17 ms·
M4 Mac mini's efficiency
- NKosmatos 2y agoBest quote from the post: “If only they didn't put the power button on the bottom“
- austinpena 2y agoM4 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM is doing a "good enough" job of editing 6k raw footage in Premiere for my team. I'm surprised to say I'm content with the 16GB of ram so far. Edit: This is in contrast to my M1 Macbook Air with 16GB of ram which would stutter a lot during color grading. So definitely feeling the improvement.
- cchance 2y agoMacbooks Air thermal throttle, thats why the Air with 16gb is an issue and the mini isn't, no fans = throttling at heavy loads, its not a ram issue.
- wslh 2y agoI bought the first MacBook Air M1 with 8GB because it was the only option available in my area. Initially, I had doubts, especially after using notebooks with more than 16GB of RAM in previous years. But I was genuinely surprised by how well the M1 performed. My takeaway is that there’s a lot of room for similar improvements in Linux!
- nordsieck 2y agoI have an m1 as well. And while I'm broadly satisfied with its performance, I do think that the SSD is probably carrying some of that load. And for a machine that often gets used far longer than a PC, I can't see that being great for longevity.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago> And while I'm broadly satisfied with its performance, I do think that the SSD is probably carrying some of that load. And for a machine that often gets used far longer than a PC, I can't see that being great for longevity. This isn't the early 2010s anymore - SSDs last "long enough" for most people, to the point they are no more consumable than your motherboard or your RAM. (I've actually experienced more RAM failures than SSD failures, but that's an individual opinion here.) And for the downvoters - do you remember the last time you handed in your Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, iPhone, or even laptop specifically for a random SSD failure, unrelated to water damage or another external cause? Me neither.
- telgareith 2y agopeople really don't grasp that the slowest SSDs are still 3-5x faster than the fastest HDDs (including SAS drives. Yes, the dualport kind). And, Looking at the anandtech review of a vertex 3 way back in 2011...
- wkjagt 2y agoI'm still very happy with my 8GB Air M1 as well. It's incredible how well it still works for a 4 year old entry level laptop. I see all these new M's come out, and I'm sure they're fantastic, but I'm not at all tempted to upgrade.
- josephg 2y agoYeah, I don’t know why 8gb base models get so much hate online. 8gb is 64 billion bits of memory. If you’re writing everyday software and you need more memory than that, you’re almost certainly doing something wrong.
- 7thpower 2y agoSeriously? What if you want to have a few browser tabs and a spreadsheet open? Or containers? My M1 routinely rests around 22gb of RAM.
- ghostly_s 2y agoUsing Chrome I'd guess?
- metta2uall 2y agoI also use an 8GB M1. It has firefox with many tabs & windows open in OSX and also a Linux VM in UTM which is running VSCode, vite, and another firefox with lots of tabs. It's performing well! (although swap is currently at 2.3GB, and there's a further 3.5GB of compressed data in RAM)
- josephg 2y agoHow much RAM should a few browser tabs and a spreadsheet use? Spreadsheets and webpages were both invented at a time when computers had orders of magnitude less ram than they do today. And yet, Excel and Netscape navigator still worked fine. It seems to me that bigger computers have caused chrome to use more memory. If 16gb is considered to be a "bare minimum" for RAM, well, how much ram will all those programs use next year? Or in 10 years? That doesn't help you right now, but 22gb is ridiculous for a few browser tabs and a spreadsheet.
- wslh 2y agoI've been lurking here for more updates on the Mac Mini M4 since I haven't bought mine yet. I also shared some thoughts in previous comments [1][2], as I'm not only impressed by the technical achievements and form factor but also interested in seeing how Apple's business evolves over the next few quarters. I'm curious whether Apple will increase its market share on the desktop side while continuing to dominate in mobile. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42025411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42025411 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42099883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42099883
- philip1209 2y agoThat's great - I wonder if you could get one working with Kamal [1] and Cloudflare Tunnel [2] to run public web apps from a home computer? [1] https://kamal-deploy.org/ https://kamal-deploy.org/ [2] https://www.cloudflare.com/products/tunnel/ https://www.cloudflare.com/products/tunnel/
- choilive 2y agoYes, just using docker containers and cloudflare tunnel I am using mine as a server for my self hosted apps.
- zikduruqe 2y agoDon't forget Tailscale serve and funnel. https://tailscale.com/blog/reintroducing-serve-funnel https://tailscale.com/blog/reintroducing-serve-funnel
- mmastrac 2y agoI use CF Tunnel to serve progscrape.com. It's easily the best way to serve from home infrastructure, IMO.
