M3 Mac mini: Every little thing it’s essential know

When Apple launches a brand new era of chips, the Mac mini is at all times the primary desktop Mac to get it. And with the M3 coming quickly, meaning there’s prone to be a brand new Mac mini within the price range nook.

This additionally means rumors and experiences concerning the new M3 Mac mini have surfaced. To collect this info in a single place — in addition to present perception into what’s potential and what’s not — we have this text that will help you determine what is going on on with the M3 Mac mini. If you’re concerned with investing in a single, you’ll be able to plan accordingly. We are going to replace this text as new info turns into obtainable.

Apple launched the M2 Mac mini in January 2023. Earlier than that, the M1 Mac mini was launched in November 2020. That is 14 months between the M1 and M2 Mac mini, however bear in mind, that was additionally in the course of the Covid pandemic which affected manufacturing. So, though the M2 Mac mini hasn’t been round for a yr, it has been round lengthy sufficient for Apple to have the ability to improve it.

In early August 2023, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple was conducting preliminary checks on the M3 Mac mini. Gorman additionally famous that the Mac mini was examined with macOS Sonoma 14.1, the primary main replace since Sonoma was launched in September. Sonoma 14.1 is later in its beta cycle and the discharge candidate has expired, which means the official launch is on maintain. Apple may time the M3 Mac mini to coincide with the official launch of Sonoma 14.1, or shortly after. So, we’re taking a look at late October or early November for the M3 Mac mini.

Apple additionally gives the M2 Professional Mac mini. When Apple releases a brand new M-series chip, it would not provide the Professional, Max, and Extremely variations similtaneously the bottom chip. When Apple releases the M3 Mac mini, the M2 Professional will stay within the lineup. In keeping with Gurman, the Professional, Max, and Extremely chips can be launched all through 2024, so the M2 Professional Mac mini can be upgraded to the M3 Professional subsequent yr.

Jason Cross/Foundry

Rumors concerning the M3 Mac mini didn’t tackle pricing. We are able to have a look at Apple’s pricing historical past, present costs, and different product releases to get an concept of ​​whether or not Apple will elevate costs or not.

Apple’s iPhone 15 Professional makes use of the 3nm A17 Professional chip, the primary 3nm chip in an Apple product. The M3 chip may even probably be a 3nm chip and would be the first 3nm chip for Macs. Due to this fact, it may be assumed that Apple will elevate costs to offset the price of analysis and manufacturing of these new chips.

However when Apple unveiled its iPhone 15 lineup, it didn’t elevate costs for the Professional fashions. That is a very good signal for the M3 Mac mini, because it may observe the identical customary configuration costs of $599/£649 and $799/£849 when it is lastly launched.

The truth is, wanting again traditionally, Apple lowered costs for the usual configuration when it launched the M2 Mac mini. In 2020, the M1 Mac mini is priced at $699/£699 and $899/£899; The M2 Mac mini is presently priced at $599/£649 and $799/£849. This opens the door for Apple to extend the worth of the M3 Mac mini.

A number of experiences from completely different sources have said that the M3 can be manufactured utilizing a brand new 3nm course of. This permits extra transistors to be put in on the chip, doubtlessly offering a efficiency increase past the everyday 15 to twenty p.c between chip generations. The M3 also can provide higher energy effectivity, so the temperature concerns required for the M1 or M2 Mac mini aren’t the identical because the M3, which might run sooner as a result of it would not get as scorching.

As for the unified reminiscence measurement, Apple presently gives the usual M2 Mac mini configuration with 8GB. The M3’s potential reminiscence configuration is barely vaguely coated; Gorman reported that the M3 Macs examined had elevated reminiscence. If Apple boosts the reminiscence, we may see the bottom M3 Mac mini include 16GB, configurable to 32GB or 48GB.

No experiences have been offered on the M3’s options, akin to core clock speeds, Neural Engine cores (prone to stay at 16 cores), or media engines.

When Apple launched the M1 Mac mini in 2020, the corporate reconfigured the ports to have two Thunderbolt/USB-C ports as a substitute of the 4 discovered within the Intel-based Mac mini. apple. Apple will probably stick with this port configuration with the M3 Mac mini, which additionally consists of two USB-A ports, a gigabit Ethernet port, an HDMI port, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

The M2 Mac mini already has Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, however Apple may go for Wi-FI 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

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The M3 Mac mini rumors deal with the M3 chip and lack details about the design. Apple will maintain the 7.75 x 7.75 x 1.41-inch (19.7 x 19.7 x 3.6 cm) exterior design. As a result of new 3nm M3 expertise, it’s potential that Apple will change the way in which the internals are designed, however customers won’t want to fret about that.