Apple Mac mini (2023)
Attractive, compact, quiet and fast – what’s not to like about this straightforward update to the Mac mini?
“The 2020 M1 mini was already a compelling deal, with prices starting at £699, and the new version is even cheaper at £649”
SCORE PRICE As reviewed, £1,583 (£1,899 inc VAT) from apple.com/uk
The new Apple Mac mini is here – although you wouldn’t know that it’s new by looking at it. Externally, the chassis is almost identical to the M1-powered version launched in 2020. But it’s what’s inside that counts: the 2023 Mac mini is the first Apple desktop computer to include the latest M2 chip, and the top-shelf model debuts the brandnew M2 Pro processor.
The 2020 M1 mini was already a compelling deal, with prices starting at £699, and the new version is even cheaper at £649. That buys you a standard M2 processor with eight CPU cores and ten GPU cores (two more than the M1), but note that the entry-level model still only comes with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. There’s no way to upgrade these after purchase, so consider stepping up to a model with 16GB or 24GB of memory. SSD options extend up to 2TB, and the embedded gigabit Ethernet socket can be swapped for a 10GbE port.
If you opt for the M2 Pro CPU, you get 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD as standard for £1,399 (£350 more than the equivalent M2 specification). Power users can configure up to
32GB of memory with the M2 Pro, and as much as 8TB of internal storage. There’s also a choice of two CPU flavours: the standard M2 Pro has ten CPU cores and 16 GPU cores, but for an extra £300 you can choose a model with 12 CPU cores and a curiously odd 19 GPU cores.
I tested the 12-core M2 Pro model with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, which will set you back a total of £1,899. Obviously that’s much higher than the entry-level price, but it’s not much more expensive than a desktop PC with a comparable hardware specification – and the
Mac mini is significantly smaller, quieter and more power-efficient.
No change outside
The new Mac mini keeps the same size and shape as the previous M1 edition, and that’s just fine by me: measuring 19.7cm square and just 3.6cm tall, it is pleasingly understated and fits easily into all sorts of desk arrangements. The only design quirk is that the round plastic base makes the Mac mini appear as though it’s floating slightly above your desk. With older Mac mini models the bottom plate could be popped off to upgrade the RAM or hard drive, but in recent systems it doesn’t serve much purpose as there are no user-serviceable parts inside.
At the rear there’s a decent array of ports: on the M2 model, you get a pair of USB connectors with Thunderbolt 4, plus two USB-A ports, HDMI out, an Ethernet port and a 3.5mm audio jack. Two 60Hz displays can be connected, at up to 6K resolution over Thunderbolt or 4K over HDMI.
Move up to the M2 Pro and you get an additional pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, plus upgraded video output capabilities. The M2 Pro mini can drive three screens at once, and its HDMI port can support a single 8K display at 60Hz, or a 4K display at 240Hz.
Much change inside
We first tested the M2 processor in last year’s MacBook Air and Pro laptops, and found the new chip was faster than the original M1, but well behind the M1 Pro and M1 Max variants. I was excited therefore to get the chance to try the new M2 Pro – and I’m delighted to say that, in my
time with the new Mac mini, it’s proved more than capable of handling anything I throw at it. I’ve had no trouble flipping between 30+ tabs in Chrome and Safari while listening to music and playing a game in windowed mode; apps such as Lightroom open near instantaneously.
That’s reflected in its benchmark scores. When I put the Mac mini to the test in the Geekbench 5.4 multicore CPU benchmark, it earned a score of 15,038 – quite a bit faster than the 12,477 I got from the 2021 MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro CPU. Indeed, the Mac mini comes impressively close to the 17,229 I recently saw from an Acer Predator Orion 7000 gaming PC, built on a 12th-generation Core i9 Intel CPU.
The M2 Pro chip shines in other benchmarks, too. I tried using my test system to transcode a 4K video down to 1080p using Handbrake, and timed the process at 4mins 26secs. That’s almost twice as fast as the 2020 Mac mini with the regular M1 processor (8:11), and a little ahead of the 2021 MacBook Pro with M1 Pro (4:51).
I then used the Pugetbench benchmark to test performance in Adobe’s suite of apps. Again, the M2 Pro Mac mini achieved excellent scores for its size, racking up 964 in the Photoshop benchmark and 847 in the Premiere Pro benchmark. That’s leagues better than the Mac mini M1, which struggled to even run the tests.
All of this is helped along by the use of a super-speedy SSD. In the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, the
Mac mini M2 Pro achieved writes of 6,186MB/sec and reads of 5,057MB/ sec – twice as fast as the original 2020 Mac mini M1’s disks. It’s also a lot faster than the SSDs found in the
2022 MacBook Air, and as the graphs above show it can keep up with Apple heavyweights such as the new MacBook Pro 14in ( see p44) and even the Mac Studio ( see issue 332, p60).
To be clear, the M2 Pro isn’t in the same league as Intel’s newest and most powerful CPUs: I recently tested a 13th-generation Core i9
CPU in an Origin PC, and it blew the M2 Pro away with a multicore score of 24,054 in Geekbench. Even so, the M2 Pro is more than powerful enough for just about any productivity role outside of high-end professional content creation.
Gaming potential
Finally, let’s talk about gaming on the Mac mini M2 Pro. Obviously this machine isn’t built primarily for gaming, but with as many as 19 GPU cores it packs a decent amount of graphical punch. On the M2 Pro model I was able to play older games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive at 1080p, with the detail settings maxed out, at over 100 frames per second (fps). Resident Evil Village ran much better than I’d expected, too; I was even able to fire up Metro Exodus, a comparatively heavyweight game, and play it at 4K on medium settings with an average frame rate of 30fps. It was just about playable at 5K on the Apple Studio Display, but the higher resolution meant I was unable to get more than 15-20fps even at medium settings.
I then fired up some Maccompatible game benchmarks, and saw good results that backed up my own experience. In Rise of the Tomb Raider, my review unit averaged 53fps at 1080p resolution, although that fell to only 8.7fps at the Studio Display’s native 5K resolution. I also ran the Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm graphics benchmark; here the Mac mini managed 50fps at 1080p and a perfectly playable 44fps at 4K.
While these scores pale in comparison to the best gaming PCs, they’re good for a desktop Mac. There’s no doubt that the new Mac mini is more than capable of playing the best games around, especially the M2 Pro model.
Small decision
The Mac mini M2 is easy to recommend. The base model is faster and cheaper than its predecessor, making it the obvious starting point for anyone seeking a Mac desktop. And if you’re focused on performance, the M2 Pro options turn it into a system that can hold its own against full-sized tower PCs.
There’s no denying that you can get even more performance out of the Mac Studio with the M1 Ultra processor, or perhaps even an old-fashioned Mac Pro. But both of those options will cost you several thousand pounds more than a Mac mini.
For anyone who seeks strong performance but doesn’t have unlimited funds, the new Mac mini is a solid deal that delivers plenty of power and versatility in an attractively quiet and compact format at a great price. ALEX WAWRO
SPECIFICATIONS
12-core (6 P-cores, 6 E-cores) Apple M2 Pro chip with 19-core GPU 16GB unified memory
1TB M.2 PCI-E Gen4 SSD HDMI 2 4 x Thunderbolt 4/USB-C 4 ports 2 x USB-A 3.1 Gen 2 gigabit Ethernet 3.5mm headphone jack Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth 5.3 macOS Ventura 197 x 197 x 36mm (WDH) 1.3kg
1yr limited warranty
“The M2 Pro is powerful enough for just about any productivity role outside of high-end professional content creation”