Mac mini 2024
Apple (Hacker News, MacRumors):
Apple today unveiled the all-new Mac mini powered by the M4 and new M4 Pro chips, and redesigned around Apple silicon to pack an incredible amount of performance into an even smaller form of just 5 by 5 inches.
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For more convenient connectivity, it features front and back ports, and for the first time includes Thunderbolt 5 for faster data transfer speeds on the M4 Pro model.
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Mac mini with M4 features a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and now starts with 16GB of unified memory.
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For users who want pro-level performance, Mac mini with M4 Pro features the world’s fastest CPU core with lightning-fast single-threaded performance. With up to 14 cores, including 10 performance cores and four efficiency cores, M4 Pro also provides phenomenal multithreaded performance. With up to 20 cores, the M4 Pro GPU is up to twice as powerful as the GPU in M4, and both chips bring hardware-accelerated ray tracing to the Mac mini for the first time. The Neural Engine in M4 Pro is also over 3x faster than in Mac mini with M1, so on-device Apple Intelligence models run at blazing speed. M4 Pro supports up to 64GB of unified memory and 273GB/s of memory bandwidth — twice as much bandwidth as any AI PC chip — for accelerating AI workloads.
They kept HDMI but dropped a Thunderbolt port. The version with the Pro processor starts at $1,399 instead of $1,299 with the previous model, but it includes 24 GB of RAM, up from 16 GB.
Apparently you cannot spec the new M4 Pro Mac mini with 32GB of RAM—it’s the standard 24GB or you have to pay $400 to double that to 48GB? (I have 32GB on my M2 Pro Mac mini…so I’d have to downgrade or pay wayyyy more.)
Since people always ask this: a base model Mac mini is a perfectly fine computer for developing iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro apps comfortably. I’ve never had to worry about performance or RAM usage on my M1 — it’s fast, stable, and reliable.
(But I also do not use Slack or Chrome, or any of the other worst offenders, so weigh that appropriately)
And keep in mind, the Mac mini was never updated to the M3—its last update was to the M2 in early 2023. So if you’re just looking at the Mac mini, the model-to-model speed boosts will be even more impressive than the gains between this chip generation and the last.
A lot of people are talking about the new M4 Mac mini power button location.
Apple decided to put it on the bottom. While the bottom vent raises the height, you will still have to tip it up to reach the power button.
The new Mac Mini internal architecture is reminiscent of the Apple TVs. Fan on the bottom (some Apple TVs have it), logic board in the middle, power supply on top. This way, heat generated from the power supply doesn’t go up to the SoC. Quite cool (no pun intended)!
Damn, new Mac mini is (I believe?) the first Mac with DisplayPort 2.1 support. That means a theoretical maximum monitor support of 8K at 240Hz (!!) with HDR and DSC.
Previously:
Update (2024-10-30): John Gruber:
The new Mini form factor sports a dramatically smaller footprint, but because it’s taller (which ought to be better for thermals), the difference isn’t as great by volume[…]
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No cheating either: the power supply remains inside the Mac Mini case. (But as shown above, the Mac Mini remains quite a bit larger than an Apple TV 4K.)
There are now two desktop Macs and four Apple silicon chip options for users who do not need the expandability of the Mac Pro. The Mac Studio starts at $1,999, overshadowing the $599 starting price of the M4 Mac mini and even the $1,399 starting price of the M4 Pro Mac mini, so do you need the performance of the Mac Studio , or is the humble Mac mini sufficient for your needs? Our guide helps to answer the question of how to decide which of these two desktop Macs is best for you.
The new Mac mini is exactly the Mac I wanted when I got the Mac Studio. It doesn’t support as much memory or storage as a Studio, but you can build a real beast of a Mac around this tiny computer including with Thunderbolt 5.
The Mac mini is Apple’s first carbon neutral Mac to date, and it joins the carbon neutral Series 10 Apple Watch models.
However, this was possible through “high-quality carbon credits.”
In this article, I’m going to talk about my experience with Mac mini over the years, and how I see myself potentially using the new M4-powered Mac mini in the future.
I’ve just ordered a new base model to replace my M2 base model. Double the RAM and M2->M4 for just $240 after trade-in made this an easy swap.
See also: TidBITS, MacStories.
Update (2024-10-31): Joe Rossignol:
The Verge attended the gathering, and it has now shared hands-on photos of the dramatically smaller Mac mini, the refreshed color options for the iMac, the updated Magic accessories with USB-C ports, and more. We have highlighted a few of these photos below, and we encourage you to check out their article for a complete gallery.
Update (2024-11-05): seatedro:
2x 16GBx256GB mac minis cost 1$ cheaper than a single 32GBx512GB mac mini
Update (2024-11-08): Hartley Charlton:
Ahead of time, the first reviews of Apple’s latest redesigned computer have been shared by select media outlets and YouTube channels.
The Mac mini is more of an appliance than ever, one that you turn on and keep on—not unlike an iPhone, iPad, or even Mac laptop.
