
 
I have an M4 Max Studio and went with that option since once I added the M4 Pro, 64GB of RAM and increased the SSD storage, I was at basically the same price as the M4 Max Studio. And to add to that, I currently have 3 displays and might add a 4th small/portable display below the center display as like a system status window. So for the virtually the same price, I went with the more powerful machine, even if for most things its overpowered.
 
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I had a Mini M4 Pro 14-/20 48GB 512GB and was using a TB5 drive and 4TB NVME, so for me the memory and storage were not the issue with the Mini but more so lack of ports, it got pretty loud and hot under load, and for anything GPU intensive like for games, the 20 cores was still a potato unless you were running it at 1080P at medium low settings. In comparison the Studio M4 16/40 48GB 512GB that replaced the mini has all the ports I need and then some, it's dead silent and cool not to mention I can reach the power button, and in Mac optimized games I can actually play them at decent FPS at 4K at low/medium settings. Basically a base Studio is the same price as the Mini M4 Pro 14/20 48GB 512GB I had, but I can't contest on the performance of the 14/32 chip.

IMO unless you need the 48GB of memory and want to stay under $2K, just get the base studio. If you need the 48GB memory than maybe consider the Mini M4 Pro, granted I think the $400 to jump up to the config I have is well worth it
 
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jrasero said:
it got pretty loud and hot under load, and for anything GPU intensive like for games, the 20 cores was still a potato
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Yep, the two bolded statements are the very reason why I returned the M4 Pro Mini and got the base version of the Studio.

I couldn't be happier in all honesty, its been a great computer that runs quiet and cool, plays the games I want - for me its a win/win situation.
 
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CoMoMacUser said:
Based on my experience with Mac and Windows machines, five years minimum is reasonable and eight to 10 is possible. For example, I bought a Dell XPS 27 All-in-One in 2014. It's no longer my daily driver but it still runs fine with Windows 10. My 2012 MBA ran fine until the charger cable finally frayed beyond repair last year.
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As mentioned above, its possible. My 2012 build W10 machine (i7-5820K/970 GPU) is finally being replaced with a M4 Studio Max (14/32) today. I also signed up for the free extra year of windows support this past weekend (with MS Account, backing up settings to MS Drive, available through Updates https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...-free-year-of-updates-for-your-windows-10-pc/). That PC held up for my gaming needs (RPGs, Fallout, BG3, Outer Worlds), but was getting a bit long in the tooth for Handbrake duties.
 
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