Hey everyone,
My current desktop tower is getting old and frankly, it's huge and noisy. I'm looking to replace it with something much more compact that can still handle my workflow, which is mainly web development (multiple browser tabs, code editor, local server), some graphic design work (Figma, Affinity Designer), and occasionally light 1080p video editing for personal projects. I don't do any heavy gaming.
I've been looking at building a Small Form Factor (SFF) PC, but the complexity and cost can add up. Recently, the Mac mini with the M2 or M2 Pro chip caught my eye. The performance claims for these Apple Silicon chips seem pretty impressive, especially for the power consumption and tiny size.
Does anyone here have experience using a recent Mac mini for similar tasks? How does it handle multitasking and sustained performance for things like code compilation or rendering video? I'm particularly interested in whether the base M2 is sufficient or if the M2 Pro is a significant step up for this kind of mixed usage. Any insights on thermals in such a small chassis would also be appreciated!
Not too long ago, I ditched a suuuuuper expensive ~10 year old Dell Precision workstation with like 64 cores or something crazy, multiple video cards, dedicated RAID controller, etc. for a much less expensive M1 Max Macbook Pro. The macbook outperformed the Dell for everything I did by far.
I'm a developer too and 14 years ago I bought an entry level MacBook Air and honestly it was probably the best laptop I've ever bought and I used it for development for years and years. It used to creak a bit if I ran more than one instance of IntelliJ, but other than that it took everything I threw at it. I have since replaced my own laptop, but that little Air is still being used by family and still going strong.
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