- ewalk153 2y agoGiven these efficient numbers, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple were racking Minis for serving the new ML models for Siri.
- wmf 2y agoMac minis probably don't have enough RAM to hold Siri's models. It's more likely that Apple is using (modified) Mac Studios.
- jsheard 2y agoWhy use Macs at all? It's well within Apples abilities to make a completely custom server motherboard built around Apple Silicon rather than hacking something together out of Mac parts. That would allow for much better rack density, and they could add proper server amenities like a BMC for remote management.
- favorited 2y agoThey've publicly disclosed that they built custom Apple Silicon servers to power Private Cloud Compute. "The root of trust for Private Cloud Compute is our compute node: custom-built server hardware that brings the power and security of Apple silicon to the data center, with the same hardware security technologies used in iPhone, including the Secure Enclave and Secure Boot." <https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/ https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/>
- opdahl 2y agoYou should check these guys out. They actually do it (rack, not hosting ML models) and it seems to me to be pretty elegant: https://www.macstadium.com/blog/m4-mac-mini-review https://www.macstadium.com/blog/m4-mac-mini-review
- LordKeren 2y agoI can’t help but wish that Apple would provide the handful of features needed to make a Mac mini into a competent home server.
- rgbrgb 2y agowhat else do you need?
- timc3 2y agoWhat I look for is, 128GB RAM minimum, decent number of PCIe lanes because I want two fast NVMe drives, a HBA card ( though this I guess could be external ), two network ports minimum, ZFS, sane terminal, native support for containers and VMs. Native support for UPS interfacing, native support for backup of containers and VMs. And lastly a community of other users doing the same. Dual power supplies is a nice to have.
- awiesenhofer 2y agoSo you are sad that the Mac mini isn't a bog standard HPE/Dell/etc Server? Boy will you be pissed when you find out about laptops, phones, game consoles and basically every other compute form factor. Might want to look into rackable Mac Pros though!
- riknos314 2y agoWhat specific feature gaps would you like to see them address?
- nextos 2y agoI use Linux, but I think the cheapest M4 Mini offers an incredible value and efficiency per €. With education discount, it's around €650, including VAT. It's pretty hard to find such a silent and powerful machine for that little. Any comparable options? A good fanless build with a i3-14100T is more expensive and 40-50% slower on Geekbench. An i5 is a bit closer. Some 2024 Ryzen CPUs can match or exceed its multicore performance, but these are also more expensive and much less energy efficient. Pricewise, things start favoring PCs if you need more RAM, as Mac upgrades are costly. One can potentially use Nix on a Mac Mini to keep similar development environments to those used in Linux, but AFAIK some packages are not supported on ARM. Any experiences using Nix and nix-darwin as a daily driver?
- vetinari 2y agoNUC 14th gen with i3 is around 400 EUR with VAT, with no RAM or storage. For the other 250 EUR, surely you can get more RAM than 16 GB and more storage than 256 GB.
- nextos 2y agoI use a NUC as a daily driver. The problem with NUCs is that cooling is suboptimal, the fan is small and thus noisy. It can be fixed with a third-party case, but that's at least €60-100 more for a much slower machine. Plus, you may void the guarantee by transplanting the motherboard.
- vetinari 2y agoI have i7 NUC13 mounted on a back of monitor and I can barely hear it. It's not that bad, previously (NUC7-era) it was much worse.
- benoau 2y agoThey're usually the same 30 - 50 watt processors used in x86 laptops, once we got past the "dual-core" ceiling they became extremely capable.
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- pjot 2y agoI recently upgraded from a 2020 Intel MBP to an M3 Pro. I’ve been been blown away. Even more, I’ve yet to hear the fans turn on.
- rgovostes 2y ago> If only they didn't put the power button on the bottom. I can't tell if anyone is being serious about the "Powergate" issue. The thing is 5" wide and weighs 1.5 lbs, it's not exactly a burden to lift it a little. And there are highly practical workarounds: https://www.reddit.com/r/macmini/comments/1gncek7/nailed_the_mac_mini_power_button_issue/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macmini/comments/1gncek7/nailed_the...
- ewhanley 2y agoI also wonder how often people are actually turning them off. It's generally a rare event to push the power button on a mac in my experience
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- artdigital 2y agoI turn my Mac off every day
- josephg 2y agoWhy? I only reboot my Mac laptop when I’m forced to due to os updates. With a Mac mini? That thing would never get shut down.
