M2 Pro Mac mini as iMac Pro Replacement?

[Nathan Parker]

I’m still hoping to hold out replacing my iMac Pro with an Apple Silicon iMac Pro or iMac with an M Pro processor if Apple releases such a machine (I work well with all-in-one Macs).

 

However, I still keep an “emergency plan” on backup just in case my iMac Pro were to bite the dust, and I’d need to buy a Mac immediately for work.

 

My iMac Pro is the 8 Core CPU, 8 Core GPU, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD model.

 

Originally, I had looked at the Mac Studio + Studio Display as my “emergency plan” in the event I need to quickly replace my iMac Pro.

 

However, I see the Mac mini now comes with a M2 Pro chip, and there are models with similar specs to my iMac Pro.

 

I’m wondering, is it actually possible now to use a M2 Pro Mac mini as a replacement to the iMac Pro and have a similar spec machine? Between the M2 Mac mini and Studio Display, if I needed to buy such a Mac, it would actually run about $1,500 cheaper than what I paid for an iMac Pro.

 

Thanks!

[Michel Gilbert]

If you’ve got the 2017 model, I think you would have to look up the benchmarks of the Intel Xeon W-2140B and the M2 Pro separately to compare.

[Rich]

My gut is even the M1 Pro/Ultra/Max would crush a 2017 Xeon.... I did find this on the plain M1:  https://architosh.com/2021/04/the-m1-mac-mini-vs-imac-pro-2017-vs-everyone-part-1/

 

If you look at the Geekbench scores in that article — the original M1 Mac mini (a plain M1, no pro/max/ultra) destroyed a iMac Pro 2017 in single threaded but lost in multithreaded...  The Pro/Max/Ultra would have likely remedied the MT performance.  Even a plain M2 is faster than all M1 procs in ST and closer to a Max in MT.  This doesn't even consider GPU performance or any of the other improved subsystems.  

 

In other words, I imagine a M2 Mini will crush a a 2017 iMac Pro pretty much everywhere....

[Nathan Parker]

Thanks for the info!

 

This is almost unbelievable that I could even consider a Mac mini (plus I’m likely buying a M2 MacBook Air later this year for travel). In the past, I would have literally destroyed these machines had I tried to use them for my workload. Now I’m able to give them serious consideration to power my workload.

 

What’s even more ironic is my financial situation is improving in 2023 where I can finally afford Pro-level hardware from Apple without it being a cost-burden (unlike in the past when I had to really save up for it), but now Apple has made it to where I probably don’t need to throw the extra cash at Pro-level hardware. I guess it’s a double blessing.