Mac Mini M6 Review - HOW MUCH!? — Transcript

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1. 0:00So, everyone's talking about the new
2. 0:01iPhones, the M2 Pros. Very exciting,
3. 0:04kind of. Can we talk about this guy, the
4. 0:07world's cutest desktop PC? It's the Mac
5. 0:10Mini. We've also got the Mac Studio
6. 0:12here, both of which have just been
7. 0:13actually fairly quietly updated by
8. 0:16Apple. We've got both new models here,
9. 0:18but I want to focus on this because
10. 0:19while on the outside it looks identical
11. 0:22to the previous generation, still this
12. 0:23very cute, very portable little 5-in by
13. 0:255-in cube box thing. Got it powering my
14. 0:28Studio Display here. This is the first
15. 0:30time we've seen Apple's new M6 chip. And
16. 0:33there's also a new higher-end M5 Pro
17. 0:35version of this, which gets you more
18. 0:37graphics performance and more AI
19. 0:38performance. I'll dive into some numbers
20. 0:40in a second, but this is very exciting
21. 0:42because A, I love a Mac Mini. B, this is
22. 0:44the first time we've seen the M6. And C,
23. 0:47uh well, actually it's less exciting,
24. 0:48but we have to talk about pricing and
25. 0:50value because things have changed a
26. 0:52little bit.
27. 0:57Oh, and by the way, if you're wondering
28. 0:58how capable this little thing is, I am
29. 1:00currently playing back a quite demanding
30. 1:034K editing Premiere Pro. I've got render
31. 1:06blender blender rendering. I've also got
32. 1:08draw things and
33. 1:10doing some AI image generation all the
34. 1:12same time, all on near enough the base
35. 1:14model. It's the M6, but it's got a
36. 1:15little bit more memory. That's wild.
37. 1:17Anyway, hold on 1 second. This, this is
38. 1:19the old Mac Mini. As I say, visually
39. 1:21identical. But while this came in M4 and
40. 1:24M4 Pro skews, this M6 with the
41. 1:27higher-end M5 Pro. So, obviously the
42. 1:30like-for-like comparison will be M6
43. 1:32versus M4. How much faster is it? But
44. 1:33this presents an interesting question.
45. 1:35Could the new base M6 model actually
46. 1:38compete with the higher-end, much
47. 1:40beefier M4 Pro on the old one? I'm going
48. 1:43to put these two side by side in just a
49. 1:45second. But can we talk about price
50. 1:46first? Because when Apple launched the
51. 1:48fantastic refresh of the Mac Mini with
52. 1:51its new design a couple of years ago,
53. 1:52with the M4 chip, it was 599, 600 quid
54. 1:55in the UK and about the same in the US.
55. 1:57Then, at the beginning of this year,
56. 1:58they discontinued that base model and
57. 2:00made the 512 storage variant the new
58. 2:03base, uh but then increasing the price
59. 2:05to 799. So, it was a price increase, but
60. 2:07you got more storage. But, now we have
61. 2:09the new M6, which goes back down to the
62. 2:11original base storage of 256, but for
63. 2:14899. So, we've gone from essentially a
64. 2:17600-lb Mac Mini couple of years ago to a
65. 2:19900-lb Mac Mini. 50% more expensive.
66. 2:23That is a bit frustrating. It definitely
67. 2:24makes this a touch harder to recommend,
68. 2:26especially if you can still find an M4
69. 2:29Mini out there, which I would absolutely
70. 2:30go for because, while yes, this will be
71. 2:32faster, I'll show you some numbers in a
72. 2:33second, I think the value here with the
73. 2:36Mac Mini is just going for the cheapest
74. 2:38one because it's such a capable machine.
