Mac Mini M1vs Mac Pro 2013 Benchmark Battle!

[@dmug]

So Ivanky reached for $40 off coupon code for Amazon on their Fusion Max dock: E3TA5QXPFXB5 ivanky.com/products/ivanky-docking-station-fusiondock-max-1 Also thanks to my Patreons, they're heroes who keep me from using Midroll ads.

[@poobalu]

The algorithm put this video in my suggestions and I'll add my two cents if anyone is interested - I actually wound up buying the Mac Pro 6,1 recently after a lot of back and forth and I think that benchmarks only tell part of the story. In my particular use case, more RAM (even if it's significantly slower) and more storage was worth the performance tradeoff but I also recognize that the 8gb m1 is appropriate for a lot of use cases as well. Just keep in mind that 8gb is definitely not enough memory for local Drupal development with docker so as a web developer who wanted lots of memory and storage on a tight budget, I opted for the 6,1 over the M1 despite the slightly older OS. Internal storage and memory is more tangible for my use case aside from compilation, but to each their own!

[@dmug]

Funny you mention Drupal as when I mentioned docker, I was 1000% referencing a cursed Drupal workflow mirroring Pantheon's environment, that used 10 (yes ten) Docker containers. I had a MacBook Pro 2017 with 16 GB of RAM and that stupid project would put it into leaf blower mode and often cause the computer to become so slow the mouse would skip because the memory pressure would be in the Red. The funny thing is it only need about 20-24 GB of RAM. When my work got me an M1 Pro with 32 GB of RAM it made a huge world of difference. This was the corporate website for one rather large "orange" corporation's corporate website. I used the LLM example to illustrate how RAM can really make a difference for the people with edge cases. Most normal people aren't trying to run god-forsaken dockerized Drupal, where the default image doesn't have enough memory to run Composer update. My audience skews pretty geeky so edge cases are important.

[@poobalu]

@@dmug I feel seen by this comment, thanks for sharing!

[@SpectraFGC]

god i love this channel, you always make some good logical argument in your videos and you always have something interesting to say.

[@timberthewolf733]

Those b roll shots are so pretty.

[@dmug]

Thanks, trying to make it my thing

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

Either of these would be an upgrade for me, I have a pretty well upgraded 2012 Mac Mini and it’s still an excellent system. It’s not even the i7 model, but it’s more than enough to be the main editing workstation. It’s strange to think that M1 is now an “older” system but it still performs well. Both have advantages, and the 2013 is great with upgrades. Obviously one is newer than the other, but just like classic Mac Pro systems, just because it’s older doesn’t mean it’s obsolete. Great video!

[@dmug]

For sure, anyone who's happy with their 2013 shouldn't upgrade as spending money for the sake of spending money.

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

Depending on your workflow, you could use even older systems than these. As nice as the speed increase may be, I tend to use even older Macs just as much if not more than the Mac Mini.

[@macgamer1973]

Next I want to get is a apple xserver

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

The Apple server machines are awesome! Those would be fun to use.

[@auteurfiddler8706]

One thing about the Mac Pro 2013. With a lot of effort, a CPU can be swapped. There were about three versions. There were low core models with fast clock speeds and high core versions with low clock speeds. Some programs were better with the fast clocks but others were better with the high core count. I am assuming he used the low core count but high mhz version for this test. I wonder how a different version would have done in some of those test. Would it have been more competitive with the Mac Mini?

[@savagepro9060]

9:46 right there, with the environment setting, the Mac Pro 2013 reminds one of a Bear-Proof Can!

[@user-pp3dl8id7r]

Superb content

[@tompittman3683]

Nice video, very informative however, the outside video / pics of Oregon are great but, your Cat takes the prize at 8:21 lol. BTY I have a 2018 Mac Mini. I purchased it used on eBay for 650.00 about a year and half ago. It came with a Hub or base with a 4 TB storage drive. I can't do any of the number stuff you do but, if I had to pick the one thing that stood out for me was the 4 (four) Thunderbolt 3 Ports. It came with a 1 TB internal drive and 64 GB of Ram. It seems to be be very responsive and very fast for my needs...🚀

[@dmug]

Man, for $650 that's a tough deal to beat if it came with a 4 TB SSD. It's surprising how much the Intel Mac minis go for still. Doesn't seem like they've dropped much in price.

