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We will never have a pro chip mac mini

Worlrl

Worlrl

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 22, 2020
105
95
I came to a conclusion that we wil nnever see mac mini with somthing moree than the base chip.
m2 is more or less like m1 pro.
we have mac studio which is basicly like mac mini for "pros".
mac mini wwith pro chip will eat sales of mac studio.
apple knows someone who connsider himsef a pro will pay more, so they make the jump from "basic" mini to "pro" studio.
no midrange mac mini, just max out basic chip.

Edit: oops
 
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Seems fair enough. "Pro" users are a minority, why would a company make the mainstream products loaded with stuff that users wouldn't use?

It's like saying that car manufacturers aren't putting V8 engines into their entry-level cars.
 
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It’s possible, but I think there might be an opportunity for Apple to sell a lot of M1 Pro Minis to server companies for CI workflows on Apple Silicon: as long as the price isn’t double the base Mini, an M1 Pro Mini would be able to support two (or more) macOS VMs on the same machine, cutting on total costs as well as power consumption. Since that market has no real need for GPU cores, an M1 Pro Mini would be a better fit for that workflow than an M1 Max Studio.
 
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ahurst said:
there might be an opportunity for Apple to sell a lot of M1 Pro Minis to server companies for CI workflows on Apple Silicon
Click to expand...
Cloud's SoCs are very different from Apple's. Specifications of the Ampere Altra Max:

ampere.png
 
Xiao_Xi said:
Cloud's SoCs are very different from Apple's. Specifications of the Ampere Altra Max:

View attachment 2017710
Click to expand...
Of course, but since you can legally only run macOS on Apple hardware, if GitHub Actions and Appveyor and Azure Pipelines etc. are going to offer automated testing/building runners for ARM64 macOS purpose-built ARM server chips are out of the question. Currently most of these services just host a ton of Mac Minis and sometimes don’t even use VMs for multiple runners-per-machine due to the hardware limits (e.g. CirrusCI, probably others). An M1 Pro Mini would change the game there, even if it wouldn’t compete with purpose-built ARM servers.
 
thenewperson said:
There's still an Intel higher-end mini and I'm guessing that's waiting for the rumoured redesign + Mn Pro chip config.
Click to expand...
Considering the fresh release of the mac studio and the very similar language beholden to the mini, a design refresh seems improbable.

As far as pro chip getting their way into a mini chassis, I am highly skeptical, as it would possible funnel some of the more performance conscious consumers away from the studio and the price uptick warranted by this new bracket of products.

And as far as Intel minis go, I'd be very curious as to their fate.
 
JahBoolean said:
Considering the fresh release of the mac studio and the very similar language beholden to the mini, a design refresh seems improbable.

As far as pro chip getting their way into a mini chassis, I am highly skeptical, as it would possible funnel some of the more performance conscious consumers away from the studio and the price uptick warranted by this new bracket of products.

And as far as Intel minis go, I'd be very curious as to their fate.
Click to expand...
People probably still buying them, some works can be done only on intel systems I guess…
Also maybe they have large stock of them.
 
Worlrl said:
People probably still buying them, some works can be done only on intel systems I guess…
Also maybe they have large stock of them.
Click to expand...
What can only be done on intel? Genuinely curious as I’ve just ordered my M1 iMac…

I think a lot of people will buy either because they don’t know or care about internals. When my family members buy their Macs they don’t know what’s in them, possibly hard drive size or amount of RAM. Otherwise it’s “which can I afford, what screen size do I want.” I couldn’t imagine asking my mum if she has the M1 or intel versions
 
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Webcat86 said:
What can only be done on intel? Genuinely curious as I’ve just ordered my M1 iMac…

I think a lot of people will buy either because they don’t know or care about internals. When my family members buy their Macs they don’t know what’s in them, possibly hard drive size or amount of RAM. Otherwise it’s “which can I afford, what screen size do I want.” I couldn’t imagine asking my mum if she has the M1 or intel versions
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I think people who use the Mac with windows with the built in option needs it.
And yes lot of people don’t care.
 
Worlrl said:
People probably still buying them, some works can be done only on intel systems I guess…
Also maybe they have large stock of them.
Click to expand...
Yup, and seeing as the enterprise space will surely wait quite a while before duping x86, no sense to discontinue.
 
Worlrl said:
m2 is more or less like m1 pro.
Click to expand...
That could be the current hold-up - the performance difference between M1, M2 and M1 Pro is fairly narrow. Look at the current overlap between the M1 Air, M2 Air, M2 13” and M1 Pro MacBooks. Apple can get away with that fragmentation because MacBooks sell in large quantities so they’ll shift good numbers of each model. Mac Mini/Studio machines sell in smaller volumes and probably won’t sustain so many overlapping choices.

Also, if there isn’t a big performance jump between M2 and M1 Pro, the differentiating feature is the I/O and display support, in which the M1P is closer to the M1 Max, so a M1P Studio, with the extra ports, would make more sense than a M1 Pro Mini.

It may change if/when the full M2 Pro/Max range comes out (the rumours included a 12 core Pro which would give a clearer edge over the M2) - there’s certainly a hole in the Mini/Studio range to fit a Mx Pro Studio.

