Mac Mini M4

Because at that budget an M4 Mac Mini is probably the easiest option.

If not I’m just goingto get a m4 mac mini, already use a MacBook so why not.

M4 Mac Mini should give you better performance as you get faster single core and much better graphics performance.

I recently switched to a base model M4 Mac Mini for 4K video editing because my old PC couldn’t handle the footage

Bonus points for having access to the entire Apple creator studio, which for photo and video work is a very nice plus.

When compared to the M4, there is very little that is really competitive for the price point. You are more or less getting 12700k multicore performance while only pulling like 50-60w under load. We can dislike apples business an ecosystem practices all we like, but that is damn impressive for the price tag.

That Mac M4 chip is no joke when it comes to photo and video work, especially in the $500 price range.

Mac mini m4 is like 400 at microcenter and would be perfect for any productivity software and can run some basic llms.

The M4 is incredibly capable at productivity.

I would probably buy an M4 Mac Mini, that's probably the best deal for a cheap workstation PC.