[@tompittman3683]

I got lucky and got a great deal. Nobody but me bidded on it. I was shocked. A 15 inch Monitor was included

[@biancahoffmann2489]

I bought the 6.1(12 cores, 64gb ram, d500) for backend and mobile development, I use docker, virtualization, android studio, xcode, IntelliJ, postman, DBeaver and everything works great, it was a good buy 😁

[@dmug]

Yeah a few years ago when I was doing more heavy development I used my Mac Pro 5,1 to spin up a project that used 10 docker containers around 2017-2021. My work provided MacBook Pro 2017 did have 16 GB of ram but cause it to go into leaf blower mode and memory pressure to spike so days I worked from home I’d run the docker containers on my Mac Pro which had a lot more ram, and run the ide on my MacBook. These days though, with Apple silicon and 32 GB of ram I no longer need to.

[@akeaveney]

Excellent video. I have a 2009 MP, 2 X 3.46, 96 GB, RX580, 2TB NVMe. USB 3.2. I'm thinking of upgrading to Mac Studio M4 Max, 12C, 30GPU, 64GB, 2TB. It might not be out for a while. I haven't seen benchmarks roughly comparing those two setups. Alan, Ireland.

[@dmug]

I had a very similar setup: 2x 6-Core, 96 GB of RAM, dual 2 TB NVMe SSDs, Radeon VII, USBc and USB 3.2 Gen 1. I bought originally a MacBook Air M1 16 GB /1 TB and it faster in most tasks than my cMP. Pretty much whatever Apple SIlicon you get, it'll be a significant upgrade.

[@mikeschneider5077]

2:15 -- "I also installed Open Core, so I could upgrade to Ventura, so...." -- And here is where the entire comparison breaks down. DMU doesn't get it: People aren't buying old Macs so they can run newer versions of subscription-model software cheap; they're buying them because those machines can run MacOS Mojave (or earlier), and therefore support the existing repository of 32bit software (which is like 80% of all Mac software). Suffice also to say that older versions of the OS are faster and contain much less Apple telemetry/corporate spying. -- That these old computers are seeing resale value approaching used silicon machines only a few years old ought to be telling you something. People are tired of the direction of the industry.

[@eduardowatkinz]

As shown at 6:09, the Mac Mini is blowing the doors off the Mac Pro. I have the Mac Pro 2013, and it is not a machine I would use for video editing other than editing ProRes, and even then; the Mac Mini still wins out based on your testing.

[@broimnotyourbro]

The reason that the Mac mini 2018 sells for more than the M1 Mac mini is there are still a ton of developer scenarios that only work on Intel Macs, and they are cheap & reliable, and don't take up much physical space. My employer (unnamed fortune-500) still buys a ton of these, so you're competing with engineering teams on Ebay.

[@rickkarrer8370]

Great video, and great B-roll. I was expecting the Mac Pro to not do as well.The big factor for many people is software support, as you have to play around with OpenCore to keep up with current software, and sometimes that can go very wrong. The Mac Pro is a solid choice if you need to run something specific to x86/x64. When I upgraded my Mac Pro 2010 to a Mac Studio, I ended up buying a Mac Pro 2013 for running Intel based VMs . You can't do that easily on ARM, and requires emulation, so the Mac Pro was the best way to get up and running (especially with the 20 years of VMs that I have). I debated a 2018 mini, it would have been smaller, more power efficient, and offered better single core speeds, but the Mac Pro 2013 offers more cores for running more VMs at once, and slightly better graphics. You can buy an eGPU for the 2018 mini, but at that point, it would have raised the total price higher and offered more points of failure, and I just wanted something compacts and simple to get up and running. It's funny though, how the low end Apple Silicon competes with the high end Intel. Even if they're 7 years apart, the price per performance dropped dramatically when switching to ARM. I don't remember how much my Mac Pro would have been new, but probably around $3000-3,500, whereas the M1 mini I had before my Mac Stdio (was used as a media center, and has 16GB / 512GB), was about $1,000 (I bought refurb, so it was less). The Mac Pro was only discontinued 11 months before the M1 mini was released, too.

