The M1 Mac mini uses marginally more power when running at full throttle than older Intel Mac minis when idle.
M2 Mac – 8GB vs. 16GB RAM – Avoid This Costly Mistake!
The current M1 Mac mini consumes 6.8W idle and 39W max. The very first Mac mini consumed 32W/85W. That’s nearly as much idle as today’s mini consumes when pushed hard. Not only does M1 mean great battery life for MacBooks, it also means desktop Macs can potentially run cooler and faster while still using less power. And this means future M1 Macs will be able to do things that are impossible today.
“The less power a device uses, the longer it can go without a charger,” Sergey Krivoblotsky, software engineer at MacPaw, told Lifewire via direct message. “You can focus on doing things instead of looking for an outlet.”
If you’ve used or even read about Apple’s M1 Macs, you know two things: they’re blazing fast compared to Intel-based machines, and they’re power hungry. As a result, the current M1 MacBook Air is as fast or faster than more expensive Macs, while still being able to run for 18 hours nonstop on a single charge.
