To Buy the M2 Mac Mini now ? or wait for M3 Mac Mini ?

[hirsthirst]

I'm in a similar boat to the OP - my employer is tightening up on personal usage of their work-issued Macbooks, so I'm having to migrate my personal stuff off their M1 MB Pro from next week.

My 2012 iMac has been in the loft since I moved house a year ago - my secondary device is a 2018 iPad Pro 11" - so I'm set on replacing that as my personal machine with a Mini to use my existing nice LG 5K monitor & Magic Keyboard / Mouse.

M3 won't be needed, but I'd be disappointed to buy 'the old one' potentially weeks before 'the new one' drops, especially as I'll be keeping it a good while.

I just went for it now - M2 / 256 / 16 coming on 5th September using Education Discount.

I do need the computer now "ish", and I don't need any incremental performance improvement of M3 over M2 for the basic personal stuff I'll be doing on it.

Potential disadvantages in that the M2 would be cheaper when the M3 comes, and perhaps may go end-of-life and not get OS updates for as long in the (relatively far) future. I can live with that.

 

[IG88]

Mark Gurman has speculated that the M3 Mac Mini could just be arriving as early as October of this Year

Key words are could be and as early as. It could also be released in April 2024.

The M2 MB Air was released in June 2022. The M2 Mini was 6 months later in Jan 2023.

 

[marcusalwayswins]

So it is one voice amongst folks here that Mac Mini will Most Likely be updated in Spring of 2024 or even at WWDC 2024 ?

 

[meson]

I’m inclined to think that’s the most likely scenario, but I also didn’t believe the January M2 mini would be released before April.

The elephant hiding in the room is the Vision Pro. If the release of the M3pro chipset is a critical milestone for the final chip design for the Vision, it may drive Apple to release the M3pro alongside the base M3 in the fall. (edit for some typos)

 

[hirsthirst]

So it is one voice amongst folks here that Mac Mini will Most Likely be updated in Spring of 2024 or even at WWDC 2024 ?

no doubt it's coming, but I don't think it'll be October either.

I may well need to eat my hat shortly of course, but feels more likely I'll have forgotten all about this thread when I upgrade again to an M5/6/7/... (?) Mini in 5-years.

In the end I decided £719 for the M2 Mini is a hella lot less than the £1,289 I was considering for an M2 MBA 15" instead, so worst case I can sell-on and upgrade a bit sooner next time around if it comes to it. One can waste a lot of energy worrying about things that don't really matter in the end chasing 'optimal' choices that often come down to luck.

 

[rumz]

I’m inclined to think that’s the most likely scenario, but I also didn’t believe the January M2 mini would be released before April.

The elephant hiding in the room is the Vision Pro. If the release of the M3pro chipset is a critical milestone for the final chip design for the Vision, it may drive Apple to release the M3pro alongside the base M3 in the fall. (edit for some typos)

There were rumors of a fall 2022 event for Macs that never materialized. And then the Mac mini and 14" + 16" MBPs got updated in January 2023, which was an unusual time for Apple to unveil new Macs. I could be wrong but I got the impression Apple would have liked to have had those out in the fall and just didn't quite get there for whatever reason. (Kinda seemed like the whole M2 line was running a bit behind schedule). Not a simple task to migrate everything over to AS huh?

 

[wingennis]

The M2/M2 Pro Mini is so capable already, I can't imagine what a single year could improve. Unlike past Mini upgrades which were years apart so brought huge changes, this annual-ish minor iterative upgrade probably won't come with dealbreakers. I have an M2 base model with the 16gb memory upgrade and an M2 Max Studio. In day to day tasks I cannot see any difference in performance. If I only had the Mini, I would have preferred the Pro just for the extra ports. Even if money was not a thing (it is totally a thing), I would not be tempted to upgrade to the M3 unless it makes coffee, too.

 

[Chuckeee]

The M2/M2 Pro Mini is so capable already, I can't imagine what a single year could improve. Unlike past Mini upgrades which were years apart so brought huge changes, this annual-ish minor iterative upgrade probably won't come with dealbreakers. I have an M2 base model with the 16gb memory upgrade and an M2 Max Studio. In day to day tasks I cannot see any difference in performance. If I only had the Mini, I would have preferred the Pro just for the extra ports. Even if money was not a thing (it is totally a thing), I would not be tempted to upgrade to the M3 unless it makes coffee, too.

Regular coffee or espresso? Integrated with liquid cooling? A regular coffee maker is just an old school pc

 

[colinsky]

Wait for the m4 model, it will be able to 3D-print civet coffee beans.

 

[HDFan]

3D-print civet coffee beans.

Given their deplorable living conditions it would certainly be more humane.

 

[MasterHowl]

I bought an M2 Mini this morning (M2/16GB/2TB). The need arose, and the M3 won’t do anything for me that the M2 can’t.

I’m a writer and presenter; I spend 95 % of my time in Ulysses, Zotero, Safari, and Keynote. The other 5 % of my time is spent in Photos were I edit/organise raw files from my amateur photography. (FYI I currently do this on my base mode M1 MacBook Air and it’s super-fast.)

