As an update, I returned the Mac and spent less than half that money on an #Nvidia 4080. Regarding performance, it's hard to beat this bang for the buck.
For those wanting the Tea on the M2 Mac Mini and why I returned it.
https://www.jeremymorgan.com/blog/tech/why-i-returned-mac-mini-m2/
After uising my new #M2MacMini for a few days, I do have to say one thing - it's fast.
Did some stuff in iMovie this evening. Exporting the final file previously took up to 20 mins on my i5 Air. It's just done the same export in under a minute.
#M2MacMini Setup virtually complete. Restored Time-Machine backup and updated some apps as well as installed Rosetta.
Only thing is that it seems to have b0rked my photo library, which I’ll have to repair somehow. Plus, some folder permissions are buggered as part of the restore. Bit of work required to sort things out, but the speed difference is quite significant.
I’m having a really satisfying day today:
- Another 15k steps day
- Weight down to 80Kg, where I was on my 40th birthday
- Had a McD’s breakfast treat (5 weeks since the last one) and managed to resist the milkshake
- Finished customising a new style for my phpBB forum
- Having take out pizza for dinner tonight
- Used ‘Shortery’ on the Mac to automate my wallpaper changing macro
I guess the M2 Mac mini is a decent way to get some somewhat beefy aarch64 Linux VMs going on the home turf.
UTM with QEMU on macOS as the backend seems to work pretty well.
Shawn Brink
apfeltalk 
Jeremy Morgan
That Unsociable Guy
🇬🇧Daron Brewood
Mark Kamichoff
jc