That said, the power button being underneath is awkward at times—none more so than when I first set up the machine and was asked to pair with the Touch ID keyboard, requiring me to double-click the power button.
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In both cases, the ports are on average better than what was previously available, even if there aren’t as many of them. That feels like a net win, though if it means you now need a hub to connect things, well, I can understand the frustration.
Apple has returned to using two 128GB storage chips in the new Mac mini with 256GB of storage, according to a partial teardown video shared on social media today. This means the base-model Mac mini with the M4 chip will not have significantly slower SSD speeds compared to higher-end configurations of the computer with 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of storage, as multiple NAND chips allows for faster SSD read and write speeds.
The teardown video also reveals that storage is modular in the new Mac mini, meaning that it can be easily removed since it is not soldered down. As we saw with the Mac Studio, however, replacing the modular storage is complicated.
The point is that I’m not sure Apple has ever sold an entry-level Mac mini that I, a discerning but not particularly demanding information worker, could actually buy without dropping a couple hundred dollars on upgrades.
But the new $599 M4 Mac mini is easily the fastest and most capable Mac that Apple has sold for this price, and it’s good enough that it doesn’t just feel like a cheap way to buy into the Mac ecosystem. It’s a capable mainstream PC with few notable compromises, and the M4 Pro version is a proper workstation that can fit in the palm of your hand. It sounds like hyperbole, but that’s how good the M4, M4 Pro, and the 16GB RAM boost are.
There’s some GBs showing up for the 8+4 Mini pro (base model) and oof, my M1 Ultra is crying.
Previously:
Update (2024-11-11): Basic Apple Guy:
Mac mini port history
One interesting thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that the M4 Mini Pro SSD is faster at comparable sizes compared to the M4 Mini. Turns out the modules are pretty different between the two. Also interesting the Pro uses cooling system uses copper vs aluminum on the regular (similar to Studio Ultra vs Max).
Update (2024-11-13): Jeff Geerling (via Hacker News):
I expected M4 to be better than M1/M2 (I haven’t personally tested M3), and I hoped it would at least match the previous total-system-power efficiency king, a tiny arm SBC with an RK3588 SoC… but I didn’t expect it to jump forward 32%. Efficiency gains on the Arm systems I test typically look like 2-5% year over year.
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The chip isn’t the fastest at everything, but it’s certainly the most efficient CPU I’ve ever tested. And that scales down to idle power, too—it hovers between 3-4W at idle—which is about the same as a Raspberry Pi.
You can solve any problem with Lego 😅
Again, I think the power button is fine. But if you want to build this yourself, then check out the link below.
A fun discovery this week is that a Mac mini M4 (not Pro, 4P + 6E) does a clean build of OmniFocus 1.45x faster than an M1 Ultra Mac Studio (16P + 4E).
Update (2024-11-22): Jason Snell:
The same chip in the $1599 M4 Pro Mac mini generates a single-core CPU score that’s 73% faster than my Mac Studio and a multi-core score that’s 92% faster! Less than three years on, the pace of Apple silicon has turned my Mac Studio into something that even generates lower CPU scores than the base M4 Mac mini.
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If I traded in my Mac Studio for a Mac mini, I’d get a big CPU boost, but only a meager 8.7% improvement on GPU. Meanwhile, if I wait until next year, I can probably get a base-model M4 Max Mac Studio that’s firmly in crossover territory with the Mac mini.
21 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
I'm curious whether it's more cost effective than a PC+GPU for ML training... 64Gb M4 Pro = $2k + tax.
Having the power button underneath seems a bad idea. Also kind of annoying it's not the same shape as the old ones: can't stack it on an older model so easily.
I think that Mac Mini with the M4 Pro and 64 GB of memory would be great for running Llama3 in the homelab, even the 70B model… and you get a Time Machine server to boot. (Actually thinking about it.)
Hmm, while not entirely unique, the power supply on top does somewhat recall original classic Macs (like with a Mac Chimney) or CRT iMacs which used the heat from the display to drive convection! Power supply in prior Mac minis used up the full length of the case so I guess they have to squash it around a bit.
I will admit I assumed they'd just make the power supply external, like they did with the iMac, as an easy way out to make it smaller.
Old Unix Geek: I agree on the button but disagree about the shape change. They kept the old shape for quite a while, and it was originally dictated by the size of a DVD drive. Time to move past that.
I'm pleasantly surprised with the prices — things got shuffled around a bit, but it's roughly the same price structure as the M2 Pro, but with 50% more RAM (besides the obvious chip improvements).
Makes me slightly more hopeful for the MBPs — I absolutely hated the price-gouging structure of the M3 generation, where everything was carefully designed to make you overpay. A 16" MBP with 64 GB RAM started at $3,499 for both the M1 and M2 generations, but on M3 you couldn't pay anything less than $3,999. Going by the mini's upgrades, it's quite likely one won't have to pay for the Max any longer, and reach the same requirements at $3,099!
