That made me realize I calculated wrong - I had been looking at the iMac upgradability by accident when considering ram for the mini. Dang it.
Now, with the Mini i7 6 core/32gb of ram *from apple*/256gb ssd + monitor/keyboard/mouse, I'm at $2300.
Alternative:
27" iMac i5 6 core/32gb of ram *3rd party*/256gb ssd is also $2300.
However, benchmark scoring still favors the Mini. But you get the fancy Retina 5k screen with the iMac!
and a keyboard and a mouse and a pretty nice graphics card. I like to do videos too.