[@kaede15]

It's great for home server. 1) the small form factor. Sure you can get small PCs like the minis forum 01 but the price is high and it worn't support as much ram as trashcan can also it doens't come with ECC and registrered. 2) comparing to a full 2U server, the space and low power consumption. Drawbacks: outdated cpu (xeon E5 v2). Another fun tip, you can link 2 trash cans with a suingle thunderbolt for 20gbit connection. Also if you want to purchase one, go for the 1Tb version. GPU is outdated and CPUs and RAMs are cheap to upgrade.

[@ghost-user559]

On the Logic test, you need to set Logic to use all cores. By default it does not do this because a user could potentially use up resources used by the system and lead to a crash. I don’t know if the test took this into account. You have to go into settings and manually enable all performance and efficiency cores, although Ram definitely does play a role here.

[@dmug]

I did, that’s made clear on the test website

[@ghost-user559]

@@dmug Very interesting, Ram must really be the bottleneck then. Or some other factor I’m not considering. I’ve seen people run stress tests and project files and they can do well over a hundred heavy tracks, but I don’t think they were using 8GB, and they were not using benchmark through a website but instead a local template file as a comparison. So far with 16 GB M2 Pro I’ve never seen it break a sweat. It seems a lot of the differences really boil down to Ram. I wonder how a 64 GB M1 Mac Studio would compare, although I know it would be unnecessary with how close things are already with the Mini.

[@dmug]

@@ghost-user559 Yeah, that's the part that baffled me, I saw the same but I think it was 16 GB, hence why I re-ran the test a few times (including rebooting). It was consistently 69 tracks. If I'd been thinking, I'd yanked some of the RAM in the 2013 and retested to see if RAM was a major factor on the 2013.

[@ghost-user559]

@@dmug Yeah that would probably even the playing field, but it still might give the 2013 an edge, because of the unified architecture of the M1, it uses the same Ram pool for Gpu and CPU, whereas the Pro has separate memory for the Gui and the cpu can operate independently, albeit slower. Part of the speed of the Apple Silicon is the fact that it can instantly swap the Ram between tasks for both Gpu and cpu instantly, but that also is its Achilles heel when the ram gets overloaded. I would bet 16Gb is the sweet spot for the M1. Anything less than that and it hits the swap file instead of keeping everything in Ram. The system itself has some overhead with MacOS, so 8Gb is really more like 4-6 after background processes are considered.

[@Thatguygeezo]

So basically 2013 mac pro is great for music recording ?

[@dmug]

Great is an overstatement but if you can pick up one for $200 to $00, then it’ll be great

[@QuinsTechCorner]

Another great video! This confirmed everything I've suspected. I can't believe people still try to sell 2013 Mac Pros for $1,000 AUD. "Custom optioned for video" "high spec custom optioned"... shush.

[@heavyd2062]

And yet, it's not that they are TRYING to sell them at that price, they ARE selling for that. I saw one go recently spec'd out like my own for $1100 USD.

[@QuinsTechCorner]

@@heavyd2062 That's so gross.

[@heavyd2062]

@@QuinsTechCorner and yet it isn’t. If people are willing to pay, then there’s nothing gross about it. It’s called capitalism and supply a need demand. Why something like the Mac Pro 2013 comes out, it’s different and collectible.

[@QuinsTechCorner]

​@@heavyd2062 🤮That comment sent me to the hospital. I don't know if I will recover. Please tell my wife I love her.

[@fmarinosfromafar9512]

I really want to nab a 2013 MP for nostalgia's sake [I still remember how awesome it was when our prod. facility's first trashcan arrived], but I wouldn't fork out half that amount for one.

[@iancurrie8844]

5:20. The SSD performance on both is terrible! It's below what even PCI-3x4 can offer (slightly).

