Incredibly, this suggests these new Macs are currently the second fastest Apple computer money can buy in single-core performance. How does the Mac mini perform?Ībout those Apple claims: the first Mac mini performance data seems to bear them out. Using Geekbench 5, the Mac mini returns a single-core score of 1,745 and a multi-core score of 7,704. That’s also boosted by the tight integration between the Mac and Apple’s recently introduced Big Sur macOS. Put it all together and Apple claims the new Mac mini delivers processor performance three times that of its predecessor, graphics six times as fast and machine learning performance up to 15x faster. The fact the memory is built into the processor also means bandwidth is optimized from the start. On other systems you need additional memory to make up for the lack of such on-system optimization, Apple appears to think. Some have pointed out that these Macs only support up to 16GB of memory, but in my experience, this seldom acts as a performative ceiling to what the machines can do. In part, this is because Apple has designed the whole experience - including the software - so that performance is optimized. It combines the CPU, GPU, security, I/O, memory and more on the chip and boasts 16 billion transistors its UMA means it provides the world’s fastest integrated personal computer graphics. (Add an iPad in Sidecar mode and you have three.)ĭesigned and developed by Apple, the M1 is a sophisticated System on chip (SoC) that is also the world’s first personal computer chip built using 5-nanometer (nm) process technology.
You can run two displays from a single entry-level Mac. It is worth noting this system is more than capable of running a Pro Display XDR - it must be, since it will run a second 4K display, as well. (I smile when I look at what that memory - and Apple’s all-new unified memory architecture (UMA) - can achieve on this machine.) It hosts an 8-core Apple chip, 256GB SSD and holds 8GB of memory. I’ve been looking at the M1 Mac mini running macOS Big Sur 11.0.1.