- kranke155 2y agoIt’s not a burden. I consider it a typical Tim Cook decision, in that the man led the company that made one of the fastest CPUs in the world, makes it draw as much as a Raspberry Pi. Absolutely crazy feats of engineering, design, manufacturing… and - There is that ONE detail that would’ve made it perfected but it’s botched! I don’t mind it too much, since it’s still 99% close to perfect. But, but…
- AcerbicZero 2y agoHah, Tim Cook decision pretty much sums it up; its the kind of thing that wouldn't have lasted 5 seconds when placed in front of Jobs (although there is a strong chance Jobs would have demanded his own nonsensical addition/subtraction to the design).
- GeekyBear 2y agoAlso interesting, the M4 Mini has the flash storage on a replaceable module, instead of being soldered to the motherboard, although the NVMe controller is still integrated into the SoC. iFixIt and others have already posted videos showing that the flash storage is now upgradable. > M4 Mac mini Teardown - UPGRADABLE SSD, Powerful, and TINY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rtdGxBeSkz8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rtdGxBeSkz8
- winwang 2y agoThe controller being decoupled is an extremely interesting idea! Makes a lot of sense. I wonder if it includes a (nontrivial) cache.
- telgareith 2y agoSeems likely its a cacheless (well, host bus memory) design like the ones used by Apple on their other designs.
- GeekyBear 2y agoApple bought a company that designed enterprise SSD controllers over a decade ago. > Anobit appears to be applying a lot of signal processing techniques in addition to ECC to address the issue of NAND reliability and data retention. In its patents there are mentions of periodically refreshing cells whose voltages may have drifted, exploiting some of the behaviors of adjacent cells and generally trying to deal with the things that happen to NAND once it's been worn considerably. https://www.anandtech.com/show/5258/apple-acquires-anobit-bringing-nand-endurance-technology-inhouse https://www.anandtech.com/show/5258/apple-acquires-anobit-br...
- AshamedCaptain 2y ago"Upgradeable" is too big of a word here, specially considering that they're using different form-factors even between the models released on the same year (e.g. pro vs non-pro) ; and also different from models released on the previous year (e.g. studio). This almost certainly means that next year's model will also use a different interface, so you won't be able to upgrade your storage at all.
- 1-6 2y ago“If only they didn't put the power button on the bottom.” While I think Apple was off the rocker on this particular decision, I do respect their org structure that allows this type of decision to occur. Believe me, there are companies where a dozen people or more would weigh in and prevent an unpopular choice. Consensus sometimes hinders a desired result (both good and bad).
- phillco 2y agoAfter buying one, I actually like it. I know exactly where it is, and can reach for it by feel more easily; I could never tell you whether the power button was on the left or right side of the old Mini/Studio without checking each time. It's also larger, more satisfying tactile/clicky, and concave compared to the old button (which was rounded into the outside curve, not particularly be satisfying to press). I think the old one being so small and indistinct feeling, and also being so close to the cables meant you would never try to reach for it blindly. You do have to lift it up a bit, but the device is so light you can do that with the same finger you're using to push the button (of course you need another finger to push the top of the mini _down_). I think neither old nor new button were really meant to be used more than occasionally, since you typically wake your Mac from the keyboard, and both designs reflect that. I do sympathize that the new version could be less flexible in different mounting positions though. (that said, I'd bet Jobs/Ive Apple would never have shipped this, unless the height underneath was exactly perfect for even the larger fingers to fit)
- atonse 2y agoJobs and Ive had their head scratchers. Like the Magic Mouse with the bottom charging port, or the Cube with all its cables coming in from the bottom.
- phillco 2y agoI was thinking their version might be making the Apple logo itself t beinghe [overly] touch sensitive power button, like the Cube.
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- thought_alarm 2y agoI wish the same could be said of the Studio Display, which is quite power hungry. If the Mac is running then the display is using minimum 10 Watts of continuous power usage at all times, fan running, with the screen off. I guess it takes 10 Watts to maintain the Thunderbolt controller, USB hub, A13 processor, and run the fan. Power usage does drop to <1 Watt when the Mac is actually sleeping, unless anything is plugged into the USB hub. Even an empty iPhone cable will cause the display to draw 5 Watts. It's disappointing.
