New 2020 Macs. Mini or MBP??

[Dale144]

First post, so hello, hope you're all doing well in these times and thanks for any help in advance.
Looking to get an upgrade on my Mac and wondering if you could give me some direction. I know this is talked about a lot but looking for specific on these 2 machines.
What is going to run pro tools better for mixing and recording. Using lots of plug ins and a few VI. 30 to 70 track sessions.

MacBook Pro 13-Inch "Core i5" 2.0 GHz 2020 $1799
Has newer 10 Gen chip and faster ram but overall slower GHz and less cores (4)
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/m...sor-specs.html

Vs.

Mac mini "Core i7" 3.2GHz 2020 $1499
Older chip and slower ram but more cores (6) and faster GHz
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/m...018-specs.html

Will upgrade on purchase the mini to 16Gb ram same as MPB. The Mini 2020 version is the same spec as linked but with larger SSD.

Geek bench put the mini faster but Ive read its about the number of threads? and the faster chip is better for that with pro tools.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.🙏🏼

[JFreak]

Hi, welcome to the community.

By doing a simple search you would have already found that i7 or better CPU is highly recommended for PT

[Dale144]

Yes, I did a search and read many post on the subject,
I also read it is about a balance of cores, number of threads per seconds (not sure if that is the right terminology?) which is always faster on newer chips and the speed of ram as well. I also read the newer i5 are always as fast as the old i7, hence my question.

The MBP's ram is faster and has a newer chip even though its i5. So I thought someone who knew more about it than me would give me a better answer than what I have already read about the topic.

Thanks

[Carl Lie]

if you don't need the monitor than I'd go with the mini.

What are Mac you upgrading from?

C

[JFreak]

RAM is so relatively fast you should not get fixated to that. Always many times faster than anything that feeds it, also many times slower than the small amount of memory CPU has internally.

[Dale144]

Originally Posted by Carl Lie

if you don't need the monitor than I'd go with the mini.

What are Mac you upgrading from?

C

I have a 2017 13 inch MBP 3.1Ghz i5

[Dale144]

I don't really need the monitor, its useful for travel but not much of that going on now and I really just want the best performance the rest I can make do.

[JFreak]

Then mini is better bet. Just remember you cannot upgrade anything later so need to buy as much memory and storage as you think you will be needing.

[Wolfgang Eller]

Memory is changeable storage not.
Afaik.

[Dale144]

Thanks for the replys, I was leaning towards the mini and seen it had the better Geekbench 5 scores but just wanted to make sure that the newer gen chip in the MBP wouldn't be better. Cheers