Hey there! Great question—let’s break this down into two clear parts: using your iMac as a display for the Mac mini, and leveraging its i7 processor to supercharge your 3D rendering and video processing tasks.

1. 把iMac当作Mac mini的外接显示器 #

• First off, only specific iMac models support this via Target Display Mode (TDM). This works for iMacs released between 2009 and 2014 that have a Thunderbolt port. If your iMac is 2015 or newer, Apple removed this feature, so you can’t use it directly as an external display for the Mac mini.
• If you have a compatible iMac, the setup is straightforward: connect the two machines with a Thunderbolt cable, then press Command + F2 on the iMac to switch to Target Display Mode. Your iMac will instantly act as the Mac mini’s display.

2. 调用iMac的i7处理器构建分布式计算 #

You’re totally right about not wasting that i7 power—here are practical ways to turn your iMac into a computing node that works alongside your Mac mini:

• Software-native distributed rendering
  • Blender: Use its built-in Network Rendering feature. Install Blender on your iMac, enable the render node service in Blender’s settings, then add your iMac as a node in the Mac mini’s Blender instance. When you start rendering, both machines’ CPUs will split the workload.
  • Final Cut Pro/Compressor: While FCP doesn’t support cross-machine rendering natively, you can use Compressor to split export tasks. Set up Compressor on both Macs, then configure distributed rendering to send parts of the export job to your iMac, cutting down processing time.
• General-purpose distributed computing tools
  • Open MPI: This open-source framework lets you write parallelized code that runs across multiple machines. Install it on both Macs, then structure your tasks to split workloads between the Mac mini’s CPU and the iMac’s i7.
  • Apple Distributed Objects: Apple’s own framework that lets apps on different Macs communicate and share resources. If you’re building custom tools for your workflow, this is a native way to tap into the iMac’s processing power.
• Remote SSH access
  • You can simply SSH into your iMac from the Mac mini to run compute-heavy tasks directly on the i7. Use the command ssh your-imac-username@your-imac-local-ip to log in remotely, then launch rendering or processing commands in the iMac’s terminal. The iMac will handle the work in the background while you use it as a display for the Mac mini.

关键注意事项 #

• Keep both machines on the same local network, and use a wired connection (Thunderbolt or Ethernet) if possible—this ensures fast data transfer between the two, so your distributed tasks don’t get slowed down by network lag.
• When your iMac is in Target Display Mode, its operating system still runs in the background. That means you can use its processor for computing tasks at the same time as using it as a display—no conflict at all.
• If you have a 2015+ iMac (no Target Display Mode), you can still leverage its power: use Apple’s Screen Sharing to control the iMac remotely while the Mac mini runs its own tasks. You won’t share a display, but you’ll still get the combined computing power.

备注：内容来源于stack exchange，提问作者Humandude