1 Week with the Mac Mini M6: Speed Isn't The Problem... — Transcript

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1. 0:00The Mac mini has historically been the
2. 0:02easiest entry point into Mac OS. It's
3. 0:05the machine that first got me into Apple
4. 0:07products as a new software developer and
5. 0:09a creative and it's also sparked a ton
6. 0:12of creativity elsewhere in terms of how
7. 0:14it's used. Because it is so compact and
8. 0:17affordable, it's made it ideal for
9. 0:20things like media hubs, home servers and
10. 0:22more recently as an AI assistant or a
11. 0:25go-to for tinkerers and DIY 3D printing
12. 0:29projects. But that might be starting to
13. 0:31change. Like every other piece of tech
14. 0:33and frankly most things these days, the
15. 0:36newest iteration of Mac mini has seen a
16. 0:39fairly substantial price hike and it's
17. 0:41no longer the same affordable little box
18. 0:44it was a couple of years ago. Where the
19. 0:46M4 mini started at $599 USD less than a
20. 0:49year ago, this new M6 version has a base
21. 0:52price of $899 and I guess the question
22. 0:56for me is what exactly can this M6
23. 0:59version do and is there still value
24. 1:02here?
25. 1:07Ah. So when I talk about what this mini
26. 1:10can do, I think that's a really
27. 1:12important thing to figure out right now
28. 1:13because with M series chips being so
29. 1:15powerful these days, something like the
30. 1:18M5 MacBook Air might feel very similar
31. 1:22to this in real world use and the price
32. 1:24is very similar now as well. So it kind
33. 1:27of makes me wonder if there's even a lot
34. 1:29of value in getting one of these
35. 1:31anymore. Unfortunately, Apple has been
36. 1:34incrementally increasing the price of
37. 1:36the mini recently. Earlier this year
38. 1:38they took away the 256 gig storage
39. 1:41option and left a $799
40. 1:44512 gig base model, but later brought
41. 1:48back the 256 with the same $799 price
42. 1:51tag making it less affordable than it
43. 1:54was. 256 gigs can technically be enough
44. 1:58if you're not installing a bunch of apps
45. 2:00and you're just using your Mac for basic
46. 2:02things like web browsing or
47. 2:04productivity. My wife's iMac is only
48. 2:07256, but because everything on that
49. 2:09machine is essentially cloud-based
50. 2:11office software, storage has never been
51. 2:14an issue. But for myself, that's a much
52. 2:16different story. Even with me storing
53. 2:18most of my working files and data on an
54. 2:21external SSD, because I use a lot of
55. 2:23creative development apps, I still end
56. 2:27up needing a minimum of 512 gigs as a
57. 2:30base. And bumping that up pushes the
58. 2:33Mini to 1099.
59. 2:35That's the same cost as a refurbished M5
60. 2:38MacBook Air with the same amount of
61. 2:39storage and RAM at 16 gigs. And $300
62. 2:44more than the M4 Mini would have been 6
63. 2:46months ago. So, at least for me, a lot
64. 2:49is riding on the M6 chip and what's
65. 2:52inside here to see if it even makes
66. 2:53sense to buy one of these cuz on the
67. 2:55outside, it looks exactly the same.
68. 2:58That's really not surprising as it's
69. 3:00only the second iteration of this design
70. 3:02and Apple did a fantastic job here in my
71. 3:05opinion. Not only does it have a solid
72. 3:08aluminum shell, it only takes up a 5x5
73. 3:11in surface area and is only 2 in tall.
74. 3:13So, you can place it pretty much
75. 3:15anywhere you can think of. I've added it
76. 3:18to my desk that is currently packed with
77. 3:20other gear and it easily fits there
78. 3:22without looking out of place or
79. 3:24cluttering things much. Although, it's
80. 3:26not entirely [music]
81. 3:27ideal with how I've got things currently
82. 3:29set up. I've got all my audio running
83. 3:32through this amplifier, which I've got
84. 3:33plugged into the back of my Mac Studio's
85. 3:363.5 mm jack. And the nice thing about
86. 3:39that is it's out of the way and I don't
87. 3:41ever see it. With the Mini, that's on
88. 3:44the front, so not great. And I know
89. 3:46that's more meant to be a headphone
90. 3:48jack, but if you've ever used a Mac Mini
91. 3:51or a Studio before, you're probably
92. 3:53aware that the internal speakers on them
93. 3:55are pretty bad. So, using some kind of
94. 3:58external speakers is a must. And I would
95. 4:01rather not use one of the USB-C ports
96. 4:03for audio, especially on the back.
