M4 Professional Mac mini overview: Unbelievably good worth

The brand new Mac mini with M4 Professional chip provides unimaginable energy at an unbelievable value. The diminutive desktop laptop reaps the rewards of Apple silicon’s trickle-down efficiency: It delivers capabilities just like a Mac Studio (or Mac Professional) with an M2 Extremely, at only a third (or a fifth) of the worth of these high-end computer systems.

We haven’t but seen what the brand new M4-series chips will do for the Mac Studio and Mac Professional, however the exceptional Mac mini makes me query how a lot of a professional person you’d need to be to really want them. And on high of all that, it’s super-tiny. What’s to not love?

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M4 Professional Mac mini overview

Unbelievable energy, unimaginable value

Apple 2024 Mac Mini with M4 Professional chip

5.0

The brand new Mac mini is smaller, lighter and 50× extra cute. It is tremendous highly effective and by far one of the best deal in computing proper now.

Professionals:

• Highly effective M4 Professional chip
• 512GB storage
• 24GB unified reminiscence
• Compact desktop design

Cons:

• Headphone jack on entrance
• BYOKMAD (Deliver You Personal Keyboard, Mouse and Show)

The Mac mini has been round a lengthy time, nearly 20 years. Extremely, with the addition of the all-new M4 Mac mini, it has solely ever had three case designs. Apple launched the Mac mini, with a white plastic high, within the PowerPC and iPod period. The primary Intel variations shared the identical industrial design. It was an excellent worth.

Apple redesigned the Mac mini in 2010 with a smooth aluminum unibody that might final for the following 14 years. This Mac mini struggled for many of its life. To be sincere, the Intel fashions bought between 2014 and 2018 had been sluggish and never nice. The primary Apple silicon fashions, in what’s now one thing of a convention, shared the identical case because the older fashions. However with the unimaginable effectivity of Apple’s new SoC, a 3rd of the Mac mini’s case sat utterly empty.

With its Apple silicon makeover, the brand new M4 Mac mini seems like a child Mac Studio. It’s simply so darn cute.

Desk of contents: M4 Professional Mac mini overview

1. What I ordered
2. Design
3. Connectivity
4. Efficiency
5. Worth

What I ordered

I ordered the high-end Mac mini with the M4 Professional chip, which begins at $1,399 ($1,503.93 after taxes in Ohio). Apple provides three different cheaper Mac mini fashions with the usual M4 chip.

The M4 Professional Mac mini provides the next specs:

• 512 GB storage
• 24 GB unified reminiscence
• M4 Professional chip with a 12-core CPU (8 efficiency cores and 4 effectivity cores) and 16-core GPU.
• Three Thunderbolt 5 ports, two USB-C ports
• Gigabit Ethernet
• Wi-Fi 6e, Bluetooth 5.3

And for reference, the peripherals I’m utilizing are:

Design

The brand new Mac mini is smaller, lighter, a little bit taller and 50× extra cute.

Not that the Mac mini has ever been huge in comparison with an ordinary PC tower, however the smaller footprint has a huge impact in your desk house. It’s solely 5 inches by 5 inches. It’s truly too small for the Timex clock I usually hold sitting on high of it, which I needed to transfer on high of the ThunderBay.

However extra shocking than that’s the weight. The Mac mini was surprisingly heavy. The brand new Mac mini is the lightest Mac ever. Sure, even lighter than the 12-inch MacBook — 2 kilos versus 1.6 kilos.

It wears the identical aluminum dressing, but it surely now wraps all the way in which round to the again — there’s no huge plastic backplate. The ports look actually good like this. I can’t recover from that beautiful completely rectangular Ethernet jack.

What in regards to the controversial energy button?

The hubbub round this design is the facility button on the underside. Though the Mac mini doesn’t sit flat on the desk, the lip is simply too quick to have the ability to squeeze your finger below there — it’s a must to carry it a little bit bit. It’s actually not that huge of a deal — I can’t bear in mind the final time I needed to manually press the button. (Go to System Settings > Power and allow Begin up mechanically after energy failure and that’ll clear up 90% of it.)

Even in case you’re old school and switch off your laptop daily, I nonetheless don’t suppose it’ll trouble you a lot. As a result of it’s so gentle, so it’s simple to carry it and press. In actual fact, this energy button is far more concave than the previous one, which sat flat in opposition to the again. So though it’s in a barely much less handy spot, it’s truly simpler to seek out with out wanting. 

Connectivity

You probably have an older entry-level Mac mini, you’re in for an enormous improve. You go from two Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB-A ports to 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB-C ports, a web achieve of 1. 

You probably have an M2 Professional Mac mini, you beforehand had 4 Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB-A ports; now you’ve got three Thunderbolt 5 ports and two USB-C ports. It’s a web lack of one, however the capabilities are a lot larger. Thunderbolt 5 provides twice the information bandwidth for exterior storage, as much as 80 Gb/s. It has an asymmetrical mode for driving tremendous high-resolution shows at excessive refresh charges:

• One 8K show at 60 Hz and one 6K show at 60 Hz
• One 4K show at 240 Hz and one 6K show at 60 Hz
• Three 6K shows at 60 Hz

I haven’t been in a position to push Thunderbolt 5 to the boundaries, as a result of that is one space the place Apple is broadly forward of the curve. There aren’t plenty of Thunderbolt 5 peripherals but. However in case you want extra ports, together with a USB-A port, OWC’s first Thunderbolt 5 dock has you lined.

