Which means I will expect the last Intel-compatible MacOS to be shipping in 2025-2026 and security updates therefore being dropped in 2027-2028. Assuming every Mac product gets upgraded to Apple Silicon by the end of this year, I will expect the last Intel Macs to be discontinued no sooner than late-2023. I expect that to happen 2-3 years after they stop selling the last Intel model. Judging by history, I expect this to happen 2 years after they stop publishing new macOS releases for the platform. I don’t plan on upgrading (beyond maybe maxing out the RAM to 64GB) until Apple drops support - when they stop releasing security updates for the most recent version of macOS it can run. It works great and I expect it to last quite a long time. I’m currently running the i7 model (purchased in October 2020 with 16GB RAM and 2TBSSD). Gigabit Ethernet port (configurable for 10G).4 Thunderbolt 3 ports (up to 40 Gbps in TB mode, or 10 Gbps in USB mode).Video support for 3 4K displays or a 5K display and a 4K display.Integrated GPU (Intel UHD Graphics 630).(Sadly, soldered-down and cryptographically tied to a T2 chip, so not upgradable) 512 GB SSD, configurable to 1TB or 2TB.8 GB RAM, configurable to 16, 32 or 64GB.3.2 GHs 6-core Intel i7 (Turbo boost to 4.6 GHz, 12M 元 cache).3.0 GHz 6-core Intel i5 (Turbo boost to 4.1 GHz, 9M 元 cache).Apple’s web site shows that they are still selling the two high-end models: If more ports and RAM is more important to you than CPU/GPU speed, you can still buy the 2018 Intel Mac mini.

That would be something I personally would wait for to upgrade, but if the 16 GB in your current mini is working for you and your workload is not “heavy lifting” or “CPU guzzling”, the M1 mini with 16 GB and it’s faster SSD should be fine.If you’re planning to upgrade a mini, I would at least wait until after next week’s announcements, in case it gets updated. I think the biggest “jump” in the next Mac mini would be a higher RAM ceiling (hopefully at least 24 GB like the M2 MacBooks). I think the M1 mini gives a nice speed boost, you likely won’t ever hear the fan, and they’re shipping now. The M2 MacBook benchmarks higher than the M1 models, but the rumors are mixed in when an M2 Mac mini would actually ship…could be a few months, could be next year.

The 2018 Mac mini was one of the best computers I’ve owned, and the MacBook Air gave a pretty noticeable speed boost for “normal” tasks (due to the higher performance CPU and the memory and disk/SSD throughput). You’d see similar benchmarks on the M1 Mac mini. Here are the GeekBench results for each Mac: I used that same Mac mini model for three years and switched to a M1 MacBook Air over the last year.

M1 mac mini ram upgrade