[@bigdiggle5036]

both are just fine, for now you can use OCLP to update the Mac Pro 6,1. I believe that will stop when all of apples intel based Macs are no longer officially supported and that's getting pretty close.

[@songsan807]

I did want a MP 2013 and M1 MM just to have it. Now I will focus on getting the M1 MM first and get the MP if I see a fire sale on it.

[@driatros]

0:40 Is that the Columbia Gorge?

[@dmug]

Yup. Oregon represent.

[@sentientdeviledeggs9628]

Nice! I thought I recognized the overlook! Rock on!

[@dmug]

@@sentientdeviledeggs9628if you comb through my videos you’ll see a lot of southern Oregon coast (where I’m from) and Gorge and mt Hood (where I’m at)

[@finntjomstol9364]

That finder pillow is amazing

[@dmug]

Meant to reply to this: it’s from throwboy

[@jameswallace6249]

I own or have owned the 2013, 2018 and M1 Mac mini. The 2013 has fallen off in performance and support ability but is purchased for nostalgia. It’s just tragic but beautiful. The 2018 is primarily good if you need an eGPU setup but is still limited. The M1 is simply the best standalone performer for the price. I’d recommend buying M chips now for maximum length of OS support

[@CannedFunkMusic]

Your scenery is breathtaking!!! I’m moving to your city 😂😂😂

[@dmug]

This vid is the greater Portland area

[@adamthurmond9092]

When I saw them both on that tree I thought Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-san were about to come into frame and kick them away during their training

[@Aygross]

the trash cans also die from overheating so its a rough buy without a warranty

[@dmug]

Indeed, it is a problem although the D300 versions rarely die, which is what I had. I know there were a few mild firmware tweaks to the 2013 to mitigate the issues but it's unclear how effective those have been.

[@Mbro-dq2do]

That Mac Mini can run Linux VMs flawlessly now via UTM My M1 Air and M1 Max run many Linux distros perfectly now

[@MFEeee]

Mac Pro 2013 for me. Mine is maxed out. But I might downsize from 12 Cores to 8 Cores for a single core boost and upgrade to NVME since I currently get 750 Read/Write. I’ve seen others go up to 1500 Read/Write. Other than that I love my computer. I even used RAM disk for rendering and converting large files since I have 64 GB of Ram. Might even get a second one for render farming for under $400

[@dmug]

Bold move, 12% gain in single core for -12% multi core

[@verablack3137]

One advantage is Linux on the Mac Pro, since it is all x86 you could do quite a bit with it, my understanding is that Linux isn't really there yet on Apple silicon. A cute looking home server with 64gb of ram would be alot better than one with 8gb of ram I suspect. Though I do suspect you could probably build some Dell Poweredge server that was better for a cheaper price if you were just going to run Linux anyway.

[@furynotes]

I know a VFX compositer dude still uses a 2013 mac pro with 128gb of ram for nuke and some photoshop work and emails. Other than VFX compositing. The Mac pro 2013 is a hard sell just because of its age. I would get a m3 or better. Just me though. Other people will have different preferences. I was eyeing the air 15inch m2 for a while then the m3 came out. For what features I want and care about. Ray tracing mesh shading. All that. Been using nvidia rtx pc's for too long. Its tough for me to live without them. I did the try the base model of the m1 that my dad got. Its way better then my 15inch 2014 intel model except for ram difference of 8gb vs 16gb. I think 16gb isn't really enough. Have to use a memory management app for it.

[@dmug]

Yeah, if you're a video compositor/3D guy, Apple Silicon's RAM pricing is brutal as it's one thing that you can't skimp on.

[@auteurfiddler8706]

I paid more to get a 2013 Mac Pro with D500 instead of D300 GPUs and I can't get over the fact the D300 actually tested faster.

