Mac Mini (M2 Pro) vs Mac Studio (M1 Max): The most bang for your buck? 

Most comparison videos spout top level spec differences and leave the viewer to understand what the impact is (ex I had to go look up what's changed from BT5.0 to 5.3). You cover it all in the same video without skipping a beat; wonderful!

Great comparison of these two powerhouse machines! Our M2Pro Mini was slightly quieter than our M1 Max Studio but ONLY at idle. In our normal workload of high track count audio and video tasks, the Mini was definitely louder than the Max Studio and pushing 200 degrees for sustained workloads was a concern as well. So much so, that we returned our M2Pro and kept the Studio.

I am so glad I found this channel. Your videos are really well edited and the information is concise and useful +subscribed

One of the best video comparing the 2 systems. Informative and direct to the point. Thank you.

A very nice and detailed comparison of these two devices. Keep up the good work.

This is exactly the video that I had been looking for! Your reviews are very detailed and on point. Covering all the important parts and giving an unbiased opinion based on data.

Excellent comparison video. Calm, informative and clear. Thanks.

Holy moses, rapid fire megadata! Been watching random compare videos this evening. Picked up some stuff. Then this one. Everything you need in a nice tight bundle!

this was EXACTLY the comparison I was looking for. Torn between the studio and the mac mini and you answered everything I needed to know. Lots of youtube vids compare the mac mini against either the ultra (stupid comparison) or they're comparing a 12/19 mac mini against a studio when what I wanted was a comparison of the 10/16 mac mini against a base config 10/24 studio. Thanks for making this vid!

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR! THANK YOU!!!

This video answered every question I had as I sit here trying to pick which config is best for me. Well done. Subbed

Excellent and very professional review. Very well done. Thank you!!!

WOW - Basically the exact video I was looking for. Thank you for your level of detail.

Wow ! Made my day for such clarity for options

Love the way you do the cost vs performance benefit analysis!

Great comparison, exactly what i was looking for - thanks a lot!

Best comparison and exactly what I need. Subscribed. Thanks!

Great video, you answered a lot of questions that others missed. This video makes it easier to understand my needs for my new Mac.

great video and analysis!

Best comparison for these products in all of RU-vid! Great job 👍🏼

That’s a lot of useful info in this video,great work 🎉

Amazing review, concise and easy to understand!

Absolutely fantastic video! As a professional film/television Editor, I'm weighing these two Macs (and their upgrade options) for an at home set up for daily use. I stumbled upon your channel and I really appreciate your cost comparison / $ for performance factors. An extremely helpful data point other than the same geek bench charts everyone seems to be using. Liked and thanks again!

Buddy, you did a great job in this video. Thanks!

EXCELLENT video, brother. Thank you!

Wow great comparison video. Thank u for it.

Wonderful, concise comparison of the M2m Mini Pro and the Max Studio. Helps my decision process. Thanks very much.

Brilliant comparison! There is a LOT of really useful information (well-presented, too) crammed into this 14 minute video.

Very thorough and helpful, thank you!

Excellent video, presentation and content. Keep up the good work

Best comparation video. Direct to the point. New subscriber 👍🏼

Thanks! You exactly explained what I am Looking for!

Excellent review. Thanks.

Great detailed video

Good and detailed video. What do you think between the 16gb vs 32gb? Is thag worth it to upgrade?

You Killed this video man thanks alot

Thank You! VERY helpful.

Thanks for all the great information

I like the way you talk/script. Like a massage to the brain. Good video, no idea why I watched it as I have no money to buy even an Apple mouse, but still enjoyed it and subscribing. Have a nice day.

Got me subscribed. Excellent

One thing I want to ask; how is HDR and Resolution Scaling on the Studio? I use the GP27U as my monitor and would likely use the HDMI Port. I’m happy to sacrifice refresh rate in exchange for image quality and quality HDR. But I know that the M2 Pro Mac Mini’s HDMI 2.1 stops outputting HDR at a certain point. To me the base Studio with a 1TB SSD looks like far greater value than a similarly spec’d M2 Pro Mini, but my purchase does hinge on how its HDMI fares.

Excellent Review! Thank you! In the world of photography and standard RU-vid video lengths, do you still consider the M2 Pro Mac Mini, with 1 TB storage and increased core pkg, the better buy? BTW, I'd be using only two monitors at most (1080 - 4K range). I look forward to watching more of your videos!

The best and clearest comparison, especially on price vs performance aspect. Please do more between different Mac models. Like MacBook Air M2 vs MacBook Pro M1, etc.

Great video, thank you!

Very helpful and entertaining video.

Best review I've seen 👌

Fine video: clear explanations, relevant comparisons, great inserts, perfect pacing. Bravo, and thank you!

