Apple Mac Mini is giving Mac Pro a tough time, in terms of performance, with the Mini beating the latter in everything from video exporting to Xcode compiling.

The results were shown on a new video from YouTube channel Max Tech.

Even in tests where the Mac Pro was ahead, things got too close which does not sound good for Pro considering its high price. The YouTube channel tested out Mac Pro with a high-spec version with an Afterburner card and top-notch graphics card, bringing its price to over $20,000 while Mac Mini with an M2 Pro chip and 32GB of memory costs a little over $3000, only 15% of Mac Pro.

Mac Mini vs Mac Pro specs

When creating an HDR image in Adobe Photoshop, the Mac mini was 47% faster. Compiling an Xcode project took the Mac mini 70 seconds compared to the Mac Pro’s 125 seconds.

Exporting five minutes of 4K ProRes RAW video footage to ProRes took the Mac Pro two minutes and 45 seconds, which was cut to one minute and 15 seconds with the help of Apple’s Afterburner card.

The Mac mini, on the other hand, completed the export in a mere 48 seconds. For reference, the Afterburner card alone costs $3000.

The Mac Pro won only a handful of duels, mostly those that heavily relied on graphics performance.

It hadn’t had any meaningful updates for years and is in desperate need of the kind of power Apple silicon chips like the Mac mini’s M2 Pro can provide. Right now, the Mac Pro is the only Mac that doesn’t have a single Apple silicon chip option.

That could change soon, with a special Apple event heavily rumored.

However, it has also been revealed that the new model is going to miss out on a new design, as well as user-upgradeable memory and graphics options.

Worse, the mooted M2 Extreme chip — previously slated as a new top-end Apple silicon offering — has apparently been abandoned. That means performance could be far below what has been rumored in the past.

Max Tech’s testing shows just how desperately the Mac Pro needs a serious overhaul but its rumoured updates might not be enough to fix things.