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Comment by neya | Hacker News Reader

Between this and an M1 Mac Mini, which one would the HN crowd recommend for day to day programming tasks and occasional gaming?

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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)

For casual gaming I don’t think you can do better than the XBOX Series S, insane amount of power for £250

I own the first gen M1 lowest spec (8 GB) MBP. I can run XCode / Android Studio without any problems. I'd go with 16GB next time, because I sometimes run Xcode, Android Studio, VS Code and more at the same time which is too much for 8 GB. The M1 does handle memory really good though. Can't say much in terms of gaming but it runs Zwift perfectly fine, which is the only game I play.

There aren't too much games that runs on macOS and less even that run on arm without rosetta, so I agree that he should just buy a PC for gaming (maybe a steamdeck), I also own a Mac mini m1 (16gb) but I'm tempted to upgrade to a MacBook Pro for the next gen, I really miss the ability to use it not only in the desk.

Also I'm curious if the entry level Mac studio will make a difference when compiling your app, I have a rust side project were it takes a while to do a clean compilation and 12-15 secs when doing incremental compilation (it really sucks when you need to wait "that much" to try some things out, mostly when working in the UI and tweaking some things). If this new Mac could take that to 5< secs It would be a huge upgrade, if not then the Mac mini is worth the bucks.

It’s unlikely to speed up your use case as a single threaded program seems to be the same speed on the Studio as on an MBP.

You’ll notice that you can do a full build in background while still using the machine though.

Mini. Studio is a waste of money if you're not regularly doing intensive & specific workloads like video editing/rendering.

Plain M1 is quite capable on its own.

It's quite overkill for even intensive video editing. There are a number of YouTube videos of people downgrading from a m1 max to pro because the max was a waste of money and battery life.

I just wish the M1 Pro could drive 3 external monitors. It’s the main thing keeping me from dropping down to a Pro on my next machine. On my 2019 16” I drive triple portrait 24s, but I would need a Max to do that on a 2022.

Here’s hoping the M2 architecture has HDMI 2.1 support and the gpu can do triple monitors from the beginning.

While I wouldn't be in the business of using 3 24" displays, I think not being able to have two external displays would be a deal breaker. I typically use my mac's screen and a 30" external at 2560x1600

My M1pro drives the laptop, a 4K, a 2k, and a fourth display by wirelessly air playing to a Roku, though I could completely understand that’s not an idea solution, depending on what you’re sending to each screen. The Roku connection was easily capable of running full screen video.

Programming: The only reason I'd be tempted to go for the Studio is so I could get 32GB of memory, but TBH 16GB w/ M1 is more than enough for the vast majority of programming workloads (or at least the type of work I do), and is a very compelling buy at only $899. If you've already got a monitor, mouse, keyboard you like - no real reason to not want it.

To move to 32GB of memory means you need an M1 Pro, Max, or Ultra...so you're either going for a Mac Studio for $1999+, or a 14" MBP w/ RAM upgrade for a minimum of $2399. You get a better CPU and GPU with the studio than the MBP for less money.

Assuming you get minimal benefits from the better CPU, is it worth it spend the extra $1200+ to go from 16GB to 32GB of RAM? Probably depends how long you plan on keeping the machine I guess.

Gaming: I have no idea...gaming is the only reason I boot up my Windows PC. The M1 GPU seems solid but the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra do have measurably better GPUs. They all do great in certain synthetic benchmarks, but real-world performance is another question entirely. The vast majority of games will not be written for M1 natively, so you'll be running them via the Rosetta 2 x86 translation layer, which also will impact game performance.

The mini is a great machine, but for me 16gb was just too little RAM for my day to day (I used the 16gb MBA for a year). I ended up with a 64gb max MBP. A 32gb mini would probably be a great value/sweet spot which is why Apple likely doesn't offer it.

> A 32gb mini would probably be a great value/sweet spot which is why Apple likely doesn't offer it.

Oh come on. That’s actually the classic apple move to have a low end entry product and a higher margin upsell product which is where all the sales happen. It’s why their phones start with low levels of storage (pretty much have to buy the next step up at minimum) and conversely why there is a pointless higher end storage option for the apple tv (grabs a little extra cash from those who can afford it).

I am surprised the high end mini hasn’t been switched to M1 max. That’s the machine I want — the studio is too large and too much for my needs but the M1 mini doesn’t do it for me (I just use a laptop instead).

I guess it will be the entry level M2 device sometime this year.

They're still selling a high end Intel mini(!), so maybe that'll get quietly replaced with an M1 Pro or something at some point.

Apple does offer a 32GB Mini but it is the older Intel model still around for specialized retail channels. The M1 does not have enough memory controllers to handle 32GB of RAM. The expectation is, once Apple has the M2 ready, it may be built to take more RAM. If not, expect either an M1/2 Pro Mini or an M1/2 Pro Studio at a lower starting price. there is too much of a price gap right now between the base Mini and the base Studio. Apple needs to put something in that spot to allow a smooth upgrade path.

Baseline Mac studio.

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