75. 2:40It's so portable. You can take it in a
76. 2:41backpack with you. You can stick it to
77. 2:43the back of a display and make it like
78. 2:45an all-in-one computer, put under the
79. 2:46desk. You can buy a bunch of them. Like,
80. 2:49this is just the ultimate starter Mac
81. 2:52that has way more power than you'd ever
82. 2:53need, even on the older M4 one. So, if
83. 2:55you could get that for 599, I'd just
84. 2:57straight away absolutely do that. The
85. 2:59problem is, Apple's been pretty good
86. 3:00about taking them all off the shelves,
87. 3:02and in the UK at least, buying new from
88. 3:04a reputable website, I couldn't find an
89. 3:06M4 Mini. So, you may actually have to go
90. 3:09for the new one, but is it any good?
91. 3:10Does the M6 actually make much of a
92. 3:12difference? Well, on paper, versus the
93. 3:14previous base M4 Mac Mini, because of
94. 3:16course there wasn't an M5 version,
95. 3:18they've bumped the number of cores for
96. 3:19the processor and the graphics from 10
97. 3:21to 12, but also each graphics core now
98. 3:24has its own neural accelerator. They
99. 3:26introduced this on last year's M5
100. 3:28architecture, and together with a new
101. 3:30dual 16-core neural engine, local AI
102. 3:33performance should be through the roof.
103. 3:35The memory bandwidth is also faster if
104. 3:37you spec the 24 or 32 gig version, and
105. 3:39the SSD speeds, the storage speeds, are
106. 3:42up to twice as fast on the base 256
107. 3:44model. They have still kept the power
108. 3:46button underneath, which is a little bit
109. 3:47of a weird place for it, especially as I
110. 3:48just actually turned this off when I
111. 3:50picked it up. They've also improved the
112. 3:51connectivity. They've got Apple's new N1
113. 3:54chip in here. So, Bluetooth 5.3 becomes
114. 3:566, uh Wi-Fi 6E becomes 7, and the LAN
115. 4:00port is now 2.5 gigabits uh compared to
116. 4:031 before. Although, you can still spend
117. 4:04extra to get 10, but it's a faster base
118. 4:06model. So, let's see. All together,
119. 4:08we've got 20% more CPU cores, uh 20%
120. 4:11more graphics cores, each one with their
121. 4:12own neural accelerator, and all of which
122. 4:14built on that new uh more efficient
123. 4:162-nanometer architectures, faster memory
124. 4:18bandwidth, faster storage speeds,
125. 4:20although depending on the spec, the
126. 4:21improved connectivity with the N1 chip.
127. 4:23Oh, and it's 50% more expensive. Now,
128. 4:25the folks over at Apple say that we're
129. 4:26looking at up to a 40% faster processor,
130. 4:29up to double the graphics, four times
131. 4:31the AI, and double the storage versus
132. 4:33the previous gen, but of course, that's
133. 4:35their numbers. And well, as I say, I
134. 4:36don't have the previous base M4 to test,
135. 4:39let's see how this new M6 competes with
136. 4:42the previous M4 Pro. So, I've run a
137. 4:44whole bunch of different benchmarks from
138. 4:46Geekbench and Cinebench to 3DMark and
139. 4:48Blender, and a couple of local AI tests.