Whenever I buy a new piece of tech (or buy anything, really) I always ask myself the question ‘what new life experience will it enable?’. I asked myself the same question when deciding whether to buy an M2 or wait for the M3.

The M3 won’t enable me to do anything I couldn’t do with the M2. If I was using macOS on a base-model M1 Mini or a fully spec’d up Mac Pro, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

 

[Northgrove]

Well, the cat is out the bag now. Mac Mini didn't receive a surprise update, M3 is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and reading between the lines, Apple knows and the entire October 2023 presentation had the air of luring Intel Mac and M1 users rather than M2 users even going as far as comparing M3 performance to M1 performance. Finally, M3 Pro has 25% lower memory bandwidth than M2 Pro which might even put it roughly on par with that one, largely offsetting CPU gains in real world scenarios.

So!

I was having similar thoughts as in this thread; as for Mac Mini M2 vs a potential M3, but also as for Mac Mini M2 vs iMac M3. They're all interesting alternatives for me to jump (back) onto the Mac train again as I'm sitting at 1 desktop at home when stationary.

Of all these, I'm leaning most heavily towards Mac Mini M2 (base at half price of base iMac M3) or M2 Pro (an incredible CPU at same price as iMac M3). Of course, they aren't fair comparisons because iMac comes with a 4.5K display but hey, I already own a monitor so these factors don't always matter in practice.

 

[mr_jomo]

Well, the cat is out the bag now. Mac Mini didn't receive a surprise update, M3 is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and reading between the lines, Apple knows and the entire October 2023 presentation had the air of luring Intel Mac and M1 users rather than M2 users even going as far as comparing M3 performance to M1 performance. Finally, M3 Pro has 25% lower memory bandwidth than M2 Pro which might even put it roughly on par with that one, largely offsetting CPU gains in real world scenarios.

So!

I was having similar thoughts as in this thread; as for Mac Mini M2 vs a potential M3, but also as for Mac Mini M2 vs iMac M3. They're all interesting alternatives for me to jump (back) onto the Mac train again as I'm sitting at 1 desktop at home when stationary.

Of all these, I'm leaning most heavily towards Mac Mini M2 (base at half price of base iMac M3) or M2 Pro (an incredible CPU at same price as iMac M3). Of course, they aren't fair comparisons because iMac comes with a 4.5K display but hey, I already own a monitor so these factors don't always matter in practice.

You can't go wrong with any of the Mx mac Minis: they are rock solid work horses. My M1 mini / 16GB will be 3 years old soon: zero issues, dead silent, and as performant as day 1.

As for the iMac, I'm running my Mini of an LG Ergo 32", 4K bought at around USD 500. That monitor will still be amazing, when I upgrade to the M4 Mini 🤩 (OK maybe when I leap to the M3 Mini 🤣)

 

[shinkansenwarrior]

If there's an increase of RAM memory on the M3 base models, it will probably be to 12GB, not 16. Many rumours and speculations point in that direction: Multiples of 12 instead of 8. That is, 12GB, 24GB, 36GB, 48GB...

That then begs the question ... exactly when we will see the transition from multiples of 8GB to 12GB? Apple could do this anytime by adjusting pricing (increasing of course) to compensate for potential lost incremental upselling revenue from 8GB to 16GB as quite a few users would feel 12GB is the sweet spot between 8GB and 16GB. Maybe at the moment there are still quite a lot of 8GB RAM module inventory in the market and Apple can utilize this memory in base modal configs until they exhaust stockpiles and eventually move on to 12GB modules in all Mac modals.

 

[wnorris]

That then begs the question ... exactly when we will see the transition from multiples of 8GB to 12GB? Apple could do this anytime by adjusting pricing (increasing of course) to compensate for potential lost incremental upselling revenue from 8GB to 16GB as quite a few users would feel 12GB is the sweet spot between 8GB and 16GB. Maybe at the moment there are still quite a lot of 8GB RAM module inventory in the market and Apple can utilize this memory in base modal configs until they exhaust stockpiles and eventually move on to 12GB modules in all Mac modals.

This is really the key question. At this point all the M series chips will last another 5-10 years easy. The bottleneck for most users is going to be RAM. I have an 8/512 M1 and am starting to see memory issues with apps (ToS primarily). As the future OS and app versions take more RAM it is going to force users to upgrade.

Apple selling M3 Pro laptops with 8GB of memory is questionable IMO. What workflows require the speed and processing power of the M3 and only require 8GB of RAM?

 

[meson]

I would love the entry level machines to have better specs, but to put it simply, Apple has target price points. The 12” G4 PowerBook started at $1799, and was nicely equipped for its time. A nicely equipped MBP now starts at $1799 after a ram bump. Over the last 20 years that price point hasn’t fluctuated much. Over the years, Apple learned that they saturated the market with their ideal entry level machines and slid in machines with slightly lower specs and price points to pull in a new segment of the market. (I’ve only become a mini user in the last year, so I don’t recall its traditional price points.)