One factor I don’t like: The headphone jack

My greatest quibble is the headphone jack transferring to the entrance. It makes excellent sense as a result of I can think about most individuals plug in headphones or use Studio Show audio system. Nonetheless, my sound system is a Roland Dice 30X amplifier that sits beneath my desk (and makes for a superb footrest). I had a headphone cable run up from behind the desk and plug into the headphone jack.

Now, I must both run the cable up and round to the entrance of the Mac — an unpleasant sight, even when the cable had been lengthy sufficient — or run it by way of the headphone jack on my show, which is what I settled on. However that presents its personal points. Numerous individuals have low cost shows that don’t have passthrough audio, like me, till only a few weeks in the past. And in case you use your show over HDMI, since you need to reserve the Thunderbolt ports for peripherals, you would possibly lose the flexibility to regulate the amount out of your Mac.

However I’ve to concede that I’m within the minority. Most individuals use headphones as a substitute of desktop audio system, a lot much less guitar amplifiers. The power to see the headphone jack fairly than dig round within the again by way of your mess of cables is an enormous step up.

I suppose I ought to point out right here that the built-in speaker nonetheless seems like absolute trash, however hopefully, nobody is definitely utilizing it.

Efficiency

Apple silicon’s M3 technology of chips was the primary to make use of a brand new 3-nanometer course of in semiconductor manufacturing. Based on experiences, 3 nanometer was arduous to fabricate. Efficiency assessments confirmed that it wasn’t a big leap from the earlier 5nm course of. It was a few comparable soar as M1 to M2 was. The M3 Professional chip was additionally nerfed, with six efficiency cores and 6 effectivity cores, bringing its efficiency nearer to the entry-level M3. 

The M4 household is made with a next-generation enhanced 3-nanometer course of. Apple bumped up the M4 Professional to eight efficiency cores and two effectivity cores. And for an additional $200, you will get two extra efficiency cores.

Trickle-down efficiency is actual. In most conditions, an entry-level M4 chip outperforms my M2 Professional Mac mini. The M4 Professional is noticeably zippier; benchmarks present it outperforms the M2 Extremely, which was beforehand one of the best cash may purchase. Which means, in the meanwhile, this $1,400 mini can outperform, in some areas, the $7,000 Mac Professional.

Actual-world efficiency assessments

In my assessments for this overview, I timed the M4 Mac mini executing a number of the duties I do regularly. Apple normally cherry-picks its stats from the very best theoretical enchancment. Benchmarks don’t inform the entire story, both. Even in these real-world assessments, the M4 Professional was noticeably sooner.

Rendering a video was 22% sooner. Exporting an episode of The CultCast was an enormous 49% sooner. Upscaling a 48 MP RAW picture in Pixelmator was 35% sooner — that’s all within the Neural Engine, so you’ll be able to count on plenty of Apple Intelligence options to run about that significantly better, too. Compiling some apps in Xcode and working some Python scripts got here in 6% and 22% sooner respectively.

These are huge enhancements for 2 quick years.

Mac mini worth

I’m proud to report that the Mac mini retains the bang-for-buck crown. It was an unimaginable worth earlier than — now it’s a steal. 

The brand new M4 Mac mini is making plenty of Mac Studio homeowners notice they will downsize. An optioned-out Mac mini approaches a Mac Studio in pricing, however in case you’d fairly splurge on extra inside storage fairly than a Max chip, you’ll be higher off with a mini.

Within the Apple silicon age, desktops and laptops carry out identically after they have equivalent specs, on account of how Apple handles a course of known as binning. Not each processor is made the identical popping out of the fabrication lab; some chips come out a little bit bit sluggish. Intel would promote these sluggish chips at barely decrease costs or put them in laptops. Apple takes the other strategy, placing their slower chips in a desktop laptop, as a result of you’ll be able to juice them up with extra energy to get the anticipated efficiency again. Laptops have to be vitality environment friendly; wattage doesn’t matter as a lot on the desktop.

M4 Professional Mac mini overview: Conclusion

Shopping for a base-model Mac mini is half the price of a base-model MacBook Professional ($799 versus $1,599). In the event you bump it as much as the M4 Professional Mac mini, the worth hole lowers to $600, however in case you choice it out with extra reminiscence and storage (which I like to recommend for energy customers), you save a whopping $1,000.

The perfect worth laptop for artistic professionals simply bought even higher.

★★★★★

Purchase from: Amazon

Unbelievable energy, unimaginable value

Apple 2024 Mac Mini with M4 Professional chip

5.0

The brand new Mac mini is smaller, lighter and 50× extra cute. It is tremendous highly effective and by far one of the best deal in computing proper now.

Professionals:

• Highly effective M4 Professional chip
• 512GB storage
• 24GB unified reminiscence
• Compact desktop design

Cons:

• Headphone jack on entrance
• BYOKMAD (Deliver You Personal Keyboard, Mouse and Show)

Apple didn’t present Cult of Mac with a overview unit for this text. See our opinions coverage, and take a look at different in-depth opinions of Apple-related gadgets.