It was helpful, thanks.

This was helpful, thank you. Please do another comparison like this when the next generation Mac Studio's drop. THANKS!

Also nice to be able to understand your speech unlike a lot of other RU-vidrs

Very thorough comparison video. Wish you'd cover the cooling system, since the mac mini m2 pro has higher core clock speed, as well as less fan

Excellent breakdown.

Great comparison

Super comparison. Thank you

Really good review, with many facts and none of YT BS.

Thank you for comparing. I have Mac mini M1 and upgraded to Mac Studio M1max used for $900.

I do enjoy your content and broadly speaking agree with many of your points. I would take a slight issue with the "more options" if you add the hub. I suspect you could get yourself a run of the mill cheap USB hub to add to your mac mini or studio, the studio has the built in card reader and so the only really benefit of the usual (lovely stylish to look at it has to be said) Satechi or other brands in perhaps the internal M.2 though I doubt that will run much faster than if you have one in an enclosure, one that you could attach to a USB C port on the front of the studio if you need it and have the benefit of being able to take it with you whenever that's required. I guess my point is the IO on the studio, even with a USB hub and an enclosure is still £60 ish cheaper than the type of hub you speak of for a mini, though not as attractive perhaps.

incredible video. thanks. i will get the studio cause its currently on sale and I could use the extra ports.

This was really an awesome comparison, best I've seen & i've seen plenty :) It's sad the prices of upgraded memore & ssd is very expensive, if they were decent priced, like half the price I would have switched from long time PC user to mac a while back already. Still thinking of doing it anyway though :) We will see. 1tb & 32gb would have been nice to have.

Great info. One item I never see explained in the performance characteristics...How does the "memory bandwidth" specs actually impact the performance numbers? The mini (Pro) has 200GB/s while the Studio (Max) has 400GB/s

Very nice thank you ;) Just ordered my first Mac. It’s the Mac Studio M1 Max with 32 core gpu. I was about to buy a maxed out M2 pro mini but I found the M1 Max brand new at 1800 euros almost 550 euro cheaper than the m2 pro. It was a no brainer:) can’t wait 😛 Cheers!

Hi ,for editing videos in premier or davinci resolve, it is better the Mac Mini m2pro cpu 12, gpu 19, 32 ram or the Mac studio m1 max base model or mac studio 10cpu, 32 gpu, 32/64 gb. Thank you

Great video, no crazy influencer shouting. Thanks!

Hi. With the new Mac Studio. Would you make the a new video since the new Mac Studio base model will be the same price as upgraded Mac mini pro

I’m leaning towards the m2 pro Mac mini. But the only thing I’m wondering g about is can it handle game emulators? Or would the studio be better since it has more gpu cores ?

Excellent, thanks 👍

Great that, really useful.

Nice video... also just to put some value on Mac Studio is that Mac Studio have beefier cooling system. So not only components like more SSD space, RAM, processor cost money. You get bigger enclosure that vent better along with better cooling system. Anyway M2 Mac Mini is superb machine for what is worth. At the end it depends for what you will be using it for one have advantages/disadvantage over another.

I believe the TB4 on Mac Studio also supports 8K60 or 4K120.

Hello and thank you for your channel. I have one question, Costco is selling the basic Mac Mini M1 Max Studio now for $ 1499.00 would that price change your mind? Thank You.

On the Studio, how easy is it to lower the fan control speed to 1,100 rpm from 1,300 rpm? Do you need to open it up to do that?

Thanks for an interesting and useful Video. Now the M2 Studio os out, the M1 Studio max, in the uK can be as cheap as £1350 on 2nd hand sites, while the M2-Pro is often only around £1200 2nd hand. So on the 2nd hand market the M1 Studio is ~£200 more on average than a 2nd hand M2Pro and a similar price to a new M2Pro @£1399.00 So probably get a 2nd hand M1 when I see one at a suitable price.

the best comparison of these two machines by far I've seen. Thanks

A very useful and timely video as Costco UK currently have the M1 Max Studio on offer for £1299. Bargain considering the (fairly) similar performances!

Excellent!

Excellent video and you made my choice clear. M2 Pro Mac Mini it is!

I’d like to know the experience on actual use for instance editing video saw some videos on specs and export but I’d rather have a better experience during the making of the video than jus exporting it

Excellent viddy ! Best I've seen on the subject . . made my choice easier (mac mini m2 pro 16gb 1Tb) ! Cheers !😀

I still can't decide which one to buy. I am a professional photographer and videographer and still using a 2013 iMac hahaha. With one would you recommend for me? Mac Studio M1 base model or Mini M2 Pro? I appreciate it if you can help. Thanks

I am thinking of getting a Mac Mini for music ( I am a headphone enthusiast with some pretty serious equipments), word processing, PowerPoint, browsing etc… instead of using my work machine - a 14-inch M1 MacBook Pro. I am thinking of these options: 1. M2 Mac Mini with 16 GB 2. M2 Mac Mini Pro 3. A used M1 Mac Mini but more rams and HDD Please advise me, thank you,

The Neural Engine is another reason one may prefer the M2. I think they said it's 30% faster on the M2. My software uses the NE, but I'm not sure if 30% is enough for me.