- lurking_swe 2y agoAgreed. I’m very impressed with it as a general productivity monitor, but it’s a power hungry monitor. Kind of like an SUV lol. The built in mics and speakers are fantastic, 5k is great, the webcam is meh.
- ghaff 2y agoI may have to break down after the holidays. I have a 2015 iMac and I've been holding off (and haven't really been using my Apple Silicon MacBook as intended) so it may be time to do the upgrade.
- opdahl 2y agoThis seems like one of the best times to do it as long as you get your own monitor. You will probably be set for 10 more years with this thing.
- ghaff 2y agoI have a 5K monitor for the Apple Silicon MacBook which I could easily switch to a MacMini and would be ergonomically better. My other MacBook is also about 10 years old and it's a question of how long I stretch everything out while it's all basically working even if not on the current OS.
- dangus 2y agoI see a lot of reviews that say things like this but seem to be written by people who aren't testing against commonly available mini PCs that are built on efficiency architectures. How different is the efficiency of this compared to something like an Intel N100/200/300 or a Ryzen 7 7735HS that you can get in cheap mini PCs from manufacturers like Beelink? I am not doubting that Apple's processors are class-leading but at the same time it seems like I see a lot of people impressed that a mini PC can idle under 10 watts. That's been common for a long time now.
- geerlingguy 2y agoI have an N100 in that listing on the linked GitHub project, it's the best Intel system I've tested, and it gets around 2.5 Gflops/W (which is a little less than a Raspberry Pi 5, which is not known for being the most efficient Arm system).
- lispm 2y agohttps://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m4-vs-amd-ryzen-7-7735hs https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m4-vs-amd-ryzen-...
- dangus 2y agoThese auto-generated comparison pages are not useful.
- lispm 2y agowhy not? Having the specs and benchmark results for both CPUs in a table gives a good overview. What advantage would it bring to manually write such comparison tables?
- dangus 2y agoSpecifically, I don’t like them because they show really vague percentages or “scores” where it’s very unclear what specific benchmarks are being used. The benchmark bars for things like single and multi-core performance don’t break down different applications and use cases or even say which benchmarks they are referring to. This link in particular never goes deeper than Geekbench and has a bunch of comparisons to stuff that shouldn’t guide purchase decisions like: Newer - released 1 year and 4 months later More modern manufacturing process – 3 versus 6 nanometers I much prefer the more in-depth tests that outlets like GamersNexus do, where CPUs are tested using multiple workflows and solutions. For example, you can test specific games and applications, test file compression and video encoding, test simulation speed on CPU-dependent simulation games, test clock speed behavior and throttling (does the CPU have jittery boost clocks or does it settle in to a consistent frequency).
- jchw 2y agoWhile it may not be the literal fastest CPU ever, it still seems very, very fast, and the efficiency is pretty compelling. I'm not sure how much of those efficiency gains are a product of the design constraints that Apple is not beholden to (external memory, x86 backwards compatibility, other aspects of the AMD64 architecture, etc.), the slightly better process nodes, or superior design. I'm honestly dying to know, but I guess we won't find out, and as far as the products go, it doesn't really matter that much. The end result is a pretty good deal. As a mainly non-Apple user I see the following caveats for my own uses: - I'd love to see better Linux support. (As far as I know, Asahi Linux only covers the M1 and M2 lines, and as amazing of a project as it is, last I looked, it's neither upstreamed nor exactly what one might consider first class. Maybe it's getting there now, though...) - I'm worried about the SSD situation still. It seems like it hasn't amounted to much (yet), but some use cases might be more impacted than others, and once the SSD does finally fail, the machine's dead. This is not how things work in most PCs, even mini PCs, and it's a bit of a hard pill to swallow. - The pricing is great at the baseline, but it gets progressively worse as you go up. The Apple M4 Pro Mac Mini has a baseline price of $1,399.00, which I think is pretty decent for a high-end computer with 24 GiB of RAM. But, it maxes out at 64 GiB of RAM, which is less than half of what I have in my current main machine, and believe me, I use it. That 64 GiB of RAM upgrade costs $600. For comparison, the most expensive 64 GiB DDR5 RAM kit on PCPartPicker is $328.99. Don't get me wrong either, I understand that Apple's unified RAM is part of the secret sauce of how these things are as efficient and small as they are, but at least for my main computer I really don't need things to be this compact, so it's another tradeoff that's really hard to swallow. But on the other hand, for people happy to use macOS as their primary operating system, the M4 line of Macs really does look the best computer Apple has ever produced. (For me, it is rare that I feel compelled to even consider an Apple computer; the last time was with the original M1 Mac Mini, which I did buy, although after some experimentation I mainly just use it for testing things on macOS rather than as a daily driver machine.) There really aren't many caveats especially since the base memory configurations this time around are actually reasonable. I suspect these things could be great on homelab racks if the longevity issues don't wind up being a huge problem.
