Along with the latest M2 chips powered MacBook Pro machines, Apple also launched the new Mac mini line-up today. These are available with M2 and M2 Pro chips inside, bringing some much-needed updates to Apple’s smallest desktop machine, and packing more power than ever before.
Apple claims this new line-up offers significantly faster performance than the previous generation Mac minis. To be precise, the M2 Pro-powered Mac mini offers up to 2.5x faster performance in Affinity Photo, 4.2x faster ProRes transcode in Final Cut Pro, and up to 2.8x faster gameplay in Resident Evil Village.
The M2 Pro chip packs in a 12-core CPU with eight high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores and a 19-core GPU, with up to 32 GB RAM. There is also a 19-core GPU, 200GB/s of memory bandwidth, and up to 32GB of memory. It packs a next-generation Neural Engine, which is 40% faster than the previous-gen M1.
M2 Pro-powered Mac mini can simultaneously play up to five streams of 8K ProRes 422 video at 30 fps, or up to 23 streams of 4K ProRes 422 video at 30 fps.
On the other side, the Mac mini with M2 packs an 8-core CPU with four high-performance and four high-efficiency cores, along with a 10-core GPU. This also adds ProRes acceleration to the Mac mini. The M2 chip-powered Mac mini can simultaneously play up to two streams of 8K ProRes 422 video at 30 fps, or up to 12 streams of 4K ProRes 422 video at 30 fps.
Specs-wise, the Mac mini with M2 Pro has access to four Thunderbolt 4 ports, while M2 built Mac mini has two Thunderbolt 4 ports. Other specs are including an Ethernet port, a Gigabit port (10 Gigabit option), an HDMI port, two USB-A ports, and a headphone jack.
Both Mac mini configurations ship with support for Wi-Fi 6E, which is the fastest wireless networking standard. They also support Bluetooth 5.3.
RAM options are including – a Mac mini with M2 starting with 8GB by default, with the option to increase that to 16GB or 24GB. The M2 Pro model has 16GB as the base model, with also 32GB as another option if you want it.
Storage configurations start at 256GB in the Mac mini M2, with 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB options also on offer. M2 Pro powered Mac mini comes with 512GB storage as standard, but there are also 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, or 8TB versions available if base storage isn’t enough for you.
Meanwhile, Apple discontinued the M1 Mac Mini and Intel Mac Mini from its line-up, having now replaced them with M2-powered machines. Apple’s full press release is on its website.
Price & Availability
The new Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro is now available for pre-order and will begin shipping next Tuesday, January 24. Prices begin at $599. The M2 Pro Mac mini starts at $1299. A $100 education discount is also available for schools and students.
- Mac mini M2 8-Core CPU, 10-Core GPU, 8GB Unified Memory, 256GB SSD – $599 (₹59900 in India)
- Mac mini M2 8-Core CPU, 10-Core GPU, 8GB Unified Memory, 512GB SSD – $799 (₹79900 in India)
- Mac mini M2 Pro 10-Core CPU, 16-Core GPU, 16GB Unified Memory, 512GB SSD – $1299 (₹1,29,900 in India)
Source: Apple