140. 4:51And my takeaway is that yes, while the
141. 4:53new M6 is more expensive than before, it
142. 4:56actually gets remarkably close to the
143. 4:58higher spec M4 Pro. And that's despite
144. 5:00having two fewer CPU cores and eight
145. 5:03fewer GPU cores in my test Mac Minis
146. 5:05here. And the new M6 is actually 24%
147. 5:08faster in single core. It is way faster
148. 5:10in my AI tests. Yes, the M4 Pro is still
149. 5:13around 16% faster in multi-core and
150. 5:15maybe about 20% faster in graphics. But
151. 5:18for most of us, the fact that this
152. 5:19entry-level M6 delivers surprisingly
153. 5:22close performance to the M4 Pro for
154. 5:24considerably less money is a win. But
155. 5:27how many of us who are actually looking
156. 5:28to buy a Mac Mini care about that kind
157. 5:31of performance, care about on-device
158. 5:33local AI, uh and having neural
159. 5:35accelerators for the GPU? That's more of
160. 5:37a
161. 5:37professional Mac Studio kind of
162. 5:39workflow. I mean, I'm not against having
163. 5:41the performance. Uh and also, you know,
164. 5:43who knows in a year or two how you might
165. 5:44be able to utilize it. But given how
166. 5:45popular the MacBook Neo is, the new
167. 5:47cheaper laptop and that has an iPhone
168. 5:49chip from a couple of years ago, the A18
169. 5:51Pro, the M6 is just so much more
170. 5:53powerful that this, even in its base
171. 5:55spec, is basically overkill for all of
172. 5:57us. And I think the 16 gigs of memory is
173. 5:59probably enough. You can also expand the
174. 6:01storage just by plugging in an external
175. 6:02SSD or you could, you know, spec 512. My
176. 6:05point is, I would still like a cheaper
177. 6:07version of this. Like if they kept the
178. 6:09M4 or even like an older one on sale for
179. 6:12less money because that is still so
180. 6:14capable for what most people I think
181. 6:16buying a Mac Mini actually need. Because
182. 6:17are you editing 10-bit 4K video and
183. 6:20rendering and doing AI generation at the
184. 6:21same time? That's so much performance
185. 6:23that I would be happy with less if it
186. 6:25was cheaper. That's why I keep saying if
187. 6:27you can find the M4 Mini, get one of
188. 6:29those. Because if you are thinking about
189. 6:31performance and this is, you know, being
190. 6:32bought by the company, it's an
191. 6:34investment, then that's where the big
192. 6:36brother comes in, the Mac Studio. Like
193. 6:38this starts at 899, the higher spec with
194. 6:41the M5 Pro I think is 1699. This is
195. 6:442499, but you get an M5 Max out of the
196. 6:47gate, you get much better connectivity,
197. 6:49much better cooling. If you want a
198. 6:51proper professional workstation, then
199. 6:53that's what this is for. I am also going
200. 6:55to make a separate video on this because
201. 6:57it's going to take a bit longer given
202. 6:58they sent me almost a top spec version.
203. 7:01This has M5 Ultra, that's two M5 Maxes
204. 7:04fused together, 256 gigs of memory, 8
205. 7:07terabytes of storage and putting it down
206. 7:09carefully because it's about 14,000
207. 7:11pounds. And that's not even the top
208. 7:13spec, you can get 16 terabytes. There's
209. 7:15going to be a 512 memory version coming
210. 7:17out soon. In a few weeks, a top spec
211. 7:19version of this will be like 22 grand or
212. 7:21something. It's nuts. And you can
213. 7:22actually put them together in an array,
214. 7:24you can have up to four studios that can
215. 7:26like work together on a single AI task.
216. 7:28It's all a bit silly because for most of
217. 7:29us, this is overkill. To be fair though,
218. 7:32even if you're not going to fully
219. 7:33utilize the M6, you will be able to use
220. 7:35this comfortably for the next 10 years
221. 7:37and not even bat an eyelid. And find me
222. 7:39another device like a Intel NUC kind of
223. 7:42device, that is this well-built, has
224. 7:44this M6 level performance, and also, you
225. 7:47know, the ecosystem of running macOS.
226. 7:49This ships with Golden Gate. I think you
227. 7:50get like 6 years of support with that.
228. 7:52Taken as a whole, while it is more
229. 7:54expensive, it is also significantly more
230. 7:56powerful, and still one of my absolute
231. 7:58favorite Apple products, and I still
232. 7:59highly recommend it. But, what do you
233. 8:00reckon? Would you buy one of these?
234. 8:02Would you buy one of these? Or, not
235. 8:04really interested? I don't know why you
236. 8:05watched the whole thing in that case,
237. 8:06but let me know in the comments below.
238. 8:08Thank you so much for watching, guys,
239. 8:09and I'll see you next time right here on
240. 8:10the Tech Chap.