M4 and M4 Pro Mac minis are probably Apple's best Mac minis | Hacker News Reader

M4 and M4 Pro Mac minis are probably Apple's best Mac minis

arstechnica.com

22 pointsmpweiher22 comments

It would be strange if the latest release of a computer line was not the best one ever in that line.

It's not only the typical improvements in chip technologies: form factor also plays a significant role here [1]. It's also worth noting that the M4 Pro supports three (or more?) displays.

From a business perspective, I'm eager to see Apple’s Q4 and Q1 reports. My hypothesis is that they might be reshaping the desktop market with these Mac minis.

I think one of the next milestones could be to achieve a fanless model.

[1]

Height: 4.97 cm (1.96″)

Width: 12.70 cm (5.00″)

Depth: 12.70 cm (5.00″)

Weight (M4): 0.67 kg (1.48 lb.)

Weight (M4 Pro): 0.73 kg (1.61 lb.)

Two points

It is strange that the "entry level" computer in 2024 competes and sometimes wins against the 2022 fully-decked out M2 and the original M1 Ultra.

The M3 Pro had a DECREASE in number of P-cores compared to the M2 Pro.

That was very strange and unexplainable.

I don’t know who was it .. but I heard some YouTuber suggesting it might have been a commercial decision to further distinguish between the pro and max / ultra versions of their chips. Which.. sucks but makes sense.

Best explanation would seem to be a rebalancing to increase efficiency - the M3 Pro was basically the same performance as the M2 Pro but at much greater energy efficiency. Now the M4 Pro has increased the performance again (I assume at a similar power draw as the M3 Pro)

What about Intel Arrow Lake?

I think it's relative to the advancing state of the art...

True, but also Apple is somewhat famous for releasing “faster but worse” redesigns of their computers. Like:

- making MacBook Pro thinner and faster, but now the keyboard fails after 12 months and no SD card or HDMI port

- making Mac Pro a desktop sized trash can, but now no CPU or GPU updates or PCI expansion slots

Since Ive’s departure and the M1 era Apple has reversed course on all these blunders which is great, but I guess no new blunder is newsworthy.

(I think the better headline is as MKBHD put it, this m4 mini at the $600/$500 EDU price point is the best deal in computers)

the weird part is that outclass all current minipcs. Better cpu, better power-usage, better price, way faster ram...

The 2014 Mac Minis were such a downgrade, the entry model was downgraded from a 2.5 GHz dual-core Ivy Bridge Core i5 (3210M) in the 2012 models to a 1.4 GHz dual-core Haswell Core i5 (4260U).

I really like it, but the upgrade prices are a major drawback.

In the EU, the base Mini model with 256GB of SSD costs 700 EUR. Upgrading to a more practical 1TB adds an extra 460 EUR, bringing the total to 1,159 EUR.

It’s frustrating that Apple’s upgrade prices are so steep. For context, a top-quality 1TB SSD can be bought here for just 85 EUR.

Fortunately, the mini's SSD appears to be replaceable. Apparently not with directly with standard parts, but sufficient for third party offers.

https://9to5mac.com/2024/11/08/m4-mac-mini-storage-speeds/

Yes, I saw that. But untill there are 3rd party parts confirmed to work, I won't buy it.

This may matter eventually but right now the fact it’s not soldered isn’t helpful to buyers. I wouldn’t recommend anyone buy a machine from Apple gambling on being able to upgrade the internal SSD at some point in the distant future.

Apple upgrade price is annoying, but the thunderbolt ports mean a good external SSD can be really fast; for a desktop computer as opposed to a laptop, it’s not such a bad option.

It's the same tactic NVIDIA now use. Every lower tier model is gimped to force you into a higher tier more expensive model.

I expected to be really excited about the M4/Pro Mac Minis. It makes the most sense to get the highest performance and longevity for a desktop unit without a display. After the announcement, I couldn't think of a use case for myself.

1. For everyday use, I'll use a MacBook Air/Pro model

2. For high-power uses (games or AI/ML), I wouldn't use macOS

3. For server uses, I'll run Linux.

I don't have a high-power use-case that depends on running native macOS 'Pro' software, the closest is running Ableton Live which isn't all that intensive compared to video editing, rendering, or similar uses.

I've been debating between getting the base M4 Mini and assembling a desktop myself with the Ryzen 9600X. Price-wise, both are around the same. Points in favour of the former:

1. Smaller form factor

2. Don't have to bother assembling anything myself

Points in favour of the latter:

1. I can install my favourite flavour of Linux (and Windows too, though I hardly use it any more.)

2. Easy upgradability, especially of memory and storage - I don't foresee upgrading anything else for the next 4-5 years. 16GB/256GB seems to be something I'd quickly outgrow, and the next bump up in configuration is a huge bump up in price.

we should pay attention as the high end mac mini is the exact basic performance need for someone starting out in streaming content and editing video files.

Someone at exolabs is running a cluster of these for AI:

https://x.com/alexocheema/status/1855238474917441972

Huh, a capsule cluster of 4 M4 minis might cost around $12k and provide more CPU/GPU/ANE/RAM and storage than a maxed out Mac Pro, which would cost more anyway. They probably resell for more too. If you have a defined level of compute and you need a cluster today for performance a Apple Mini cluster might be the fastest and most cost effective way to do it. I should note, the performance and compatibility jump from going with a small server cluster and Nvidia is probably worth 20K too.

You can only really conclude that in a few years time, after we find out if they are any hardware/software issues

I've gone right off Apple. Their iOS 17.x update bricked my 2.5 year old iPhone 12, my neighbour's M3 Air yesterday got stuck in a boot loop after an update and not even recovery mode works so it's being sent for a service, Sequoia is/was full of bugs. My perfectly fine 2015 MBP turned useless with newer OSes due to awful performance. Our work M1s are starting to develop faults too

I feel it's quite clear they're deprioritising quality, QA and software defect rates for releasing yearly N+1, and performance

Yes, they made some nice chips but there's more to "best ever x" than performance

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