Both of these companies are huge in the mini PC space. Most people have never heard of them because all they do is mini PCs.
Minisforum latest 7940HS lines are better than M2. More powerful, fairly close on power efficiency, better GPU, cheaper, and without all the nonsense that comes with buying Macs. Their fully juiced model is $800 (and doesn't lock you in to a model that milks casb from you like a sow).
The M2 Mac mini's RAM is integrated into the SoC package, which has some advantages (good memory bandwidth, no copying between CPU and GPU RAM) and disadvantages (expensive, non-upgradable DRAM tiers.) Internal flash storage is basically non-upgradable as well (though you can easily plug in external thunderbolt m.2 storage.)
It also doesn't currently run Windows natively, nor does it support eGPUs.
I'm not sure any Mac mini model was ever much of a competitor to cheaper PCs, but mini PCs have gotten a lot better over time, probably inspired somewhat by the Mac mini, while the mini has followed in the footsteps of other Mac models by adopting Apple Silicon and unified memory.
The mini is a perfectly decent Apple Silicon Mac, and compares favorably with the older intel Mac minis in terms of performance, but I'd spring for 16GB of RAM (at least) for my use cases.
The Mac Mini is a nice computer, but macOS mostly sucks as a server OS and linux options are limited. After you consider the base specs, $800 gives you a poor offering compared to other SFX PCs, moreso once you add the markup on any spec upgrades.
The CPU and associated power usage is nice, but I don't think it will pay for itself in that regard.
Yep. The Mac Mini gives you more performance for your dollar, and opens up a world of peripheral choices, like a TV monitor or a mechanical keyboard.
But TBH the M1 and M2 family seem like a waste for programming workloads since they are so GPU heavy. Their niche is power efficient media manipulation.
Just got a mini pc with AMD, which can hold its ground against a mac mini, but costs ~4 times less (602€ vs 2259€).
Comes with 32GB of RAM, 1 TB SSD, and Linux works great!
What do you think about the M2 compared to PC options? I'd like to buy a desktop for Windows-based apps, and have been considering a Mac Mini with Parallels. What are better alternatives?
There's a lot more use-cases though, of both systems.
If you want a "good" small computer and you already have a screen (or want to buy cheap ones) then these systems are fantastic.
Performance is completely fine for moderate-to-heavy workloads (assuming the heavy workloads are bursty) for the Mac mini, and hopefully this.
Both systems are what you would get if you didn't need a display or keyboard already, they're desktop replacements with a small footprint, and fantastic for the majority of computer workloads including a lot of development ones.
I know it's apples vs oranges for a lot of folk' applications, but boy does the updated M2 Mac Mini starting at $549 (at time of comment) seem like a steal.
I call BS on them being not good market fit, Apple does totally fine with mac mini. also these are just laptops w/o screen and battery. IMO the real reason may be worries around minipcs finally getting good enough that they may cannibalize higher margin PC market. BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that make semi decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my teenage kids pc,works just fine.
Mac Mini is not a really powerful desktop. It's has mediocre CPU with terrible cooling (not allowing it to reach even full potential), built-in GPU and non-standard soldered SSD.
I want 16 core CPU (probably Threadripper, as Intel is unable to produce anything competitive recently) with Nvidia 2080 Ti or better GPU, and 32GB ECC memory for $2k.
Except that the bottom end is severly hamstrung for "creators" with just 8gb of ram and 256gb of storage at half performance. Fix both and you are at $1000+ for the Mac mini; even worse in non-$ currencies, e.g. 1150€.
The performance of that one is good and great for stuff like video editing, but it is also double the price.
Side note: minisforum um790 with a current amd laptop chip seems to be competitive with an m2 pro (similar power and efficiency under load, somewhat worse idle) and you can even get 64gb of ram while still being much cheaper than the Mac mini. Q: What are the cheapest macs with 32gb of ram? With 64gb?
M1 Mac Mini. It's like 2-3x cheaper, and already great.. (I don't understand how the OS and apps on M1 are so much more responsive than a equivalent-multi-core Intel)
Don't game on macOS though, so use the leftover cash to buy a decent gaming PC (or get in line for a Steam Deck)
A Lenovo ThinkCentre is like 10x bigger than a Mac Mini. I wouldn't want one of those sitting in my living room. And my wife would absolutely forbid it.
The only real competition I see for the Mac Mini is the little computers from System76. But they're about the same price.
Minisforum latest 7940HS lines are better than M2. More powerful, fairly close on power efficiency, better GPU, cheaper, and without all the nonsense that comes with buying Macs. Their fully juiced model is $800 (and doesn't lock you in to a model that milks casb from you like a sow).
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