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!
To look at these CPUs a different way, it’s fairly competitive with Ryzen processors that cost $600-700 alone, except that will buy the whole Mac Mini.
I started reading article hoping for something interesting from Apple, but then I compare Mac Mini specs to the mini-itx system I've built back in February.
- AMD Ryzen 2400g (4cores 8 threads)
- 16 GB DDR4 Ram
- 256GB M.2 Nvme
- 1TB 2.5" HDD
- I can add more memory, internal storage, and still have a spare 16xPCI slot.
This runs linux and cost less than $800 Canadian dollars all in. Not impressed.
Everything is upgradable and in a case that 3 times as big as mac one.
What's impressive about it? That's a mobile CPU, ~20% slower than the Mini base model. Slower RAM (2400 vs 2666). Two USB3.1 ports vs four in the mini, no Thunderbolt (10gbps vs 40gbps). Weaker GPU, can't output 4K. To top it off, it doesn't come with RAM (+€80 8gb) or an SSD (+€50 128GB).
Total cost €680 vs €899 for the Mac Mini - it actually makes the mini look like an incredible deal.
For comparison, an equivalently specced Mac Mini will run $2,000. (Apple M2 Pro with 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD)
The Mac Mini benchmarks a little bit slower on Geekbench mutli-core, the GPU will be faster at 6.8 TFLOP vs the dev kit's 4.6 TFLOP, and the NPU will be slower with 15.8 TOPS vs the dev kit's 45 TOPS.
AFAIK Apple has zero macs with AMD cpus. Also I've heard about issues running macOS even in virtual machine on AMD hardware. So I have my doubts about that. You're more likely to have RAM Mac Mini.
When I looked at userbenchmark.org the i3 came out ahead. Apple’s SSDs are top notch, crossing 3Gbps. RAM is upgradeable on the mini so you can save a couple hundred, plus OSX memory management is so much better than windows you’ll only feel any difference if doing heavy video/audio/3D workloads.
For some reason a TB3 NVMe enclosure is dirt cheap, around €40, and gives you full speed access to whatever SSD you like!
I just got a mini for myself - main driver being the OS, I can’t be productive on my windows pc. Got the i5 and 256gb for ~$1200, which gives me same power as a high end 15”MBP at a quarter of the price. Mac OS is worth the €200 markup alone.
I'm thinking about getting a M2 Mac mini (when they finally ship) to replace my Intel / Debian desktop.
Since my use case is server software development, I really don't need all the GPUs. My perception is that Apple is aiming their hardware at video and other demanding GPU-oriented usages. Maybe AMD / Arm / RISC-V based hardware would be more suitable.
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?
Yes graphics is better — the GPU on the Mac Mini is the Intel UHD 630 vs the UHD 620 on the Gigabyte Brix.
With regard to the CPU, the Gigabyte’s i7-8550U is slightly faster[1] than the i3 in the Mac Mini, but slower than the i5 and i7 offered on the Mac Mini.
The lower TDP might be something that people who plan to run a server on it might care about. I have a desktop with a i7-5820K (which has a 140W TDP), and I realized that a DigitalOcean droplet was cheaper than keeping my computer running all day (even with the monitor turned off, idle power usage was 100W+, and my electric cost is over $0.20/kWh).
I consider 16 GiB of RAM a minimum, and it is significantly cheaper with the Gigabyte. Apple’s $200 charge for an upgrade from 8GB to 16GB (in the US) is a bit too much. You can buy 16 GiB (2x8GiB sticks) for that.
Having the flexibility to pick your own SSD is nice too. The 960 PRO is one of the fastest PCIe SSDs out there — I wonder if the SSD in the Mac Mini comes close to it in speed. Also: if you don’t care about the SSD speed but want a lot more storage, you have the flexibility to get the slower 1TiB 860 EVO (or similar SSD) for around $150 — wheread Apppe charges $600 for an upgrade to 1TB on the Mac Mini — and exorbitantly high price.
Lastly, I use Arch Linux both on my home laptop, and on my work machine (whenever possible). And the fact is most people buy Macs for macOS; but I’m quite comfortable using Linux, and don’t really need macOS.
You get upgradable ram, a PCIe slot for your favorite GPU/etc, and actual mainline linux support sufficient to boot most random linux distros (ok the onboard 10G+ nic might not work without patches).
Its not the fastest machine around (A72s) but there are 16 of them, so it does a decent job of building ARM software, and running VMs.
https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-um773-lite?...
https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-amd_ryzen_7_7735hs...
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