- jeffbee 2y agoWhat's a CPU that is faster in some given 1T workload? I am fairly sure this thing is the fastest out there.
- up2isomorphism 2y agoBut you have to realize this computer only “partially” belongs to you.
- 00deadbeef 2y agoHow so? They don’t prevent you installing other operating systems.
- colecut 2y agoplease elaborate
- dansky 2y agoThe Mac mini M4 performance is around 4-5x in DaVinci Resolve for me - compared to my HP laptop (i5-1135G7). Rendering HDR video was around 12fps there on the i5 - the same project in the Mac mini gets 60fps. The M4 10 core GPU seems on par or better with a mobile RTX3060(65W) for video tests (NR / Deflicker) so I'm also impressed about the M4's efficiency. A lot of power per Watt. It's becoming a dedicated video rendering machine for me where all the SMB auto mounting issues with macOS seem solvable. Pretty happy so far with the base model price even in the EU. The power button placement is an annoyance for me, though.
- baq 2y ago> The power button placement is an annoyance for me, though. Keep the thing upside down. Not joking.
- nielsbot 2y agoFeel like that risks overheating...
- Retr0id 2y agoNot really. Unlike previous mac mini models, the grille on the underside is both the air intake and exhaust. If anything it ought to be better upside-down, since convection now helps the heated air rise out. Edit: any downvoters care to elaborate?
- _2d30 2y agoThe case is also going to radiate heat and turning it upside down will make that less efficient. The base won't radiate heat in the same due to being plastic and due to it already being used to pass air through.
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- barbazoo 2y agoNoteworthy because related to energy efficiency across the entire product lifecycle: > Mac mini is: > Designed with more than 50% recycled content. Made with electricity sourced from 100% renewables. Shipped 50% or more with low-carbon methods. https://www.apple.com/environment/ https://www.apple.com/environment/
- rsanheim 2y agothe mac mini is the first carbon neutral mac: * https://www.macrumors.com/2024/10/29/apple-m4-mac-mini-carbon-neutral/ https://www.macrumors.com/2024/10/29/apple-m4-mac-mini-carbo... * https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/desktops/Mac_mini_PER_Oct2024.pdf https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/desktops/Mac_...
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoA Faustian deal. Worth the pound of flesh?
- rconti 2y ago> In 1.25U of rack space, you could run three Mac minis I mean, 1.25U at 5" deep. Lots of cabinets are 35+" deep, if memory serves. So technically it would be 21 Mac Minis in 1.25U of space, so it's more like almost 6 teraflops. Again, button-on-the-bottom and wiring and thermals aside.
- geerlingguy 2y agoHeh, can't wait to see what contraption @Merocle comes up with for densely-packing these things: https://x.com/Merocle/status/1848975509603934478 https://x.com/Merocle/status/1848975509603934478
- emp_ 2y agoThe Studio being the GPU-centric model, I can't wait for all these M4 Mini performance improvements to make to the Studio line.
- smm11 2y agoI just sold an M1 Mini and grabbed a Beelink. It's wonderful being able to run whatever OS/distro I want on the Beelink, and it's plenty strong enough for whatever. I love this adoration for Apple, primarily for my investment accounts, but in a cloud world I have no idea why there's such a demand for the M4.
- JohnTHaller 2y agoBeelink's $299 base model of their compact desktops is enough for most regular home users. Not as powerful as the Mac Mini M4 but half the price and double the storage. Plus you can upgrade your own storage to 2TB for about $100 and it'll be faster than the Mac Mini's.
- smm11 2y agoExactly as described. I had an 8/256 Mini, and the Beelink solved more than a few problems.
- rty32 2y agoYeah. I scratch my head when there is a ton of new models and competition happening in the mini PC market that provides good value for end users, but nobody notices. When Apple releases a new mini PC, suddenly it's like a breakthrough or something. I even see people say "the entry 8 core Ryzen you can get on a desktop PC is 7700" when discussing this new Mac mini on tech forum, as if giant towers are the only kind of desktop PCs and 7840U/7840H(S) doesn't exist. (You would expect these people to know better) I guess marketing matters.