[@debugin1227]

Buy the mini because the intel chips won’t get software updates

[@olioli8745]

For now, when new (cheap) Mini’s with M4 released, changing Mac Pro 2013 (2xD700, 128Gb RAM, Xeon) to Mini M4 2024 is obviously? They’re on similar price…

[@dmug]

The Mac Pro 2013s can be had for around $200 if you're patient. That's how much mine cost. A Mac Mini M1 often can be found for $300, I've seen a few fly for less, whereas the M4 is is 2x - 3x the price of Mac Pro 2013. Obviously if you have the money, the M4 is a much much much better buy as it's faster in every regard: GPU, CPU, Memory bandwidth and storage options as Thunderbolt 3 is faster than the Mac Pro 2013's internal storage. It'd best the Mac Pro 2013 in every single task I ran in this video even with 1/4 the memory.

[@olioli8745]

@@dmugthank you for reply! Mine costs 3500 PLN (polish zloty - around 777 US$ - bought 1.5 years ago), now any Mac Pro 2013 can be bought here for not less than 2200 PLN (~550 US$, 6-core, 32Gb RAM D300), and base M4 can be bought for 2999 PLN - so that’s why I’m asking. It will be quite same costs (even without student’s discount)…

[@pablom.p.3986]

Mac mini with decent 16GB RAM, 8GB is not enough, would cost doble than a Mac Pro 2013 with 64GB and it can't be upgraded ever! Simple as that.

[@dmug]

Not sure if you watched the entire video but in most applications the Mac Mini with its ability to liberally use memory swap was still faster than the Mac Pro 2013 with access to a larger memory pool. The one place where a clear advantage was shown was Logic Pro. It certainly would be ideal if the Mac mini had upgradable memory but we’re at the point where even a RAM starved Apple Silicon Mac will best almost all memory upgradeable Intel Macs thanks to low latency memory, high bandwidth, PCIe storage, and exceptional memory management. It sucks though Apple has zero interest in offering both speed of Apple silicon and the modularity of an Intel Mac as that’d make videos exploring this unnecessary.

[@pablom.p.3986]

​@@dmug I did watch it entirely, great video. I was talking about specific applications, just didn't want to write a long text, also wanted to point out the outrageous difference between the 8gb and the 16gb Mac mini, memory is not that expensive. I was shocked by the results, though, unbelievable.

[@savagepro9060]

The Mac Pro 2013 maxes out with 128GB of RAM, and there are commercial 'hacks' to have TWO M.2 slots.

[@dmug]

Those both have major asterisks: 128 GB though lowers the memory speed and the Amfeltec Angelshark Carrier Board only works reliably with SATA SSDs, and costs over $350. I have it linked in my Definitive Mac Pro Upgrade guide but there's a reddit thread that popped up awhile ago that has the best info I've seen that I really need to link to. I looked into buying one awhile back as I thought it'd be interesting to review it but tracking down ACHI (SATA) SSDs + the price meant it was a no-go as there's no way I'd make back the money in views.

[@savagepro9060]

@@dmug respect ✊

[@CarlosStorms]

Yes, the Mac mini M1 is faster, better, but is it sexy? I don’t think so!

[@samsowden]

going all in on the dual gpus was an unfortunate mistake by apple

[@soapyslice]

My smart side is telling me to get the mini because of the performance... But my weak side is begging to get the pro because of it's design and looks lol 😭

[@patrykscelina]

In most cases you could be fine with 8 o 16 GB of RAM, but if you need 64 or 128, you're not gonna go far with Mac Mini.

[@MrShalvayez]

I think, most of us with the trashcan, has one for the aesthetic appeal. Sure, the M series Mac minis kicks the Mac pro's ass in pure power, but it's not av shiny black cylinder.

[@4115steve]

To bad you didn't get the energy consumption of each doing the same task

[@dmug]

Oh certainly not but short of bit coin mining even in somewhat spendy areas we're talking tens of cents difference in a month normal usage.

[@IrnBruNYC]

The Mac Pro cannot run many of the features in the newest version of Logic. For that reason alone, the Mac Mini is the better choice if you make music. Also, you don’t need to hack the Mini to run a modern version of MacOS. And Intel will be very lucky if it gets an OS update after Sonoma.

[@ninline2000]

I want a new Macbook Air but getting one with 16GB of RAM is ridiculously expensive. $400 dollars for an extra 8GB of memory. Apple takes greed to an extreme.

