Announcing a brand new Mac Studio wouldn’t stop Apple from launching a new version of its Mac mini. The device would benefit from new M2 chips and potentially a revamped design later this year.
Apple’s latest keynote, held on Tuesday, gave the company the opportunity to make presentations with its Mac Studio: a kind of bulky Mac mini with a very generous level of performance, at least enough to make a compact alternative to the Mac Pro. The arrival of this model, expected later in March, however, would not be at the expense of new “classic” Mac mini models.
Apple would still bet on new Mac mini
This is what we learn from 9to5Mac, which ensures that the rumors concerning a new Mac mini were not usurped. In this case, Apple would even work on two new models, respectively equipped with new M2 and M2 Pro chips. Both would be in development too.
The first of these two configurations, designated internally by the code name J473, would therefore be powered by an M2 chip, replacing the current M1 chip, launched in 2020 and based on Apple’s A14 Bionic from a point from an architectural point of view. This new SoC would be dubbed “ Staten by Apple and would benefit from an architecture inherited in part from the A15 chip of the iPhone 13. There would again be 8 CPU cores, but this time with a maximum of 10 GPU cores (compared to a maximum of 8 at present).
According to 9to5Macthis model of Mac mini would be almost complete and could be launched later this year, potentially after an announcement during the next edition of the WWDC, next June.
A more powerful model… but later?
The other configuration, more powerful, would for its part be designated by the code name J474 internally. It would bet on an M2 Pro chip, accumulating a total of 12 CPU cores, against 10 on the current M1 Pro chip. However, it would be surprising if this chip arrived quickly on the market: the M1 Pro chip that it is supposed to replace is indeed very recent, it was introduced for the first time on the MacBook Pro 14 and 16 at the end of last year. .
These new Mac mini M2s would finally benefit, according to other rumours, from a new, smaller chassis, and possibly two-tone options. The idea of a transparent Plexiglas upper face had also been mentioned in the past.
Source: 9to5Mac
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