- baudpunk 2y agoI also have a Beelink, but it skeeves me out a bit. It's probably going to drive me more towards Apple M{X} for my next home server. Even though I know those parts are also made in China, I trust Apple's sourcing more. Bee-link's stuff is so affordable that it makes me wonder why that is. The globe continuously inching towards war makes me quite paranoid, unfortunately.
- pier25 2y agoThe M4 Pro is less efficient than the M3 though. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-M4-Pro-analysis-Extremely-fast-but-not-as-efficient.915270.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-M4-Pro-analysis-Extremel...
- andy_ppp 2y agoI am not sure that is true, does it not use more peak power but get more work done leading to less energy overall for say exporting a hundred photos because it finishes quicker?
- scottyah 2y agoIt makes sense that the Pro model is less efficient since it's more focused on performance.
- MBCook 2y agoWait wait wait. That’s comparing a M4 Pro (middle level) to a M3 Air. The Air is a lower power machine with the low spec processor. There is no M4 Pro Air. They have to be using a MacBook Pro. That likely has a bigger display, a display capable of getting way brighter, showing more colors, better speakers, all sorts of other stuff. That’s not a very valid comparison. If anything, the fact that the M4 Pro gets so close to the M3 is impressive. The M3 was on a process that was known to run hot. I strongly suspect that every M4 chip is more efficient than the equivalent M3 chip.
- pier25 2y agoThere are multiple comparisons vs multiple chips on both CPU and GPU. Keep scrolling.
- freehorse 2y ago> The M4 Pro continues to be manufactured using a 3-nm process and on the old M3 Pro (27-28 watts), we measured a lower consumption than on the M2 Pro models (~36 watts), despite its improved performance. In contrast [...] the new M4 Pro can consume up to 46 watts, settling at around 40 watts during the further course—so at its peak, it consumes 60% more. Assuming they refer to the full chips rather than the binned ones, each generation of pro chips has the following number of p and e cores: | Model | # p-cores | # e-cores | |--------|-----------|-----------| | M2 Pro | 8 | 4 | | M3 Pro | 6 | 6 | | M4 Pro | 10 | 4 | Thus m3 pro has more e-cores and less p-cores than m2 pro thus the big increase in efficiency, while the m4 pro has more p-cores than m2 pro thus the increase. It is all about tradeoffs and, honestly, the result is pretty much expected when you count the cores. I assume there is some improvement per generation, but if the number of cores is not constant, the latter is gonna drive most of the variance generation to generation.
- m3kw9 2y agoHow does one “idling” like this? “ In 1.25U of rack space, you could run three Mac minis, idling around 10W, giving almost a teraflop of CPU performance. ”
- knodi 2y agoI dream of Linux on this Mac mini.
- dmitrygr 2y agoVMs work and you get amazing perf. Dream granted
- taftster 2y agoWhat's your best choice for hypervisor? Virtualbox? Parallels? Or what do you recommend for this unit?
- dmitrygr 2y agoUTM works quite well. As does parallels.
- cocoto 2y agoIs there any noticeable latency in graphics using a VM? As far as I remember VMs were a disaster for latency some years ago (Windows or Linux host).
- kopirgan 2y agoI bought a no brand mini PC really small with older Intel CPU. It runs Debian quite well. But noisy and slows down a lot, perceivable once it gets hot. But it's cheap around $100,-150 on Chinese e-commerce websites with memory, disk. Apple does amazing stuff. But it's very pricey in most markets and unaffordable to those on budget.
- sabareesh 2y agoI know everyone is complaining about the power button why not just flip it upside down ?
- r0fl 2y agoI haven’t powered down my iMac once all year How often are these people powering down their iMacs? Why!? People love complaining. Apple doubles the base ram and keeps the price the same, people complain that base storage is too low. If that doubled then they would find something new.
- criddell 2y agoThe thermal design assumes the normal orientation. Flipping it upside down might lead to more thermal throttling.
- siddharthgoel88 2y agoAny feedback on how it comes along for regular Software Development (backend stuff) activity and as a common home PC? Looking at the benchmarks looks like there shouldn't be any issue but any first hand experience would be greatly appreciated.
- atilimcetin 2y agoIMHO, developing with Node.js, Java, Python, Go, etc.. within MacOS is more convenient compared to Windows machines. Also I can highly recommend using version managers (e.g. nvm, jenv, pyenv, gvm, etc..) for these languages to quickly install and manage different versions.
