Mini PC vs Mac Mini: The $899 M6 Mac Mini vs the $619 Beelink SER8 — Did Apple Just Price Its Own Competition Into the Winner's Circle?

Happy Monday, desk-tiny-desktop nerds! If you've been shopping for a small-and-mighty computer this fall, you've probably noticed something weird: Apple's Mac mini got a price hike. The M4 Mac mini famously launched at $599 USD back in November 2024 (and crept up to $799 before its retirement). The new M6 Mac mini starts at $899 USD. Meanwhile, over on the PC side of the fence, the Beelink SER8 with AMD's Ryzen 7 8745HS is sitting at $619 on Amazon US — with upgradeable RAM, two M.2 slots, and Windows 11 Pro included.

That's a $280 gap on paper. But price isn't the whole story — this is Apple's brand-new M6 silicon versus last-gen-but-still-spicy Zen 4. Let's tear it down.

The Hardware: New Apple Silicon vs The People's Champ

Apple Mac mini (M6, August 25, 2026)

Apple announced the M6 Mac mini on August 25, 2026, alongside an M5 Pro model (MacRumors). What you get at $899:

12-core CPU (up from 10 in the M4) + 12-core GPU (also up from 10)
Memory bandwidth up to 170GB/s if you spec 24GB or 32GB; the base 16GB config gets 153GB/s (Macworld)
Dual 16-core Neural Engine — Apple claims the M6 is up to 4x faster at AI work and up to 2x faster at graphics than the M4 Mac mini (WIRED)
Ports: 2x front USB-C, 3x Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, 2.5Gb Ethernet, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6
Starts at 16GB unified memory / 256GB storage — and neither is user-upgradable. That's the Apple tax and the Apple handcuffs in one package.

The step-up M5 Pro model starts at $1,699 USD — that's a big jump for the "pro" tier.

Beelink SER8 (Ryzen 7 8745HS)

Beelink's SER8 has been the mini PC darling for a while, and it's easy to see why:

AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS — 8 cores / 16 threads, boosting to 4.9GHz
Radeon 780M iGPU (12 RDNA3 compute units) — genuinely playable at 1080p low-medium in esports titles
Triple 4K display output: HDMI 2.1 + DisplayPort 1.4 + USB4
Dual M.2 PCIe 4.0 slots (up to 8TB total storage) and upgradeable dual-channel DDR5 SODIMMs
2.5Gb LAN, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, Windows 11 Pro pre-installed

The SER8's superpower is that it's a platform, not an appliance. Buy the 16GB/500GB config, then drop in 64GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD later as prices fall. Try that on a Mac mini.

Head-to-Head: Spec Sheet Smackdown

Spec	Mac mini (M6)	Beelink SER8 (8745HS)
CPU	12-core Apple M6	Ryzen 7 8745HS, 8C/16T @ up to 4.9GHz
GPU	12-core Apple GPU	Radeon 780M (12 CU RDNA3)
AI accel	Dual 16-core Neural Engine	NPU not exposed; CPU/GPU inference
Memory bandwidth	153GB/s (16GB cfg) / 170GB/s (24-32GB)	DDR5-5600 dual-channel (~89.6GB/s)
RAM	16-32GB, soldered	16GB std, user-upgradable DDR5
Storage	256GB start, soldered	500GB+ start, 2x M.2 PCIe 4.0, up to 8TB
Displays	Up to 3 (via TB4/HDMI)	Triple 4K (HDMI 2.1 + DP 1.4 + USB4)
Networking	2.5GbE, Wi-Fi 7	2.5GbE, Wi-Fi 6
OS	macOS	Windows 11 Pro
Base price (US)	$899	$619

Reading the table honestly: the M6 has the faster CPU architecture, much higher memory bandwidth, and a serious NPU for local AI. The SER8 has upgradability, x86 software compatibility (hello, older games and niche Windows apps), more storage flexibility, and a $280 head start. Pick your poison.

Price Check: Live Dual-Market Numbers (Oct 26, 2026)

🇺🇸 United States (Amazon US + Apple)

Product	Config	Price	Notes
Apple Mac mini M6	16GB/256GB	$899	Apple Store; education $799
Apple Mac mini M5 Pro	24GB/512GB	$1,699	Apple Store
Beelink SER8	16GB/500GB	$619	ASIN B0H14HXBH9, 4.4★ (74 ratings), Prime, 11 left
Beelink SER8	16GB/512GB	$619	ASIN B0H14L2WLH, 4.2★ (338 ratings)
Beelink SER8	32GB/1TB	$859	ASIN B0FCS3MN7R, 4.4★ (402 ratings)
Beelink SER8	16GB/512GB (lowest seen)	$599	ASIN B0H1VVK8TL, single offer

🇨🇦 Canada (Amazon.ca + Apple Canada)

Product	Config	Price	Notes
Apple Mac mini M6	16GB/256GB	CAD $1,249	Apple.ca; education CAD $1,109
Apple Mac mini M5 Pro	24GB/512GB	CAD $2,399	Apple.ca; education CAD $2,259
Beelink SER8	16GB/512GB	CAD $895.25	ASIN B0H1VVK8TL
Beelink SER8	32GB/500GB	CAD $1,049	ASIN B0H3NSVZTJ, 4.3★ (539 ratings)
Beelink SER8	32GB/1TB	CAD $1,043.65	ASIN B0DKNMV258
Beelink SER8	32GB/1TB	CAD $1,179	ASIN B0FCS3MN7R

The Canadian math is wild: Apple's base M6 Mac mini at CAD $1,249 costs more than a 32GB/1TB Beelink SER8 at CAD $1,043.65. Up north, the "base model" Apple tax literally buys you double the RAM and quadruple the storage on the PC side. (iPhone in Canada)

Beelink SER8 mini PC — real product photo

The Dark Horse: Minisforum AI X1 Pro

If neither box scratches your itch, Minisforum's AI X1 Pro-470 (Ryzen AI Max class, 32GB/1TB) sits at $1,327 USD (TechRepublic) — and the Ryzen AI Max family is what has the YouTube scene buzzing. ETA PRIME just ran the MSI Pro Max Edge AI+ with the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 and 128GB of RAM through AAA games (Notebookcheck), and the newer Ryzen AI Max Plus 495 brings 16 Zen 5 cores, a Radeon 865S GPU, and a 55-TOPS NPU (Geeky Gadgets). That's the tier where mini PCs start eating Mac Studio lunches — at Mac Studio-adjacent prices, to be fair.

The Verdict: Who Buys What?

Buy the Mac mini M6 ($899 / CAD $1,249) if: you're deep in the Apple ecosystem, you edit video or audio (those media engines + 153-170GB/s bandwidth are real), or you're building an on-device AI rig where the Neural Engine does the heavy lifting. It's the fastest chip in this fight, full stop.

Buy the Beelink SER8 ($619 / CAD $895-1,049) if: you want maximum giggle-per-dollar, plan to upgrade RAM/storage over time, need Windows-only software, or you're homelabbing. The homelab crowd agrees — the SER8 is a favorite Proxmox box precisely because of that upgradeability (HomeNode).

The honest truth? Apple raised the floor price by $300 and handed the value crown to Beelink by default. The M6 is a phenomenal chip in a sealed box at a new, less-fun price. The SER8 is a decent chip in an open box at a great price. In 2026, "decent chip, great price, two M.2 slots" is a genuinely tough pitch to beat.

Want to see these boxes in action? Check out Alex Hitt's SER8 deep-dive (