When you are looking for a mini PC to work from home, it has surely crossed your mind to buy a Mac Mini instead of a mini PC as such. In this article we are going to make a technical comparison between the Mac Mini and the Intel NUC to see which of the two types of systems are more worthwhile when it comes to working.
Obviously these two types of system are designed for work and, if anything, multimedia entertainment, but never games. They are equipment that can be quite powerful, but they take up little space and have a very low consumption, two obvious advantages to work from home with them. As for the price, it can vary greatly since both are configurable with different hardware.
Here you have some examples of hardware configuration with its price in Amazon Spain (in the case of the Intel NUC, which is a barebone, it is a preconfigured device ready to work).
Mac Mini vs Intel NUC, which computer is better?
In terms of hardware, things are fairly even, but other things being equal, you will assume that a Mac Mini is considerably more expensive than a NUC. The most expensive Mac Mini that we can configure has an Intel Core i7 processor of six cores and twelve threads at 4.6 GHz, with 64 GB of RAM and a PCIe SSD of 2 TB of capacity and costs 3,539 euros. A more reasonable version of these devices has a 4.1 GHz six-core Core i5 processor, 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB NVMe SSD, priced at 1,529 euros.
As for the Intel NUC, we can find the NUC 9 Extreme (NUC9i9QNX) that have a price of about 1,600 euros approximately, and that equip an Intel Core i9-9980HK processor (8 cores and 16 threads at 5 GHz) with space for up to 64 GB of RAM and NVMe SSD of the capacity you want, with the possibility of installing Intel Optane memory and even a dedicated graphics card in mini format.
As they are so versatile equipment, we can find configurations similar to those of the Mac Mini, with a Core i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD for around 1,300 euros, and all the complete equipment; However, the power of the NUC is precisely to be small teams, low consumption and very versatile , so we have models that start from 200 euros with everything already included.
Comparing the performance of both teams would be complicated, since we would have to have hardware equality and, also, it should be borne in mind that logically the Mac Mini uses MacOS while the Intel NUC are designed to use Windows. Let’s say then, given the versatility of both teams, they are comparable in terms of performance, but also in terms of consumption and size. Here the Intel NUC win in the versatility section since there are many more configuration options that exist, as well as in terms of price .
Which of the two options is better to work with?
As always everything will depend on what you need. If you want to do a purely office work, both will give you everything you need without problems, but the Intel NUC will do it at a much lower price. If you need to do a professional job that involves audio and / or video editing, then the Mac Mini will give you a better result since they have a more “solid” performance as they are optimized for it.
If what you are looking for is an “off-road” equipment that serves you for work, multimedia entertainment and essentially what you need at all times, then the ecosystem provided by Windows is far superior to that of MacOS and, therefore, of course winner is the Intel NUC . In fact, it is the equipment that we would recommend you to work since the Mac Mini is very limited in terms of configuration options and software, while with the NUC you will have as much versatility as you need and at a substantially lower price .