They're definitely more popular right now, but they've been a winner since M1.

Great performance, quiet, efficient.

It would be tough to get a windows machine at that price that gets anywhere close on performance, especially if you consider the cost of electricity.

Great parent/grandparent machines, home servers.

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bigyabai 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> It would be tough to get a windows machine at that price that gets anywhere close on performance

Not that tough. I paid $299 for a Ryzen 5800h mini PC last year, which roughly lands in the same performance bracket.

Would have considered the Mac Mini, but the AMD box has much better Linux support.

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alwillis 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> a Ryzen 5800h mini PC last year, which roughly lands in the same performance bracket [as a Mac mini].

Not really. And this is before the M5 Mac mini which ships later this year.

Putting it together in desktop‑mini form factors:

- Raw CPU: M4 is much faster single‑core, generally faster multi‑core at lower power.

- GPU: M4’s iGPU is roughly 2×+ Vega 8 and more modern.

- Memory subsystem: M4 has far higher bandwidth and unified memory, ideal for integrated GPU and many modern workloads.

- Efficiency/noise: M4 wins by a large margin; much higher perf per watt.

- Compatibility: 5800H wins if you need bare‑metal x86 OSes like FreeBSD or specific x86‑only software stacks.

- 5800H: 35–54 W configurable TDP in laptops; mini‑PC implementations often run it fairly hot to maintain clocks.

- M4 in Mac mini: ~24 W base TDP, ~40 W boost, but getting clearly higher performance per watt.

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caminante 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Let's assume the 5800H consumed 50W and the mini consumed 0W and both ran 100% utilization all year at $0.20/kWh.

The mini would save $87/year. That's a 3.5y breakeven assuming no reinvestment.

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bigyabai 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The M4 is from 2024, the 5800h is from 2021. You should be comparing against the M1 or M2, which was Apple's actual competitor at that performance bracket and time period.

	▲	wtallis 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		You bought the 5800h last year, and provided last year's price paid for it. That makes the 2024 Mac mini more relevant than the models that weren't being made or sold last year. Unless you'd like to dig up what that 5800h system cost back in 2021, to put that into context against a Mac mini from back then?

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caminante 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Even if the mini is more power efficient at $600 base, saving $300 upfront pushes out the breakeven point.