The benefit was a line of machines that had mass appeal, could be sold by third parties, and even discounted. Years ago a Mac at less than MSRP was an edu purchase, refurb, or used. They shielded themselves from criticism that comes from keeping all sales in house, but then forces custom orders in house at full retail/edu/refurb for well equipped machines.

It’s pretty safe to say that 85-90% of users don’t need more than 8GB of ram these days. Your average office worker, student, teacher, or family does not need to run virtual machines, day trading software, or professional grade multimedia creation software.

Yes there is a fairly large segment that benefits from higher specs, and Apple is more than willing to meet that need. You just have to dig deeper into your wallet, but really no deeper than in the past, even without accounting for inflation.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Well, the cat is out the bag now. Mac Mini didn't receive a surprise update, M3 is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and reading between the lines, Apple knows and the entire October 2023 presentation had the air of luring Intel Mac and M1 users rather than M2 users even going as far as comparing M3 performance to M1 performance. Finally, M3 Pro has 25% lower memory bandwidth than M2 Pro which might even put it roughly on par with that one, largely offsetting CPU gains in real world scenarios.

So!

I was having similar thoughts as in this thread; as for Mac Mini M2 vs a potential M3, but also as for Mac Mini M2 vs iMac M3. They're all interesting alternatives for me to jump (back) onto the Mac train again as I'm sitting at 1 desktop at home when stationary.

Of all these, I'm leaning most heavily towards Mac Mini M2 (base at half price of base iMac M3) or M2 Pro (an incredible CPU at same price as iMac M3). Of course, they aren't fair comparisons because iMac comes with a 4.5K display but hey, I already own a monitor so these factors don't always matter in practice.

1) Do not look at base. Ignore it and instead think about your needs, because base will not be appropriate.
2) Think about what RAM you will likely want toward the end of your chosen life cycle, e.g. circa 2029.
3) After establishing your RAM ideal then look at what box/pricing best suits you.

IMO M2 Mini is likely to be the most cost effective choice for anyone who can live with only 32 GB RAM and does not want to drive multiple external displays. Also IMO anyone who buys a Mini w/o loading the RAM to maximum is nuts - or sub-optimal at least ;~).

 

[splifingate]

If there's an increase of RAM memory on the M3 base models, it will probably be to 12GB, not 16. Many rumours and speculations point in that direction: Multiples of 12 instead of 8. That is, 12GB, 24GB, 36GB, 48GB...

I recently purchased an Alder Lake product from China that had only one-lane of DDR5 memory.

Maximum memory allowed was "officially" set to 16GB. Units were selling with 32GB SODIMMS.

As that did not ultimately meet my eventual goals, I purchased a non-binary 48GB DIMM from Crucial.

Said Unit Registered&Populated with the 48GB SODIMM.

A single SODIMM of 48GB capacity!

What (I guess) I mean to say, is that DDR-5 DRAM manufacturers are now making 24Gb modules that operate in the same space as 16Gb modules.

What's not to like?

Non-binary is a thing, I assume.

 

[marcusalwayswins]

1) Do not look at base. Ignore it and instead think about your needs, because base will not be appropriate.
2) Think about what RAM you will likely want toward the end of your chosen life cycle, e.g. circa 2029.
3) After establishing your RAM ideal then look at what box/pricing best suits you.

IMO M2 Mini is likely to be the most cost effective choice for anyone who can live with only 32 GB RAM and does not want to drive multiple external displays. Also IMO anyone who buys a Mini w/o loading the RAM to maximum is nuts - or sub-optimal at least ;~).

With my Purchase of M2 Mac Mini I went with 16GB of RAM Only. I plan to use it for 5 years with all the Mac OS Updates that it can support till Apple gives it for this Model and Hardware.

My usage were a little bit of evrything except coding. Very rare to rare Video Editing. But yes good photo editing using Affinity Photo and Photomator. Rest all is normal usage.

And i figured out for this kind of usage 16GB is just the sweet spot. But yes I also opted for 512GB of SSD just at all if the extra RAM is required, swapping kicks in then.

 

[Fishrrman]

Still a little early for m3 Minis.
I expect to see them early next year, perhaps Jan/Feb/Mar ...?

 

[PaulD-UK]

Early next year is Vision Pro launch time.
Apple will want ALL attention on that, without the distraction of a prior desktop M3++ launch.

 

[Populus]

1) Do not look at base. Ignore it and instead think about your needs, because base will not be appropriate.
2) Think about what RAM you will likely want toward the end of your chosen life cycle, e.g. circa 2029.
3) After establishing your RAM ideal then look at what box/pricing best suits you.

IMO M2 Mini is likely to be the most cost effective choice for anyone who can live with only 32 GB RAM and does not want to drive multiple external displays. Also IMO anyone who buys a Mini w/o loading the RAM to maximum is nuts - or sub-optimal at least ;~).

Hello Allen! In your opinion, why is the maxed out M2 Mac mini the sweet spot? What do you think about the M2 Pro? Could it be a good value in some configuration?

If the Pro SoC are supported longer (operating system wise), maybe it is worth it long term…