Also, answering Dan Moren's post (I replied to him on Mastodon): the 16→32 GB upgrade already cost $400 in the past. Going 24→48 for the same price is unquestionably a win in my view.
@mjtsai Yes, the base price is $100 more, but the unbinned upgrade is $100 cheaper, which is why I said it ends up being roughly the same. Sucks for people who just want the lowest price, but then again if you only care about RAM and nothing else, now you can get the non-Pro M4 with 32 GB for $1200, lower than any previous option, mini or not. And if you still go for the Pro, seems to me you're getting a significantly better deal than the M3 Pro, which was a sideways move compared to the M2 Pro, for just $100.
Yes. I definitely envy the 64 GB option (virtualisation).
What does the situation look like now for performance? Anyone got an estimate of the current m4 pro over the equivalent m2 pro, taking into account the additional two performance cores?
I'm finally coming to the terrible realisation that my current m2 Mini will probably end up being my router, as well as my NAS. That means manual configuration of routing and pf. Fun! Apple have never made that easy, and the "Internet Sharing" front-end is just embarrassing.
I've installed 4 or 5 dozen Intel and Apple Silicon Minis in small offices. I have two Intel Minis.
Can the new Mini be locked in a mount without losing access to the power button and ruin its cooling?
I installed lots of Tryten Mac Mini lock cages (a healthcare cart provider bought Tryten, though).
As far as I can tell from photos so far, the new Mac Mini doesn't have a cable lock hole.
The new Mini's air cooling flow might demand that it remain upright, unless it has a fan. If it doesn't have a fan, I assume macOS will often throttle it like a MacBook Air to keep cool.
I hope someone can figure out a way to lock it without losing access to its power button or ruin its cooling.
Maybe a something like an AppleTV mount but Apple TVs don't have a power button on the bottom.
Maybe I could put them in a roomy cage that lets me reach in with my finger to lift it up and press the power button. Ugh!
Worst case -- epoxy a cable mount on the top. Ugh ugh.
They MUST be locked down in offices. Or gathered at the end of the day and stuffed in a safe. Ugh.
Mac Minis are (were???) a great way to convert an office of Windows PCs into Macs.
@Daniel What is “unbinned upgrade” referring to here? Do you mean the Pro processor with 14 cores? There was no M3 Mac mini, so I assume your last sentence meant to say M2 Pro and M1 Pro.
Well, if the M4 Pro can compile Swift code even slightly faster than my M2 Pro, it will kinda be a win I guess 🤷♂️
Regarding the power button location, I don't see that as being much of a problem, at least for me. I leave my Macs on all the time, and only rarely have to hit the power button on any of them. It's rare enough that it usually takes me a few seconds to remember where the button is exactly, regardless of location. I can see that being more of an issue in situations where you have to secure the Mini somehow though.
@mjtsai Indeed, I mixed the M2 and M3 generations quite a bit in my reply. I was referring to the 12-core M2 Pro (8+4), which cost $300 extra over the 10-core (6+4). The comparison to the M3 was basically ranting about the MBPs, and did not really apply to the Mac mini, but my position remains — I wouldn't call $100 "wayyyy more", and you're getting +50% RAM, plus there are cheaper alternatives if you don't demand all CPU/GPU cores.
[Now that the M4 MBPs are announced, allow me to rant: I spoke too soon. I was dreaming of lower prices, but the 64 GB option for M4 Pro is conspicuously missing, and now the minimum price for the same requirements I mentioned a few comments above has actually *risen* to $4,199. This includes a forced minimum 1 TB storage, but even if you adjust earlier generations for storage, it's $200 more than the already-expensive M3 Max!]
A correction: adjusting for storage, the M4 Max MBP costs exactly the same as the M3 Max. Anyway, sorry for this off-topic rambling, I'll stop now.
Once it's physically installed, are there any extra steps to upgrading the SSD? Is there perhaps some kind of security feature preventing you from simply formatting the new drive and installing macOS on it, like you can on an Intel or PPC mac?
From what I've seen and read you need to have never used NANDs on the board, put the upgraded Mac into DFU mode and have a 2nd Mac connected to do the install from.
@Liam Thank you so much for clarifying.
Well, that's typical Apple embarrassing. One why doesn't Apple have a OpenFirmware/BIOS/EFI type option that can allow replacement of drives? It's just NAND chips for crying out loud. Initialize and pair in the firmware, then you should be able to install locally or through a network restore option. But let's stipulate this all makes sense, even so, buying unused NAND from Apple doesn't actually save you any money and there's no third party options right? Progress…
Is there any reason to not buy entry level models when possible and simply update every couple years given how much better each model seems to get as far as performance? I guess that's the true reason upgrades are so freaking expensive..
Seeing how two Mac minis are cheaper than a single modestly upgraded system. It's literally like $120 worth of upgrades Apple is charging how much for?!!? $600…
