Its not, you can build your own mini pc with a ryzen 9700X, more ram, more storage, and it would probrally cost less. In addition you wouldn’t be locked into the Apple ecosystem and you would be able to upgrade it.
Ok, let’s put together a mini PC with a ryzen 9700X for under $600. What case, power supply, motherboard, RAM, and SSD are we gonna get? How’s it compare on power, sound, form factor?
It’s an apples to oranges comparison, and at a certain point you’re comparing different things.
- Case/mothedboard: minisforum ms-a1
- Power supply: external
- Ram: ddr5l (sold separately)
- ssd: pcie gen 5
- power: slightly worse single core performance (can be overclocked) slightly better multi core performance (with a better AM5 CPU)
My point isnt that Apple sucks and nobody should ever buy it, my point is that you’re paying an Apple premium for a fully assembled computer. That premium is greater over time since you cannot upgrade it, meanwhile every part of the minisforum ms-a1 can be. Its convenience and a premium product vs freedom and upgradability. I cannot say that every person does or should value freedom but I do and thats my opinion.
So with the case/mobo/power supply at $259, the CPU/GPU at $329, you’ve got $11 left to work with to buy RAM and SSD, in order to be competitive with the base model Mac Mini.
That’s what I mean. If you’re gonna come close to competing with the entry level price of the Mac Mini (to say nothing of frequent sales/offers/coupons that Best Buy, Amazon, B&H, and Costco run), you’ll have to sacrifice and use a significantly lower-tier CPU. Maybe you’d rather have more RAM/storage and are OK with that lower performing CPU, and twice the power consumption (around 65W rather than 30W), but at that point you’re basically comparing a different machine.