On the other hand, may be Apples brief resurgence of “Mini love” was just because they needed a cheap Apple Silicon desktop to replace the short lived Developer Kit and we’ll be back to “The new M2 Mini is almost certainly coming” for the next 4 years…
 
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theluggage said:
That could be the current hold-up - the performance difference between M1, M2 and M1 Pro is fairly narrow. Look at the current overlap between the M1 Air, M2 Air, M2 13” and M1 Pro MacBooks. Apple can get away with that fragmentation because MacBooks sell in large quantities so they’ll shift good numbers of each model. Mac Mini/Studio machines sell in smaller volumes and probably won’t sustain so many overlapping choices.

Also, if there isn’t a big performance jump between M2 and M1 Pro, the differentiating feature is the I/O and display support, in which the M1P is closer to the M1 Max, so a M1P Studio, with the extra ports, would make more sense than a M1 Pro Mini.

It may change if/when the full M2 Pro/Max range comes out (the rumours included a 12 core Pro which would give a clearer edge over the M2) - there’s certainly a hole in the Mini/Studio range to fit a Mx Pro Studio.

On the other hand, may be Apples brief resurgence of “Mini love” was just because they needed a cheap Apple Silicon desktop to replace the short lived Developer Kit and we’ll be back to “The new M2 Mini is almost certainly coming” for the next 4 years…
Click to expand...
Mac studio to expensive, Mac mini too old.
Sad
 
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I don't think there will be a M1/M2 Pro Mac mini because of market segmentation. It's obvious from Apple not adding support for more than one external display with the M2 SOC since they probably view this as a pro feature and not too many consumers use more than one external display. Even on the Mac mini, I find the HDMI connection a bit flaky compared to a display port one. RAM and the CPU performance from the Mac Studio convince me to upgrade and make the Mac mini into a server as 16 GB is not enough for development and I run into RAM limitations from regular use. This is rarely the case with 32 GB of RAM.


Even if Apple adds an M1/M2 Pro option, it will probably make them machine cost close to a Mac Studio, which is why they didn't do it. Apple would rather upsell you to a higher model. It shows when you upgrade the RAM and storage of the M2 MacBook Air, you are basically around the same price of a 14" MacBook Pro, which has more ports and features.

The higher end mini is probably there for users who still need Intel, but I don't expect them replacing it with a high end one now that the Mac Studio exists.
 
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olavsu1 said:
some examples: Avid, Cubase, Propellerhead Reason, Corel, and all surveying software vendors. They all require an Intel-based computer. The surveyors are riveted to winxp.
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Whats wrong with a solution like Parallels? They have been around for years and typically keep up with Apples latest upgrades to its hardware and software. And performance is usually on par with a native mid-range PC… and can even be used in some gaming…

Application and Desktop Delivery | Parallels RAS

Download Parallels to run Windows on Mac, Chrome, gain access to virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) with DaaS, & Toolbox to secure private files, & more.
www.parallels.com www.parallels.com
 
thenewperson said:
There's still an Intel higher-end mini and I'm guessing that's waiting for the rumoured redesign + Mn Pro chip config.
Click to expand...
I tend to agree. The fact that it remains on Apple.com suggests Apple recognizes people still need Minis that can do more than what the base M chip offers, like the ability to be fitted with lots of RAM, or to drive more than two monitors.

However, there are two alternate reasons for keeping the Intel Mini around that don't suggest Apple will put a Pro chip in the Apple Silicon Mini:
1) Apple wants to keep one reasonably-priced Intel device available for those who still require an an Intel-based Mac (the only other one is the Mac Pro).
2) Apple still has a lot of Intel Mini stock and Intel Mini parts (for BTO models) it would like to sell through.
 
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TightLines said:
Whats wrong with a solution like Parallels?
Click to expand...
The CPU must be INTEL not ARM! The machine code for Intel and ARM are different. Arm cannot run applications designed for Intel. Parallers don't help when host is ARM, tested and isn't subject to further discussion!
 
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TightLines said:
Whats wrong with a solution like Parallels? They have been around for years and typically keep up with Apples latest upgrades to its hardware and software. And performance is usually on par with a native mid-range PC… and can even be used in some gaming…

Application and Desktop Delivery | Parallels RAS

Download Parallels to run Windows on Mac, Chrome, gain access to virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) with DaaS, & Toolbox to secure private files, & more.
www.parallels.com www.parallels.com
Click to expand...
Even with Parallels, you still need an Intel-based Mac to run those apps well.

You could try to run them on Apple Silicon with Parallels, but in that case you would need (a) an unlicensed version of Widows for ARM; and (b) versions of those apps that can run natively on Windows for ARM, which in many cases don't exist (there is an emulator that allows Windows x86 apps to run on Windows for ARM, but it reportedly doesn't work well).
 
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olavsu1 said:
The CPU must be INTEL not ARM! The machine code for Intel and ARM are different. Arm cannot run applications designed for Intel. Parallers don't help when host is ARM, tested and isn't subject to further discussion!
Click to expand...
In a previous post you cite Corel as being something not working… is this Corel the same Corel that actually owns Parallels?

See: https://www.corel.com/en/
 
I'm still hoping that the mini with a "Pro" chip is just delayed for the redesign. Doesn't make much sense, to me at least, to have the hole in the desktop lineup with no "Pro" processor and just jump to the Max and Ultra. Hopefully we see a M2 Mac mini in an updated design with a Pro option later this year.
 
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