Comparing Budget PCs: Mac Mini vs. Custom Builds

The Mac Mini impressively balances performance and value, making it a top choice for budget-conscious users.

### Comparing the $600 Mac Mini with PC Alternatives: Performance and Value Insights
* 💻 As young PC builders, the allure of sleek options like the **$600 Mac Mini** is strong, but it’s essential to consider **performance over aesthetics**.
* 🏎 The Mac Mini, priced at **$600**, has garnered attention for its capabilities, especially for tasks like **email, video conferencing, and light gaming**, making it a solid choice for **casual users**.
* ⚖ To evaluate its performance, a drag race against a **$600 mini PC** and a **desktop tower** will reveal the **pros and cons of each system** beyond their initial appeal.
* 🔍 Apple's new M4 silicon boasts enhancements, including **increased efficiency cores** and **doubled memory capacity**, making the base model more appealing with **16 GB of RAM**.
* ⚡ The Mac Mini excels in energy efficiency, **consuming significantly less power** than its competitors, leading to **quieter operation and lower heat output**.
* 📊 In benchmark tests, the Mac Mini shows **impressive single-threaded performance**, while the dedicated GPU in the tower PC shines in **multi-core tasks**, highlighting different strengths.
* 🎮 Despite its gaming limitations, the Mac Mini performs well against older onboard GPUs, but the mid-tower PC ultimately wins in gaming scenarios, indicating that **user needs dictate the best choice**.
* 🔗 For those who prioritize **seamless integration with other Apple devices**, the Mac Mini offers unique advantages, making it a worthy contender for **budget-conscious buyers who do not prioritize gaming**.

As young PC builders, you will be tempted by sleek, shiny options, but you mustn't take the easy path. Is that the Magic Mini? Awesome, Elijah! You didn't even try to resist it. It's a $600 computer; nothing even compares to this. And while thousands took to the

online streets to rip into Apple's outrageous storage pricing, it doesn't change the fact that for the base model M4 Mac Mini, he's right. If all you want to do is email and video conferencing, some light professional work, even some casual gaming, $600 seems like an

outright steal for this new machine. I mean, heck, I'd probably recommend it to a friend who just needed a decent computer at a fair price. So, has Apple built the best system for the 99%? To find out, we're going to drag race it against both

a $600 mini PC and a tower desktop PC, while also discussing some of the pros and cons that you might gloss over if you take these devices at face value. But be sure not to gloss over our sponsor, ODU. Start simplifying your work processes with an all-in-one platform

for your business. Learn more about ODU today by clicking the link in the video description. Let's meet our three computers. For macOS, standing at a height of 2 inches and featuring 10 CPU and 10 GPU cores, the Mac Mini. Will it be

held back by its lack of storage, or will its unified memory deliver a knockout blow? For Team PC, standing at 2 inches tall, the Minisforum Venus, and towering over the rest at 15 inches, the CyberPowerPC desktop tower. This machine sure takes up a lot

of room, but it's dedicated card means that when it comes to gaming, it means business. There is, of course, a lot more to know about each system, so here it is, but those are just details for now. What matters is that at the time of ordering

each of these machines came in under $600 before taxes and shipping, which brings us, then, without further ado, to benchmark number one: Cinebench, in both single and multi-core flavors. And go! Here we go. Oh God, this is not going to be close, dude.

Wow, wait, it might be a little close. Oh, this is spinning up. Oh, it is starting to slow down, but it's still... it's not slowing down much. Wait, wow! This passed it! Wait, what? That's very surprising. I... I am also surprised. What's in here, huh? That's not

even current-gen Ryzen. If you remember as well, this is normally $150 over our $600 budget, but it was on sale. I like sales, so it's kind of, you know, being a little bit of a cheater here by joining the lower weight class. Anyway, while

these run, let's talk about Apple's new M4 silicon compared to last year's M3. Apple's added two more efficiency cores; they have more than doubled the number of operations that their neural engine can complete per second; and they have increased the memory bandwidth of their

already fast unified memory by 20%. Perhaps most importantly, though, compared to their most recent Mac mini, which had an M2 processor, and even compared to their other M3 devices, Apple has doubled the memory capacity of the base configuration from just 8 GB to 16. Now I

Have no doubt that the most tab-hungry of you could easily make use of more, but we've at least reached the point where I'm not uncomfortable recommending a base configuration. So, good job, Apple, and good job on the processor itself. We'll talk about performance in a second.