97. 4:05You've still got the same three USB-C
98. 4:08Thunderbolt 4 ports there. Those can
99. 4:10fill up pretty quickly if you're using
100. 4:12one for a monitor, set of speakers, or
101. 4:15an external driver accessory. The front
102. 4:18does help out a little bit there as it's
103. 4:20got two USB-C 3.2 ports. So, they're not
104. 4:24quite as fast as on the back. And of
105. 4:26course, you can always hook this up to a
106. 4:28hub or a dock to expand the port
107. 4:30selection a bit there. But, outside
108. 4:33that, you've got the same HDMI 2.1 port
109. 4:36with a slight bump to the ethernet port
110. 4:38going from 1 gig to 2.5 this gen. Now,
111. 4:42if you were to get the M5 Pro version,
112. 4:44those back USB-C ports would move up to
113. 4:47Thunderbolt 5, but honestly, Thunderbolt
114. 4:494 is still incredibly fast, and most
115. 4:52people likely won't even notice the
116. 4:54difference. The bigger difference here
117. 4:56is going to be with the actual mini's
118. 4:58performance and how it works. And
119. 5:00starting this up for the first time,
120. 5:02that didn't go great for me. So, I'm
121. 5:05having my first real issue with a Mac
122. 5:08mini before I've really even got
123. 5:09started. So, um I'm using the transfer
124. 5:12tool to transfer everything over from my
125. 5:15Mac Studio to the mini. That usually
126. 5:18works fine. I've never really had a
127. 5:20problem with it, but it did freeze once
128. 5:24while doing it. Um but, the second time
129. 5:27worked. It went through. But, now it
130. 5:30just won't start at all. The login
131. 5:32screen comes up, put in my password, and
132. 5:35then it just freezes and sits there for
133. 5:37what seems like an eternity. Um restarts
134. 5:40don't help. So, I'm updating the Mac
135. 5:43Studio now. Hopefully, that works. Um I
136. 5:46might try and restore from a backup if
137. 5:49that doesn't work, but I'm just really
138. 5:52hoping that I don't have to install
139. 5:54everything manually because that
140. 5:55transfer tool just saves so much time.
141. 5:59So, we'll see how it goes, but not a
142. 6:02great start so far. Luckily, after
143. 6:05upgrading to macOS 27, everything seemed
144. 6:08to transfer over fine, although I was
145. 6:10running up against the SSD limit. So, I
146. 6:13had to do some clean-up and uninstall
147. 6:15some things, but just using it like I
148. 6:17would in my own workflow, it's been
149. 6:18pretty solid for me. The M6 in here has
150. 6:21a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU that
151. 6:24compared to the previous gen, Apple says
152. 6:27is 40% faster in CPU performance, has
153. 6:31twice the GPU performance with things
154. 6:33like 3D rendering and gaming, four times
155. 6:36the AI performance, and twice the SSD
156. 6:39speed. And while I don't have an M4 mini
157. 6:41here to test, I do have some M5 machines
158. 6:45that I've been comparing it to, so you
159. 6:47can visually see how much better it is.
160. 6:49In synthetic benchmarks, the M6 is about
161. 6:5210% faster than the M5 in single-core
162. 6:54scores, and 22% faster in multi-core,
163. 6:57with about a 17% improvement on the GPU,
164. 7:01which is about average for a yearly chip
165. 7:04bump. And if you were wondering what
166. 7:06that's like compared to the M5 Pro that
167. 7:09you can also get in the Mac mini now,
168. 7:11the M6 beats it in single-core by the
169. 7:14same amount, but the M6 multi-core is
170. 7:16around 26% slower, [music] and the GPU
171. 7:20is 31% slower than the M5 Pro. SSD
172. 7:24speed, for example, if I start this, it
173. 7:27is about double the speed of the M4
174. 7:29mini, which I'll show on the screen as
175. 7:31well from a past review, but while it
176. 7:33does look faster, you're probably never
177. 7:36going to notice this in real-world use.
