M3 Mac mini: Everything you need to know

Apple’s M3 chip has been available since the end of October 2023. It features in the MacBook Pro M3 and iMac, recently was added to the M3 MacBook Air, but it is still absent from the Mac mini. How long will we have to wait for Apple to roll out the M3 to the rest of the range?

This article is designed to help you figure out what’s happening with the M3 and M3 Pro versions of the Mac mini. We’ve gathered all the information from rumors and reports in one spot and will provide insight as to what’s feasible and what’s not.

We’ll update this article whenever new information becomes available.

See our MacBook Pro M3 review and our MacBook Pro M3 Pro review. We also have an iMac M3 review and M3 MacBook Air review.

Apple released the M2 & M2 Pro Mac mini over a year ago in January 2023. Before that, the M1 Mac mini was released in November 2020. That’s over two years between the M1 and M2 Mac mini, but the Covid pandemic affected production. There should be no reason for the launch of the M3 and M3 Pro Mac mini to be delayed, especially since the M3 and M3 Pro chips are available in other models.

We could see Apple unveil a new Mac mini at a spring Apple event. Or, as was the case with the M3 MacBook Air, Apple could issue a press release announcing the new models.

There has been evidence that the new models are coming: In early August 2023, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple was performing preliminary tests on a M3 Mac mini, suggesting a new M3 model is in the pipeline.

Jason Cross / Foundry

Jason Cross / Foundry

Jason Cross / Foundry

Rumors about the M3 Mac mini have not addressed prices and the price is unlikely to change inside the U.S. However, we do hope that there will be price drops outside the U.S. to reverse price hikes a few years ago.

Apple has been adjusting prices following previous price hikes. When Apple has updated Macs and iPhones since late 2023 it reduced some prices in locations outside the U.S. The U.K. prices of the M3 MacBook Air, for example, ‘match’ the U.S. prices. For example, the M2 MacBook Air now costs $999/£999. That’s a good sign for the M3 Mac mini–it could follow the same standard configuration prices of $599/£599 (currently £649) and $799/£799 (currently £849) when it is finally released. In 2020, the M1 Mac mini had prices of $699/£699 and $899/£899.

The new 3nm process used for the M3 allows more transistors to fit on a chip, which should provide a performance boost. The M3 will also offer better power efficiency, so the temperature considerations required for the M1 or M2 Mac mini aren’t the same as the M3, which could allow it to run faster because it doesn’t get as hot.

In addition, the M3 GPU is faster and more efficient and features Dynamic Caching, which is a new technology that brings features like hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading to the Mac.

As for the amount of unified memory, Apple still offers the standard configuration of 8GB for the M3 and options for 16GB and 24GB, as with the M2. For the M3 Pro there is up to 36GB unified memory available, but the standard configuration is now 18GB memory (up from 16GB).

For more information read about how the different generations of Mac processors compare.

When Apple released the M1 Mac mini in 2020, the company reconfigured the ports so that it had two Thunderbolt/USB-C ports instead of the four that were on the Intel-based Mac mini. Apple. Apple will likely stick with this port configuration with the M3 Mac mini, which also includes two USB-A ports, a gigabit ethernet port, HDMI, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

The M2 Mac mini already has Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, but Apple could opt for Wi-FI 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

Apple

Apple

Apple

Rumors of the M3 Mac mini focus on the M3 chip and lack information about the design. Apple will keep the 7.75-by-7.75-by-1.41 inch (19.7-by-19.7-by-3.6 centimeter) external design. Because of the new 3nm M3, it’s possible Apple will change how the internals are laid out, but users won’t need to be concerned with that.