- mocamoca 2y agoIdk about this one but my daily driver is a Mini M1, 16gb, 1to. The regular backend stack on docker is smooth. Vs code / jetbrain is smooth. Nothing to complain about. I could use more ports however. That is easily fixed with an USB hub.
- jillesvangurp 2y agoI'm pretty happy with my M1 mac book pro with 16 Gb. I'd expect this to be faster. I typically have intellij, vs code, slack, a bunch of docker containers, etc. running. All fine. Get more memory maybe.
- freehorse 2y agoThe m4 has 6 efficiency cores and 4 performance cores. This is 2 efficiency cores more than the previous generations, and the same number of p-cores, thus higher e to p core ratio, which can explain a large part of the increase in power efficiency. Not to say that otherwise there is nothing remarkable here, of course there is, but if the author found a 30% increase in efficiency compared to m2 while they claim they expected 4-10% after 2 generations of chips, it could be because of that. The m4 pro has 4 e-cores and 6-8 p-cores, hence I would not expect similar increase.
- madeofpalk 2y agoIIRC as well, the M3 chips had an odd efficient to performance core ratio that’s not present in the M4, which is slightly interesting
- ghshephard 2y agoThat would explain improving performance, but I don't actually understand how that would improve efficiency. Particularly at the high end where they quote 6.74 Gflops/W .
- wtallis 2y agoIf a higher proportion of the total performance is coming from efficiency cores, it is reasonable to expect overall efficiency to be improved.
- freehorse 2y agoExactly this ^ In particular, under some ideal, unrealistic assumptions to simplify things, and denoting n the number of E-cores, E the efficiency and W_e the power consumption of each e-core, while respectively denoting m the number of each P-cores, P the efficiency and W_p the power consumption of each p-core, where E>P, we can calculate the express EFF of the cpu as EFF = (n*E*W_e + m*P*W_p)/(n*W_e + m*W_p) = (n*E*W_e - n*P*W_e + n*P*W_e + m*P*W_p)/(n*W_e + m*W_p) = (E-P)*n*W_e/(n*W_e + m*W_p) + P = (E-P)/(1 + (m/n)*(W_p/W_e)) + P which shows that the energy efficiency of the CPU increases monotonically as a function of the ratio of e to p cores n/m.
- ideashower 2y agoI’m contemplating whether this can handle editing 8K video. Does anyone have any idea? My goal is to venture into 180-degree VR production. With the Canon R5C and the RF 5.2mm f/2.8 Dual Fisheye Lens, I want to produce stereoscopic video at 8K. However, rendering such high-resolution footage demands substantial processing power, and my current setup definitely isn't enough.
- ganoushoreilly 2y agoBase version, probably not. If you went with one with M4 Pro cpu and the 48gb or greater ram you should be ok. Storage isn't as much an issue with Thunderbolt 4/5 drives easily meeting similar speeds to the internal storage. I've done some 8k fisheye footage and converted for Vision Pro / Quest with the prior gen hardware kit and was able to edit and process it on an M2 Max with 96gb ram.
- ideashower 2y agoSuper cool yeah I'm mainly looking to create 8K fisheye footage for the Vision Pro so that's really good to hear! Wondering if it's worth spending that much money on the M4 Pro or just building a PC tbh.
- kasperset 2y agoIt is amazing to see drop in idle power consumption over the years for Mac mini: https://support.apple.com/en-us/103253 https://support.apple.com/en-us/103253 32 W for the PowerPC to 5w to Apple Arm ones (Current).
- dcl 2y agoIs there any benchmarks for these chips doing like regular 'data-sciency' CPU grunt work? Dataframe-wrangling, inverting matrices, doing large matrix, factorisations, fitting decision tree's, etc? I'm very keen on one of these, but I simply have no idea how good they are at my day to day tasks in R or Python.
- woodson 2y agoIt depends. If you're using Python with numpy>=2.0.0 (and macOS>=14) then you should benefit greatly from Apple's Accelerate implementation of BLAS/LAPACK routines which are behind most linear algebra operations. I'm not aware of any serious public benchmarks, though.
- dcl 2y agoThat sounds pretty promising.
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- twilo 2y agoApple's ARM chips have been incredibly effecient for a while now. My m3 air draws around 3W on avarage and that's with a 14 inch screen running at around 40% brightness.. impressive stuff. Passive cooling too!
- seanarnold 2y agoWorth noting the base model only has 1Gb ethernet, not 10Gb as mentioned in the blog.