178. 7:38Those numbers can give you a general
179. 7:40sense of what's improved on paper at a
180. 7:43high level, but I always like to dig
181. 7:45into things that are more specialized
182. 7:47and are at least somewhat grounded in
183. 7:49real use cases. In Xcode benchmark,
184. 7:52which is basically compiling code and is
185. 7:54heavily CPU based, the M6 finishes 43%
186. 7:59faster than the M5, but was about 20%
187. 8:02slower than the M5 Pro. If we move to
188. 8:05GPU-focused work, this blender scene
189. 8:07that I've been using for wallpaper
190. 8:09mockups rendered 30% faster on the M6
191. 8:12over the M5, but was about 35% slower
192. 8:15than the M5 Pro. And finally, rendering
193. 8:18out last week's video in Final Cut Pro
194. 8:21was only about 15% faster on the M6 over
195. 8:24the M5 and 11% slower than the M5 Pro.
196. 8:29The reason why you see such a small
197. 8:30difference in Final Cut Pro is because
198. 8:33the media engine between all three chips
199. 8:35are almost identical with a single
200. 8:38encoding engine. They will have some
201. 8:39fluctuation in performance depending on
202. 8:42the timeline you're working with and
203. 8:44what effects or plugins you're using,
204. 8:46but to see real gains there, you're
205. 8:48going to have to move up to a Max or an
206. 8:51Ultra chip as those have multiple encode
207. 8:54and decode engines. For instance,
208. 8:55[music] my Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra
209. 8:58is almost four times faster because it
210. 9:01does have four encode engines, but
211. 9:03surprisingly enough, the actual editing
212. 9:06process between the M6 Mini and [music]
213. 9:08the Studio is relatively the same. 95%
214. 9:12of the time, I feel absolutely no
215. 9:14difference at all. If I'm just chopping
216. 9:17up clips and working through my timeline
217. 9:19with 5.9K H.265 footage, the M6 Mini is
218. 9:23smooth as butter even with this machine
219. 9:25only having 16 gigs of RAM where my Mac
220. 9:28Studio has 96. macOS is fantastic at
221. 9:32managing memory and you can do a lot
222. 9:34with 16 gigs. Obviously, office work or
223. 9:37web browsing works completely fine, but
224. 9:39even with coding, graphic designer,
225. 9:42light photo and video editing, provided
226. 9:45you're not trying to do too much at
227. 9:46once, memory is not an issue here. So,
228. 9:49just to give you an idea of how much you
229. 9:51can get out of 16 gigs of RAM, right now
230. 9:53I've got Blender open working on a
231. 9:55wallpaper, and I've got it open in
232. 9:58Affinity, and I noticed this weird
233. 10:00little part is out of place. So, I've
234. 10:02actually had to go back into Blender and
235. 10:05fix that. I've got those two apps open.
236. 10:09Um memory pressure is still in the
237. 10:11green, between green and yellow, which
238. 10:13is completely fine. And then I've also
239. 10:15got a web browser open with a bunch of
240. 10:17tabs as well. So, you can get quite a
241. 10:20lot out of 16 gigs here. Now, if you are
242. 10:24more of a multitasker, or you're working
243. 10:27a lot with GPU-heavy stuff, or with
244. 10:29local AI, which I'll touch on in a bit,
245. 10:32it's probably worth bumping up to 24 or
246. 10:3532 gigs, but depending on what other
247. 10:38options you want here, it might just
248. 10:40make sense to upgrade to another machine
249. 10:43at that point. Realistically, from what
250. 10:45I've seen here though, everything has
251. 10:46been very snappy, which, honestly, I can
252. 10:49probably say about any other M-series
253. 10:51Mac. I've been working on my wallpapers
254. 10:54on this Mini without any hiccups.
255. 10:56Lightroom works great, but again, that's
256. 10:59not really any different than my M4 or
257. 11:02M5 Macs have been, and it's only when I
258. 11:04get into very specific use cases where I
259. 11:07notice any difference over other models.