[@DarkTrapStudio]

When Ive seen the title I though this was a joke. Like, you are comparing a 20yo Honda with a Maserati. You need to compare the M1 mini to the base Mac Pro 2019

[@dmug]

You'd be surprised how many people have compared The M1 Mini vs the 2013. I'll consider the Mac Mini vs my 2019, but it'll be predictable. In pure CPU tasks the M1 has a big advantage as I only have an 8-Core CPU 2019 and anything GPU related, the Mac Mini would get curb stomped because of the 6900 XT. Also the Mac Pro 2019 has 160 GB of RAM, and 14 TB of NVMe drives + another 2.75 GB of Sata SSDs. They're just in different orbits.

[@DarkTrapStudio]

@@dmug Yes, still Ive seen the M1 be better in some cases, in audio production and even closed in video production if I remember correctly

[@nukenoly8751]

Logic Pro x runs better on the cylinder folks 😊

[@dmug]

…. Kinda. I believe there a plugin or two that require avx2 for Intel Macs and it only takes 16 GB of ram to balance the M1 to the Mac Pro 2013. I should have yanked some of the ram in the 2013 to see how much the ram affects it. The best way I'd describe it is that a maxed out Intel Mac that has 16GB+ GB at least is as good as an M1 for now.

[@nukenoly8751]

Logic is not even the best optimized DAW for Apple silicon. Cubase and Reaper take that crown 👑 Go figure

[@macgamer1973]

@@dmugonly under Mac OS X. Apple and game developers for BG 3 you need Avx2 to run their game. Well it runs without avx2 under windows.

[@weelebaseknowles4410]

Mac mini m1

[@montex66]

Trash Can mac is simply a beautiful computer while the M1 is more functional. And lots of times beauty wins out.

[@davecool42]

Such a cutie. Photo shoot with the trash can is welcome.

[@tomdfrog]

LOL. I would never consider the M1 Mini for real work. My 2013 MACPRO can drive my THREE 27" 2560x1440 displays and can even add in my 43" TV when needed. That right there keeps me loyal to my 2013. Plus, it runs all the legacy software without an issue...including Windows 10. One day, I might consider a MacStudio. But for me, the Mini is lightweight unit for a person who was burned by an iMac crapping out on them and now they have to shell out big bucks again.

[@dmug]

Years ago at launch in 2020, I bought the M1 air in a 16 GB / 1 TB configuration and pretty much gave up using my dual 6-Core Mac Pro 5,1 with 96 GB of RAM, 2 TB (via an Ableconn dual card so it had full PCIe 3.0 speeds), NVMe, Radeon VII, USBc for video editing. The only real complaint was one external display, and had the same RAM limitations as the MacBook Pro 2017 it was replacing thus landed on a M1 Max as my laptop as a few dev chains for work really really really needed 32 GB of RAM. All depends on use case, but if I had to use one of these two machines as my daily driver, it'd be without a question, the Mac Mini M1. Editing video on the 2013 was a terrible experience, and compile times are so much slower.

[@DarkTrapStudio]

@@dmug A guy on youtube showed how to put 4 monitors on it

[@DarkTrapStudio]

My mac 2013 pro can THREE monitors daaaaaaa Man you too much x)

[@ghost-user559]

M2 Pro Mac mini is the best middle ground between the Studio and the Mini. 16-32 GB, 3 displays, 4 thunderbolt ports, and 10GB Ethernet as an option if you need that. Fraction of the cost the Mac Pro was, significantly more powerful overall, silent, cool to the touch under load, and 35 watts at max peak load. 5watts doing ordinary computing.

[@macgamer1973]

I love my Mac Pro 2013 with Radeon Vega 56 driving my 27” Cinema Display. Other two displays are 27” Thunderbolt Display. An I’m all m series are throw away , like most appliances today. Also I invest in a lot games and apps for Intel Macs. A lot games and apps don’t work on m series. A thanks to Apple move to m series we lost a lot major game studios. This first blizzard hasn’t released Diablo on Mac , we lost Paradox interactive - no skyline😢