Apple Mac Mini M2 2023 review M2 unleashing its power in a desktop ↺

Not sure why this is interesting at all. This processor is available in laptops. And from this page, it appears to perform very similarly in this desktop (which makes sense if you’ve seen a Mac Mini).

Because most mini-PCs/SFF stuff in this class are also using laptop parts.

Depends what you'll be doing with it I guess? My 2022 M2 Macbook Air is great for most things but takes 40s to complete the same test suite that my 2020 5950x finishes in 10s.

The question has no answer in vacuum. What are you typically working on? What apps do you use? How much of a power user are you? Are you working with teams that rely on any specific apps/solutions?

I think for this price you can built a much better PC.

I've found it disappointing for some multithreaded/multiprocess CPU heavy workloads as Apple's cooling solution doesn't keep up and begins thermally throttling down to the rough equivalent of maybe just a 2-Core CPU.

>What do you think about the M2 compared to PC options

The same age old question. You have to compare every aspect of it. i.e Not a Full size tower PC. If you buy the same PC at a similar size, similar cooling potential ( e.g NUC ), including Thunderbolt 4, WiFi 6E, for $100 more you get integrated 10Gbps Ethernet, and the Apple Silicon Mac mini still has the integrated PSU. You will find the default config to be similar if not in flavour of Mac mini. But as you soon as you add more memory and SSD storage, very early in the upgrading options it goes the PC way.

That is ignoring the Software Experience. Most people buy Mac because of the Software or macOS. Or they are an iPhone user with so they prefer an integrated ecosystem. But that is obviously not what you are asking.

Buying a Mac to run Windows never made much sense to me. And it makes even less sense now, because you're forced to virtualize.

There are many different PCs out there in many form factors, some are very small, some are fanless... It's hard to give a recommendation without knowing more about what you want.

IMO, for Mac, text looks good only on Apple monitors. I'm using a MacBook Pro M1 connecting to the LG Ultrafine 32" 4k monitor. Text on the laptop monitor looks very good, but looks terrible on the 4k monitor. It is said that it's because of no ClearType feature in Mac OS. If I want a small machine like the Mac mini, I'll pick up some Chinese mini pc on Amzn or an Asus mini pc (for a better brand name) or an Intel nuc (the most expensive in the mini pc line). Those mini pc's can connect to at least 2 4k 60Hz monitors (for the ones < $300). The $400+ mini pcs are usually able to connect to 3 4k monitors. They can go with 16GB or 32 GB memory easily. Only the $2k M2 pro mac mini's can connect to 3 monitors and have 16GB ram. I think all of Apple products are very durable. You can stick with 1 mac mini for 10 years or more. If you're not very unlucky, you can use a Chinese mini pc for 3-4 years. When it dies, you can have a newer, better (in configuration) Chinese mini pc for the same price.

This is what I did, it works just fine. Been running this setup for a few years now and I've never had any issues. Coherence mode makes it even better.

Price can vary across the Eurozone; check other countries?