260. 11:10For instance, say if I open up Blender,
261. 11:12on simple scenes, it's easy enough to
262. 11:14navigate around, and even on more
263. 11:16complex scenes, the 12-core GPU on here
264. 11:19does feel smoother than the base M5, and
265. 11:22it is noticeably faster, but if I spend
266. 11:25any kind of time in here rendering out
267. 11:26scenes and tweaking things for projects,
268. 11:29the fan starts screaming at me, and it
269. 11:32can still be painfully slow compared to
270. 11:34a pro-level chip. Likewise, as good as
271. 11:37this is for video editing, if I go into
272. 11:39Final Cut Pro and add insanely demanding
273. 11:42plugins, things are going to get pretty
274. 11:43choppy. But, if I'm at the stage where I
275. 11:46know that that's a bottleneck, I
276. 11:48probably already know that I need more
277. 11:51than a base-level chip. In my opinion,
278. 11:53where this M6 is really going to excel
279. 11:55is going to be somewhere in between
280. 11:57casual use and more pro use cases where
281. 12:00maybe you're doing software development
282. 12:02and you need quick build times, or
283. 12:04you're more into creative workflows that
284. 12:06might be slightly demanding, but not to
285. 12:09the point where you're doing any super
286. 12:11complex production work. And the same
287. 12:13kind of goes for AI. I know Apple
288. 12:16positions this as an AI-capable
289. 12:19computer, but it is quite limited in
290. 12:21that sense. This M6 chip does have the
291. 12:24new dual neural engine with 32 cores
292. 12:27total, which does benchmark
293. 12:30faster than the M5 neural engine. And I
294. 12:32do think that is beneficial for faster
295. 12:35on-device Siri or some of the smaller
296. 12:37on-device stuff macOS offers. But, if
297. 12:40you're trying to run third-party local
298. 12:42AI models, even at 32 gigs of RAM, you
299. 12:45probably still don't have enough to run
300. 12:47anything super useful there. The only
301. 12:50other area where I would say you might
302. 12:52notice a slight difference is with
303. 12:54wireless connectivity, where the M6 mini
304. 12:56is now in line with all of Apple's other
305. 12:59M5 and above machines with Wi-Fi and
306. 13:01Bluetooth 6. My Wi-Fi speeds have been
307. 13:04great, even though I'm not very close to
308. 13:06my mesh router, and Bluetooth range
309. 13:09isn't nearly as good as my iPhone, but I
310. 13:12can still move around freely on the same
311. 13:14floor in my house with my AirPods in
312. 13:16without experiencing any drops or issues
313. 13:18there. All in all, unsurprisingly, it
314. 13:21just feels like a solid little machine.
315. 13:23Over the last week, I've kind of
316. 13:25forgotten that I've been using it
317. 13:26instead of the Mac Studio and it's only
318. 13:29on those rare occasions where I'm
319. 13:30waiting for something to render out, I'm
320. 13:33moving around Blender or purposely
321. 13:35trying to stress test it where I can
322. 13:37feel it like behind more expensive
323. 13:39options, but the same could be said for
324. 13:41machines like the M5 MacBook Air. If
325. 13:44this were 6 months ago when I was buying
326. 13:46this at $799 USD, I could easily justify
327. 13:50buying or recommending the Mini, but at
328. 13:52$1099 I honestly don't know if that's
329. 13:56the case anymore. It's still a great
330. 13:58machine and if you really like the form
331. 14:00factor, even though the price went up, I
332. 14:02don't know that it's overpriced by any
333. 14:04means, but still, if you buy a Mini, a
334. 14:07keyboard and a mouse and a monitor,
335. 14:09you're going to be paying much more than
336. 14:11an M5 MacBook Air with similar specs
337. 14:14that also has the benefit of being
338. 14:16portable and you can do pretty much the
339. 14:18same things between each model. The M5
340. 14:21Pro Mini is a little better in that
341. 14:23sense as you can save yourself about 500
342. 14:26bucks compared to the same config in the
343. 14:28MacBook Pro, but prices and values right
344. 14:31now are all kind of jumbled around and
345. 14:33seem to change every week and tech in
346. 14:35general is a bit of a mess at the
347. 14:37moment. So, I guess I would say if your
348. 14:40heart is set on the Mini and it's within
349. 14:42your budget, it still is a fantastic
350. 14:44machine and I don't think that you're
351. 14:46going to be disappointed with it. That
352. 14:48being said, if you guys have any
353. 14:50questions about the Mini that I didn't
354. 14:52cover here, please drop a comment down
355. 14:54below and if you want to see me cover
356. 14:56any other Macs or specific use cases,
357. 14:59I'm open to checking those out as well.
358. 15:01As always, if you want to see more tech
359. 15:04related content, please subscribe and
360. 15:06I'll see you guys in the next upload.