- freetime2 2y ago> And the system I bought includes 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 32 GB of RAM I thought it was pretty clear from "the system I bought" that he was not talking about the base model. And I think $100 for 10 GbE is surprisingly reasonable for an upgrade from Apple. For comparison, 10 GbE Thunderbolt adapters typically cost about $200 - and while 10 GbE PCIe cards can be bought for less, they tend to be much less power efficient and generate a surprising amount of heat. I actually think it's very commendable that Apple even gives the option to upgrade to 10 GbE on a mass market desktop. I was recently looking to buy a non-Apple Mini PC, and while 2.5 GbE is very common now, 10 GbE is still relatively rare. The options I found were to go with a Minisforum MS-01, which is considerably more expensive than the base M4 Mac Mini w/10 GbE upgrade, or to order something slightly sketchy from Aliexpress. So as soon as Apple announced the new M4 Mac Mini, I went with that instead.
- nobrains 2y ago> If only they didn't put the power button on the bottom. Question for HN: How would you redesign the power button, assuming you work at Apple and the final design should align with Apple's design ethos?
- Y-bar 2y agoSince I turn off my Mac almost every night, just like I turn off my television, lights, and other stuff when I don’t use them. To me, personally, it makes no sense to waste the electricity for about 15 hrs * 365 days per year. I would put the power on any vertical side of the mini if I were designing it for my use.
- kissiel 2y agoI really hope you mean you unplug the power cable from the TV, cause none of the modern TVs turn off when you ask them to. The TV bootup takes too long for it to be "off" off.
- Y-bar 2y agoNo, but I most often use the hardwired button on the side of the TV to shut it down, not just the remote into standby. It takes about 15 seconds to turn on, nothing to worry about.
- switch007 2y agoStupid question but why can't it (non Pro particularly) be powered over USB C like a MBP, if it's so power efficient? Does it have extra performance that makes full use of the 155W input? What would have it taken Apple to have given us the option to be powered by 100W USB C (eg the tech to downgrade power usage to match the power input)?
- physicsguy 2y agoI guess the inclusion MBP battery allows drawing higher current than a USB C power supply can provide?
- watermelon0 2y agoI think most of the 155W is for USB-C power delivery, not the machine itself. Blog post mentions that power usage during benchmark was at 42W.
- hi_hi 2y agoKinda unrelated, but with all this amazing efficiency, I wish Apple would re-introduce the one feature that made me truely love my old MacBook. On my ~2010 Macbook Pro they had a series of small green lights on the chassis that acted as a battery indicator. When the laptop went to sleep, it would take on a slow breathing like animation effect. It was beautifully done. I was sad when it was removed. Please bring this back.
- lifeinthevoid 2y agoI just bought an ASRock Deskmini x600 with a Ryzen 7700 to run as low-power Linux server / workstation. Given the trouble I had with this thing due to (I believe) buggy amdgpu drivers and/or buggy firmware, I'm inclined to throw it out and just buy this Mac Mini.
- rty32 2y agoWell, I wouldn't consider 7700 low-power in any sense, maybe 7640U or 7840U on a mini PC. You are running Linux the entire time?
- lifeinthevoid 2y agoTrue, it was low-power in my mind compared to my previous gaming rig. Yup, running Linux the entire time.
- pimterry 2y agoVery very cool, but only makes it more disappointing that you can't actually use this for anything innovative, except in the Apple-approved format & use cases. Can't upgrade any of the internals, doesn't run Linux easily, no way to use any of the internal components separately, or rebuild them into a different form factor. Imagine being able to directly mount these to VESA behind a dashboard. I have an old M1 Mac Mini I'd love to use as a NAS, but the disk is slightly too small and you can't upgrade it, so it's just useless to me instead. Impressive to see Apple match the Pi for idle power & efficiency, but deeply frustrating to see them takes the exact opposite design philosophy.
- ramassnel1 2y agoWhat i am thinking right now is, what we can push the M4 Chip to the Maximum of its power? i've seen a lot of people using it for LLM, making cluster with ExoLab. It's amazing how its perform with such an efficiency.
- signa11 2y agoit would really be nice to run vpp (https://s3-docs.fd.io/vpp/25.02/ https://s3-docs.fd.io/vpp/25.02/ on this machine, packet forwarding with pico-joules/packet would be excellent.
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- shark1 2y agoI rarely press the power button on my laptop. I suspect Apple tracks/measure the usage of the button and took the decision to design it hidden.