Mac Mini doesn't need a real GPU in my opinion -- what they need is a mid-level desktop that accepts a real GPU. $1000 - $1500 with decent specs. But, we know they won't move into that space.
In fact, you can get the new entry-level Mac mini plus the Sonnet Breakaway Puck RX 560 [0] for US$1100, now that the eGPU has dropped in price to $300. Whether any given person would be satisfied with that configuration is, of course, open to debate.
While this is probably too niche to make economic sense as a product, this seems like a perfect use case for a vertically-mounted PCIe slot, creating a tall GPU pedestal for the Mini in a similar vein to the G4 Cube.
It's the only non-Pro designated Mac that has four Thunderbolt 3 ports. I don't think you'd find this level of I/O in any other machine in this price range.
That incredibly powerful I/O makes for tons of expansion possibilities. Storage, GPU, etc.
Not all Thunderbolt 3 ports are the same. Good chance that two ports are sharing a single PCIe 3.0 4x controller. Since PCIe 3.0 is good for ~7.8Gb/sec/lane, you're looking at two 40Gb/sec Thunderbolt ports sharing about 31Gb/sec of bandwidth on the PCIe bus. Okay, probably not that big of a deal really.
The point being that a "Pro" system might have 4 individual Thunderbolt controllers, each getting their own 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes.
I think that's why the specs say "Up to 40GB/sec" on the page. It sadly doesn't say which controller it has... But I guess my whole point is really moot in practicality. Good luck saturating that much bandwidth.
Mac mini, iMac Pro, and Macbook Pro all have two Thunderbolt 3 controllers.
The Mac Pro starts with two controllers but can be configured up to six.
The I/O is actually pretty good and provides for a ton of headroom for expansion down the line (I'm thinking primarily storage and GPU for my use-case).
I can see a pretty high powered eGPU saturating the lanes.
I don't think that's the point: if you can ship 16" MacBook Pros with dedicated GPU you could do the same with MacMini; why don't you give me such option? ("you" stands for "Apple" here btw)
desktop grade cpus and gpus have very different thermal characteristics. it quite impossible to have silent + desktop cpu + desktop gpu + very small space.
A "Mini Pro" is what I've been wanting from Apple forever (in tech years). Just a small tower with room for a graphics card and two or three SSD/NVMe drives. I'd be fine with paying Apple's customary 100+% hardware premium for something like that.
I guess it depends on the width you need. Indeed you won't be able to run x16 or x8 but x4 is possible which is enough for full-speed nvme or dual 10GbE
iMac covers that for most people. eGPU’s also lets you extend the Mac Mini at the cost of more wires and boxes.
But, the Mac desktop gaming ecosystem is fairly anemic so I doubt most people get much from a better GPU. IMO, a Mac Mini + KVM + 500+$ gaming PC is probably the best all around option.
"Mac Mini doesn't need a real GPU in my opinion ..."
I tend to agree, but then I also see 4x thunderbolt 3 ports and 1x HDMI 2.0 ports and think how nice it would be to drive all four of my monitors from that one tiny system ...
However the specifications dictate that only 2x 4k monitors can be driven, simultaneously (at 60hz ?) ... ?
Which brings up the same old, tired question:
Just who is it that works as an engineer, at Apple, and has such boring, inexact, low-power-user use-cases that they, the actual creators of this kit, are happy with it ?
How do you do your jobs ? Why don't you need these things ?
Remember, there were years where multi-monitors were completely, totally broken - in OSX, for all models - which suggests that nobody inside Apple uses multiple monitors.
Thunderbolt 3 ports are multipurpose: disks, external GPU's,etc. Just because you have 3 of them does not mean you should plug in a monitor to each one. And if you really need 4 screens that eGPU will probably handle it.