Also, for me, it’s the noise level plus the mention of that high-pitched whine…..

I was considering the studio, but then the m2pro mini came out with HDMI 2.1 Instant cop. Glad I waited

Quick follow-up. You do a fine job of analyzing performance vs. cost to determine value, with use cases also factored in. Costco currently has the M1 Max Studio (base configuration) on sale fo4r 1500.00. Obviously the performance vs. cost evaluation changes with that large reduction in price. How would you evaluate value between 1299 (base Mac Mini M2 Pro) and this sale price for the Studio? I am leaning toward the Studio, even with the slightly lower CPU performance, given the extra ports, the doubled RAM, and the greater encode-decode-render performance for video . Your thoughts?

You mentioned briefly that the M1 Max offers 400GB/sec memory bandwidth while the M2 Pro offers half that -- 200MB/sec, then you mentioned it's a metric that could be forgotten, as it's just due to the nature of the chip. I rather disagree with this. If the CPU and GPU are both under substantial load, it's been shown that the M1 Max can saturate its memory bus well beyond 200MB/sec being transferred. As I recall, tests did not find a scenario where it could be completely saturated under load by both GPU and CPU, but certainly space above 200MB/sec was taken advantage of.

The biggest selling point of Apple Silicon so far is that the cheap models aren't terrible for casual use. If you're doing the kind of high-powered work that would seem to suggest a Mac Studio Pro, you would be better off building a custom PC with a real graphics card in it (unless you just really want/need to be doing it on a Mac). Much better performance for less cost.

found it interesting that I could get a Studio M1 Max 10/24 32GB/1TB cheaper than a Mini M2 Pro 10/19 32GB/1TB difference is like 45 USD here from this info it is "slightly" slower in CPU... but it has 5 more GPU cores and is cheaper... for otherwise same stats and better cooling... can add another 258 USD for the additional 8 GPU cores

I hesitated a lot when the studio was released cos I had an intel iMac , so I waited for an 27 iMac that never came, and I finally bought the M2 pro Mac mini 1Tb, 32Gb, 10Gb Ethernet , and it's a blazing fast machine , these new Apple silicons Mac are Emulation heaven, I cannot believe how fast all games runs from older generation consoles to PS3 and 360, but I love the Studio design, I would have preferred a Mac Studio with wifi 6E, HDMI 2.1, and newer BT , and if the older studio would have got these I sure would have ordered this one . I feel like the studio will either never be updated cos the mini could replace it cos there is a lot of free space inside, and with the launch of the Mac Pro M2 or M3 I feel like I would be weird to have the studio between the mini and Mac Pro... I hope I'm wrong cos Apple should continue to refresh this machine who is a GPU beast . it feels weird that Apple didn't reveal an M2 max Studio , maybe the ultra isn't ready yet but I do not see why cos ultra is just 2 Max ... I'm curious to see what will happen to the Studio , why we see so many studio on sale ? does these people prefer to buy an M2 pro Mac mini ? or a laptop ? it's a bit weird .. but again I love this design and I hope Apple will not abandon it so early.

B&H photo is having a great deal on mac mini m2 pro

Apple can address this issue of "bandwidth" by simply unlocking the Thunderbolt 4 to HDMI 2.1 or 4K 120hz playback from that combo on Mac Studio.

Very nicely done, however, now M2 Max Studio takes the cake.

The cost of upgrading apple HD is insane in Australia, $300 to go from 512gb to 1TB . Mac mini pro with 1tb and 32gb RAM IS $3400 vs base model M2 max studio $3299., no comparison !

I have m1 Mac mini, m1 mba, m2 mba…. Don’t know why i keep window shopping and watching these reviews. Lol

for $300 more is mac studio better choice over base m2 pro

Thanks, this is helpful. Apple naming everything is really solid, no numbers, no figures, just fanboy friendly PRO, MAX, ULTRA, which actually means nothing in the real world.

Mac Studio Apple M1 Max are now $1550 refurbished from Apple. great value as of June 14th, 2023

goat

I didn’t understand 70% of what you said, it’s an error to assume people know all those technical words

the prices from apple make no sense when they work in his oown machines double price for ram and ssd than one studio mac wtf…

am i the only one that uses just one monitor?