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Since a few weeks I've been using the cheapest base model Mac Mini M2 which I got from a major german retailer for 650€ (all taxes included) brand-new. The gami

Since a few weeks I've been using the cheapest base model Mac Mini M2 which I got from a major german retailer for 650€ (all taxes included) brand-new. The gaming capabilities on 1080p are amazing and surprised me. I don't think there is any comparable WIntel machine for that price available (and within same form factor) with comparable gaming performance - mostly because available iGPUs are not powerful enough. I can see how that will change with the release of the new AMD Phoenix Desktop APUs, but we will have to wait if vendors bundle it into this slick, quiet, neat-looking machine that is the Mac Mini. Downside is of course, you have to mess with GPTK and Heroic/Whiskey, the UX is not nearly as slick as Steam+Proton on Linux. I hope GPTK is just Apples first foray into gaming, they could release a trimmed-down version (less ports, no ethernet, no speaker) of a Mac Mini with a gaming focus and compete with PS5/Xbox on the price. But it needs better software UX for gaming just like Proton did for Linux.

virtualritz 3y ago
> I don't think there is any comparable WIntel machine for that price available (and within same form factor) with comparable gaming performance [...] Check the Xiaomi RedmiBook Pros. You'd be surprised.
- littlecranky67 3y ago
  There are actually some devices that could complete on paper specs, like the Beelink GTR7 or other small form-factors. Problem is, they are made by some chinese manufacturers, and even though Xiami is not a small company, the build quality can vary, and availability is completely random. Especially the Beelink one with the AMD 7840 chips seems to be vaporware - there were youtubers and magazines reviewing it a couple of month back, but I was unable to find a retailer that actually has it, and it seems to have gone away from the homepage. They are also probably not very big on support and returns.
  - gtirloni 3y ago
    > I was unable to find a retailer that actually has it, All these Chinese manufacturers are on AliExpress. There are many offers for Beelink SER7 with AMD 7840 chips.
- littlecranky67 3y ago
  I don't think they will be even close to the gaming performance since they only have Intel iGPUs. No way this does 1080p@60 for some AAA games from 2-3 years ago. And those models with dGPU are way out of the price range of the basemodel Mac Mini.
  - virtualritz 3y ago
    You need to buy from China, e.g. via AliExpress[1]. Xiaomi Europe only sells the Intel variants. They have Ryzen APUs and additionally GPUs (the 2022 model had Nvidia, this year's has AMD). I have the 2022 15" Pro version and its a beast. [1] https://a.aliexpress.com/_msuA71Q https://a.aliexpress.com/_msuA71Q
jwells89 3y ago
I do hope that between M-series SoCs and AMD APUs, it becomes normal and expected for mainstream computing devices across the board to have reasonable graphical capabilities without the unavoidable heat, power hunger, and added cost of a discrete GPU. There’s not much reason for iGPUs to be as weak as we’ve become accustomed to with Intel CPUs. The benefit from this happening would be twofold: it gives a much wider spread of users access to hardware that can deal well with moderate graphical workloads and it provides a common minimum spec for game devs to keep in mind that’s actually powerful enough to deliver a decent experience (as compared to now, where iGPUs are near writeoffs for anything but esports titles).
- gtirloni 3y ago
  > not much reason for iGPUs to be as weak as we’ve become accustomed to with Intel CPUs. It requires more silicon which will increase power consumption and require more heat dissipation... same issues with discrete GPUs. Where would the additional performance come from?
  - jwells89 3y ago
    Somewhat powerful iGPUs do require more silicon, but the design of that silicon is going to differ compared its discrete counterpart — whereas discrete GPUs are typically designed for most performance possible with the least silicon at the cost of heat and power usage, iGPUs are designed for perf per watt, as seen in Apple’s M-series SoCs. There’s probably some energy savings to be had from the GPU sharing system memory and moving data around less. On the software side of things, iGPU drivers tend to better optimized for efficiency compared to discrete GPU drivers, where that’s almost an afterthought and in some cases broken (like the laptop I had where the sleep state in the drivers for its Nvidia card was broken for years).

virtualritz 3y ago

> I don't think there is any comparable WIntel machine for that price available (and within same form factor) with comparable gaming performance [...] Check the Xiaomi RedmiBook Pros. You'd be surprised.

littlecranky67 3y ago
There are actually some devices that could complete on paper specs, like the Beelink GTR7 or other small form-factors. Problem is, they are made by some chinese manufacturers, and even though Xiami is not a small company, the build quality can vary, and availability is completely random. Especially the Beelink one with the AMD 7840 chips seems to be vaporware - there were youtubers and magazines reviewing it a couple of month back, but I was unable to find a retailer that actually has it, and it seems to have gone away from the homepage. They are also probably not very big on support and returns.
- gtirloni 3y ago
  > I was unable to find a retailer that actually has it, All these Chinese manufacturers are on AliExpress. There are many offers for Beelink SER7 with AMD 7840 chips.
littlecranky67 3y ago
I don't think they will be even close to the gaming performance since they only have Intel iGPUs. No way this does 1080p@60 for some AAA games from 2-3 years ago. And those models with dGPU are way out of the price range of the basemodel Mac Mini.
- virtualritz 3y ago
  You need to buy from China, e.g. via AliExpress[1]. Xiaomi Europe only sells the Intel variants. They have Ryzen APUs and additionally GPUs (the 2022 model had Nvidia, this year's has AMD). I have the 2022 15" Pro version and its a beast. [1] https://a.aliexpress.com/_msuA71Q https://a.aliexpress.com/_msuA71Q

jwells89 3y ago

I do hope that between M-series SoCs and AMD APUs, it becomes normal and expected for mainstream computing devices across the board to have reasonable graphical capabilities without the unavoidable heat, power hunger, and added cost of a discrete GPU. There’s not much reason for iGPUs to be as weak as we’ve become accustomed to with Intel CPUs. The benefit from this happening would be twofold: it gives a much wider spread of users access to hardware that can deal well with moderate graphical workloads and it provides a common minimum spec for game devs to keep in mind that’s actually powerful enough to deliver a decent experience (as compared to now, where iGPUs are near writeoffs for anything but esports titles).

gtirloni 3y ago
> not much reason for iGPUs to be as weak as we’ve become accustomed to with Intel CPUs. It requires more silicon which will increase power consumption and require more heat dissipation... same issues with discrete GPUs. Where would the additional performance come from?
- jwells89 3y ago
  Somewhat powerful iGPUs do require more silicon, but the design of that silicon is going to differ compared its discrete counterpart — whereas discrete GPUs are typically designed for most performance possible with the least silicon at the cost of heat and power usage, iGPUs are designed for perf per watt, as seen in Apple’s M-series SoCs. There’s probably some energy savings to be had from the GPU sharing system memory and moving data around less. On the software side of things, iGPU drivers tend to better optimized for efficiency compared to discrete GPU drivers, where that’s almost an afterthought and in some cases broken (like the laptop I had where the sleep state in the drivers for its Nvidia card was broken for years).