But first, I want to talk about energy efficiency. Look at this thing! Here's all three machines running the same load, except the M4 is using a fraction of the power of the other two. For a desktop, obviously this level of efficiency matters less than it does in a phone or

a thin and light laptop, but less power consumption means less heat output and quieter operation. You can see, even when it's running a test... does it even have a fan? Oh yeah, it does! Wow, is it ever quiet, though! Enough fawning, though; let's

take a look at the performance. And wow! The desktop and the Mac mini are shockingly close in multi-core, but what's really surprising to me is how far out ahead that Mini Forum pulls. Two extra performance cores goes a long way for the multi-core, but does that hold up for

single-core? Let's see. Three, two, one... and now we wait a while. I mean, technically we don't have the final result, but we have enough of it. Where the M4 really excels is single-threaded performance, which is one of the things that contributes to Apple

silicon machines feeling so responsive and snappy, even the first-generation ones. Which seems to have become a bit of a drag on Apple sales. You talk to an M1 Mac owner and they're like, 'Upgrade? Why? Who needs to upgrade?' Wait, there's one right now. I have two M1 Macs.

Air M1 and Max Studio M1 Max; what's the reason for... let's move on to our next test here. We're going to target the GPU using Blender to render the classroom test scene. Go, go. Okay, what are we expecting? Oh, dedicated GPU turns

out having one of those. That's a thing, but an outstanding integrated GPU; it's doing much better than this one. That's a thing, too. Uh, yeah, he was invited. Oh, wait, is that frozen? Uh oh, no, there it goes. A minute. Yeah, okay, that's

about 12 seconds slower than our tower PC, but a lot faster than this. Is this even done yet? Uh, no, it has quite a ways to go. Good Lord! Now, in fairness, a 3050 is not exactly the most impressive GPU to be almost on par with, but when we consider

that this is onboard, it's pretty darn impressive. However, custom form-factor machines like this are giving up a lot in terms of upgradeability in the long term, which makes them a pretty questionable value if GPU performance is a priority, not just today, but in the

future, because this 3050, we can get rid of it, throw something else in there, and we're going to be even faster. All right, movie magic cut! Final score: just under four minutes. Wow! The Mac Mini is just a quarter of the time, and you've got to give it credit; it's just

so cute, which, like it or not, is a significant factor for some people when they're choosing a computer. Now, before we get to gaming, let's take a look at a large language model, specifically Llama. How about we have them each write 10 haikus about our tech bro vest?

available on LTTstore.com. I was a medium, labeled Elijah. No offense, but I don't think so, bro. What? You're taller than me and wider. I don't think I'm an XL, though. I'd give you an XL. Yeah, wow, you really do look like a budget S B-man freed.

Now screw off, ready? Go! This is the same test we used back in our $50 versus $50,000 computer video, and while I don't expect as big of a difference on these three machines today, it is an opportunity for us to talk about one of Apple's biggest

advantages. If there happens to be an AI workload that utilizes GPU memory, the typical wisdom has been, 'Sure, no problem, just slap some high-capacity GPUs, like a Quadro, into your system.' But with Apple's unified memory, the SoC is able to

dynamically adjust how much RAM each section has access to, whether it's the CPU, the GPU, or in this case, Apple's Neural Engine.  Faded Glory worn, my love for tech still shines through. All vest is my heart. Tech bro flare that won't be beat. Are you

rolling on this? This is freaking ridiculous! Look, the quality is not what we're using to evaluate them here because they're all using the same model, so theoretically they should be about the same. What we're interested in is the speed, and if you guys were looking over

my shoulder, you'll have seen that the M4 absolutely destroyed the others. So unless you're a data center and you need, need the absolute best in AI performance and you're willing to spend millions of dollars to get it, one of these with a

