Apple's More Powerful M1X Mac Mini Could Launch This Fall As It Rapidly Cuts Intel Ties
Now, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is claiming that Apple will launch a new “high-end, M1X Mac mini” within “the next several months.” While last year’s M1 refresh of the Mac mini took care of the entry-level and mid-range SKUs, it still offered higher-end models powered by up to an 8th generation Core i7 processor with up to 64GB of RAM. Unfortunately, the current M1 Mac minis top out at just 16GB of RAM and come with two few Thunderbolt ports compared to their Intel counterparts.
The latest assumption here is that the new M1X Mac minis will not only bring more powerful SoCs to the table that will replace Intel processors across-the-board, but they will also feature more external ports for connectivity.
In May, hardware leaker Jon Prosser commissioned renders based on his confidential sources that gave us a glimpse of what the M1X Mac mini could look like when it launches. The renders show an all-new design that is thinner than the current Mac mini and incorporates a MagSafe power connector, as seen on the latest iMac. In addition, the power supply has allegedly moved to the power brick, which would explain its trimmer dimensions.
The M1X Mac mini will also reportedly bring dual USB 3.1 (Type-A) ports, four Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI 2.1, and GbE. As for the SoC, the M1X will allegedly bump the maximum CPU cores from 8 to at least 10 cores, while the integrated GPU would jump from a maximum of 8 cores to 32 cores. Perhaps most importantly, in keeping with Apple’s efforts to ditch Intel, the M1X Mac mini would support a maximum of 64GB of RAM.
The current M1 Mac mini is priced from $699, while the Intel model starts at $1,099. So we’d imagine that the M1X Mac Mini would start around that same price when it launches this fall.
