Not sure a 'huge case that has the capacity for 8 fans or water cooling' is a selling point for people looking at the Mac mini!
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Will Windows PCs/laptops get a boost in sales?
- Thread starter ian87w
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You get double the performance at a lower price point. I considered the Mini but wanted Discrete Graphics and have heard from other traders about thermal issues with the Mini.
Of course, but you also get a much larger computer and the clue to the attraction of the Mac mini is in the name ?
I like building PCs. As to whether or not macOS - it depends on your skill level.
I'm not a developer or a gamer. Although, I did have to run lots of programs simultaneously for work; and currently back in grad school and I do a lot of research for school assignments and run lots of browser tabs open in Safari (I stopped using Chrome after learning about how it used more resources; although it didn't seem to matter as Safari couldn't handle it either) - I had a 2013 MBA, which just wasn't cutting it with limited RAM, storage and CPU processing and always ran hot. I moved up to the 2017 MBP entry level, better CPU, twice the RAM, but still limited storage capacity- not too mention loss of ports; and I still experienced thermal issues and fans coming on frequently; then add on all of the other issues this model year had; now with a dead display too, and I cannot seem to get it working with an external monitor (not sure if it's due to the the hard drive encryption or something else.) So it is nothing more than a pricy Apple paperweight! 
So instead of getting ripped off yet again by Apple for lesser storage capacity, RAM and CPU specs, at above average pricing, by purchasing yet another MBP that I would need to stretch to afford, I went and bought a Dell Inspiron 5505 with AMD CPU 4700, upgradable to 32 GB RAM (possibly 64 GB RAM if Crucial site is correct), 2 TB storage for $713. I don't need a Retina display that can malfunction and break and is too costly to repair, nor do I need to be tied into the Apple ecosystem. I tried experienced it and wasn't impressed.
The base model Dell 15" Inspiron 5505 I purchased came with 1x8GB, DDR4, 3200MHz RAM, 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive storage, CPU: AMD Ryzen(TM) 7 4700U Mobile Processor with Radeon(TM)Graphics.
I also purchased 32 GB RAM and 512 GB storage separately for $243 and I will have a specced computer that blows away the entry level MBP for less than $1000! And I can connect up an external display if I ever need something bigger or better specs, which I shouldn't, because I don't do video intensive work. Hence, for what I need, this Dell should be more than enough to handle the type and level of work I do, and it will definitely be more than I could afford to have if I anchored myself solely to the Apple ecosystem.
So for those that are tied and bound to the Apple ecosystem, so be it; but for those that are open to other operating systems, improved hardware specs for significantly less money, plus designed to be upgradable without the need for an Apple Genius (or the equivalent) to touch your device, please research and see what is out there, and learn what you can get today for much less money!
So instead of getting ripped off yet again by Apple for lesser storage capacity, RAM and CPU specs, at above average pricing, by purchasing yet another MBP that I would need to stretch to afford, I went and bought a Dell Inspiron 5505 with AMD CPU 4700, upgradable to 32 GB RAM (possibly 64 GB RAM if Crucial site is correct), 2 TB storage for $713. I don't need a Retina display that can malfunction and break and is too costly to repair, nor do I need to be tied into the Apple ecosystem. I tried experienced it and wasn't impressed.
The base model Dell 15" Inspiron 5505 I purchased came with 1x8GB, DDR4, 3200MHz RAM, 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive storage, CPU: AMD Ryzen(TM) 7 4700U Mobile Processor with Radeon(TM)Graphics.
I also purchased 32 GB RAM and 512 GB storage separately for $243 and I will have a specced computer that blows away the entry level MBP for less than $1000! And I can connect up an external display if I ever need something bigger or better specs, which I shouldn't, because I don't do video intensive work. Hence, for what I need, this Dell should be more than enough to handle the type and level of work I do, and it will definitely be more than I could afford to have if I anchored myself solely to the Apple ecosystem.
So for those that are tied and bound to the Apple ecosystem, so be it; but for those that are open to other operating systems, improved hardware specs for significantly less money, plus designed to be upgradable without the need for an Apple Genius (or the equivalent) to touch your device, please research and see what is out there, and learn what you can get today for much less money!
It was quite difficult for me to make the move over and partition my workload between macOS and Windows, but once I got started, I just kept going. I will continue to use macOS, but applications that require CPU, GPU, and Storage will run on Windows. I'd guess that lots of people also struggle with the move.
Size comparisons between a mini-ITX (or larger) PC case and a Mac mini is not a valid unless you also add the eGPU enclosure to the latter. The Mac solution will always be more expensive.
I have an NZXT H1 case for my custom built Windows PC; it has a PCIe riser card that accepts most two-slot GPU cards including a Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5700 XT or an GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER.
The H1 is much larger than the Mac mini but the latter's graphics are pretty weak. However, you can stick the Radeon card into an external eGPU enclosure like the Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 650W. When you add the Sonnet box to the Mac mini, the combined size is nearly identical to the H1.
There are plenty of compact Windows PC including the Intel NUC that are comparable to the Mac mini in size. Some of these models have much more capable built-in graphics that the Mac mini.
In conclusion, the Mac mini is a great option if compact size takes priority over graphics performance. You can improve the Mac mini's graphics performance by using an eGPU which will bump up how much real estate is used, power consumption, and take a big bite out of your wallet. Using an eGPU with a Mac mini anecdotally reduces CPU temperature since graphics activity is offloaded to the external card and there's no heat generated from the idle iGPU and the rest of the internal display pipeline.
RE: "applications that require CPU, GPU, and Storage will run on Windows" <- This was also a large part of the reason why I didn't invest in repairs for a known lemon of an Apple laptop (2017 MBP) currently with a dead display, plus so many other known issues for that model (keyboard, battery, etc) - Total waste of good money initially, so I decided not to continue to throw good money after bad (at least for my scenario) - instead, I bought myself an upgradable Dell laptop with 4700 AMD CPU (base clock speed 2.0 GHz with a max 4.1GHz), 8GB RAM, 256 GB storage for $693 after tax & delivered; as well as separately ordered 32 GB RAM and 1 TB storage sticks for $243 to add to it, although I still need to order $7 mounting kit to be able to install them — yet all for less than $950 (which was heading towards close to what I would have paid for a new Retina display for an Apple laptop with much less RAM, storage and lesser CPU - plus per the Crucial site, it may be upgradable to 64 GB RAM, which would be awesome if that's actually the case.) I did not need a Retina display (plus, I can use an external monitor if I ever did need a better display in the future) nor do I have blinders for a specific operating system - But most importantly, I won't be hitting up against hardware limitations as has been the case with both of my Apple laptops (MBA and MBP) - and I will do so for much less money than would have been needed for an equivalently specced Apple laptop, which I would never be able to afford, and hence why at this point in time a mid level Dell Inspiron 15 5000 (5505) Windows 10 laptop purchase was an easy choice to replace a non-usable overpriced Apple MBP paperweight/known to be a lemon of a model - for a fraction of the cost!