Hands-On With the New M2 Pro Mac Mini

The new M2-series MacBook Pro and Mac mini models launched today, marking the debut of the first M2 Pro and ‌M2‌ Max chips. We have the ‌M2‌ Pro ‌Mac mini‌ on hand, and thought we’d take a look at the machine and do a series of benchmarks to see how it fits into Apple’s lineup.

Base model ‌Mac mini‌ machines come with either an ‌M2‌ or ‌M2‌ Pro chip, and like the now-discontinued Intel model, the ‌M2‌ Pro has four Thunderbolt 4 ports while the ‌M2‌ version has just two. Other than that distinction, the two ‌Mac mini‌ models are identical externally, offering two USB-A ports, an Ethernet port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Because Apple transitioned from an older Intel chip to an Apple silicon chip with the high-end ‌M2‌ Pro ‌Mac mini‌, there is no direct comparison that we can make. Other M-series chips already outperformed the prior-generation Intel ‌Mac mini‌, but to give some perspective, we thought we’d share some benchmarks comparing the ‌M2‌ Pro ‌Mac mini‌ to the M1 Max MacBook Pro.

The ‌M1 Max‌ MacBook Pro features a 10-core CPU and 32-core GPU, and the higher-end base ‌Mac mini‌ with ‌M2‌ Pro chip features a 10-core CPU and 16-core GPU.

Here are our test results:

Speedometer(Web Responsiveness)

• M2 Pro Mac Mini – 383
• M1 Max MacBook – 319

Cinebench

M2 Pro Mac Mini:

• Multi-core – 11696
• Single-core – 1642

M1 Max MacBook Pro:

• Multi-core – 12240
• Single-core – 1528

Geekbench

M2 Pro Mac mini:

• Single-core – 1886
• Multi-core 11862
• OpenCL – 38712
• Metal – 45831

M1 Max MacBook Pro:

• Single-core – 1787
• Multi-core – 12721
• OpenCL – 55866
• Metal – 67403

Obviously the ‌M1 Max‌ is outperforming the ‌M2‌ Pro when it comes to the GPU because it has twice the GPU cores, but the performance isn’t doubled. The ‌M2‌ Pro ‌Mac mini‌ is closer in performance to the ‌M1 Max‌ than you might expect.

The ‌M2‌ Pro ‌Mac mini‌ is priced starting at $1299, a solid price for the performance that it’s providing. If you’re looking for a desktop machine that’s affordable but still able to be used for video editing, 3D rendering, and similar tasks, it’s worth looking into. Make sure to watch our video up above to see our full suite of benchmarks, and we’ll have an ‌M2‌ Max MacBook Pro video coming tomorrow.