A small RAM upgrade might be the better choice for you, although RAM upgrades on these are a pretty big room elephant. Yes, my friends, we saw the Reddit post that you could buy two base model Mac Minis for the price of one that has twice as much RAM and storage. Apple is

still pricing their storage at the literal weight of gold, which is an awful value. Another sore spot for some is the power button, which is not only now on the bottom of the machine but at the back of the bottom. With those two things aside, though, there's no denying

that the machine we're reviewing, which is the base model, absolutely kicks butt for the price. But does it hold up in gaming? While Apple silicon has the raw grunt to put up decent gaming performance numbers, compatibility continues to be a struggle. Now, of course, most Mac users aren't going to expect to

play the latest triple-A game, so we're just using Shadow of the Tomb Raider as a tool to measure the performance of the GPU in a different way and also to enjoy the onboard speaker, that actually sounds a lot better than not having a speaker at all. It's not a fair—okay, that's fair. I

guess what it—what it is. Yeah. Oh wow. What's also not fair is having a dedicated GPU, apparently, dude. This poor thing… yeah, even this one, though… it started before… let it—let Tim Cook… hey, huh. Of course, the Mac couldn't hold a

candle to our mid-tower PC, but in fairness to it, it held up quite well against a last-generation AMD onboard GPU. And I know some of you are going to say, well, AMD has newer ones, and like, that's nice, but we're looking at price comparables here.

Not generating comparables, so what's our conclusion then? Mid-tower PC wins. I don't think it's that simple. No, it really isn't, is it? I mean, on the one hand, uh, good job with the high FPS there, buddy, but on the other hand, there's

a lot more to life than gaming, and our M4 mini excels in areas that our custom PC falls flat in. Now, if you're the average LTT viewer, the size, relatively high noise and power consumption, and the inconvenience of digging through PC part

picker for the best deals and then assembling everything—that's all part of the fun rather than a burden and totally worth it for the upgradeability and customizability of a machine like this. But if your mom phones you up and she wants help troubleshooting this thing,

wouldn't you rather just send her to Tim Apple's house for help? And I didn't even mention it has a headphone jack and Thunderbolt. This thing is sick! Now, the upgraded configs suck, and Apple really needs to give their collective heads a shake, but this base model for $600 is

every bit as good as it seems on paper. If someone you know wants a computer on a budget, ask them what it's for, and if you don't hear 'gaming,' I think that the mini PCs take the victory. And if that user happens to already own an Apple device,

the Mac mini gets a pretty big boost. The workflow of, like, AirDropping and using iCloud between devices really is kind of magic sometimes. Just like this magic spell to take you to our sponsor...

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Pro killer that we made almost a year ago. Apple definitely doesn't perform as well when you start going up into the higher price range.

Finally a Mac for This Economy - Mac Mini M4

Linus Tech Tips is a passionate team of "professionally curious" experts in consumer technology and video production who aim to educate and entertain.


Linus Tech Tips

The video introduces a comparison between a $600 Mac Mini, a $600 mini PC, and a $600 tower PC.

The Mac Mini's price is considered a steal for its capabilities.

The comparison will involve benchmark tests and discussions of pros and cons.

Sponsor mention: ODU, an all-in-one platform for businesses.

The three computers are introduced: Mac Mini, Minisforum Venus, and CyberPowerPC desktop tower.

Benchmark Tests: Cinebench, Blender, and Llama

Cinebench test results show surprising performance from the Mini Forum PC.

Comparison of Apple's M4 silicon with previous generations.

The M4's energy efficiency is highlighted.

Multi-core and single-core performance comparison across the three PCs.

Blender benchmark test results showcasing GPU performance.

Large language model (Llama) test to evaluate AI performance.

Gaming performance test using Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Overall conclusion: Mid-tower PC wins in gaming, but Mac Mini excels in other areas.

Discussion of factors like size, noise, power consumption, and upgradeability.

The base model Mac Mini is praised for its value and performance.

Recommendation: Mini PCs are better for non-gaming tasks, especially for Apple ecosystem users.

Final sponsor mention: ODU, highlighting its features and benefits.

Recommendation to watch a previous video about a $10,000 Mac Pro killer.