The solid aluminum milled enclosure was the most expensive part of the original so cutting this material by over 50% seriously increases their margins along with reducing material cost on packaging and warehouse space and shipping.
Hopefully with the M5 this could lead to a price decrease. After all looking at the past the M1 Mac Mini was $699 and then the M2 Mac Mini was $599. We could only hope that the M5 would be actually cheap enough to produce with the Mac Mini for this to still be viable for Apple.
I feel seduced by the new mac mini, too but then I step back and think about my reality. My mac studio M1 Max from over two years ago, is an incrediable powerful machine that serves me well. I did not have a moment when I thought: "Oh Jesus, this mac needs to be replaced because it's getting slow". The machine did cost me over 4000 Euro and it was an investment for my small business. Honestly, it is supposed to serve me at least another 5 years. My old mac (trash can) pro was nine years in use without regrets, before my mac studio replaced it - and it still is, now as our "family mac". So no, I do not buy a new mac, because it is simply not necessary. However, I have to admid the new minis look very nice and are extreemly powerful. Greetings from Germany, Thomas.
More than likely the limiting factor on the Mac mini, at least for video editing is it still only has one encoder for various video codecs. The Mac Studio Max has two encoders. While the rest of the M4 will no doubt to some extent make up for the encoder limitation, it sill needs to put all video through the encode. That's why you see so little gain between M1-M2-M3 in video encoding times no matter if you are talking Pro or Max. Of course we don't know if any of the internal chip improvements and the slightly faster bus speed will compensate for the one encoder, so its a case of waiting until some benchmarks come out. On the positive, I personally found it very interesting that Apple went out of their way to basically not mention using the new mini for video editing (only mentioned with AI updates) as a use case. That means it's either lousy at video editing (very unlikely) or it is indeed getting too close to M2 Studio and Apple is worried about losing sales on those before the refresh. It's all going to come down to benchmarks to see where the mini comes out. It could be the sleeper you are hoping for, but we can't really be sure just from the tech specs.
AV1 Encoding could still be on the table for the higher end chips but we'd have to see if Apple will only add it to those. Still though looking at the architecture and the huge memory bandwidth improvements compared to the M3 class silicon I'd assume it might be able to make up but we will have to see once tests actually come out for these devices.
@ hey Jason no worries. I just dropped my video on these as well. Appreciate you giving me some support also and we can maybe collaborate sometime. Thanks !
@@thejasontlewis respectfully it’s kind of concerning that you didn’t know that and yet are doing a video of this so the others may rely upon. I don’t mean to be rude, I just generally find it a little bit concerning.
Having said that I continued on and I think you’re absolutely spot-on about the fact that once you spec up and you met mini you get into almost exactly the same pricing as the Max studio. So for those that can afford to wait until the Max studio is updated then They will get a much better deal by buying a similar spec Max studio with the benefits of the additional I owe, cooling solution et cetera in essence Apple computers including the new M4 and M4 pro based Mac minis are only really good value if you don’t upgrade them. As soon as you start upgrading them they become that’s good value for money and harder to recover your investment. Should you ever want to sell it?
im 100% getting this to replace my m1 mini... I travel, so KG is all important. will get the PRO model. alas im not buying the "green washed credentials" because it does not have parts for sale to repair so its going to end up in landfill once used.
M1 8GB 32 sample buffer, never had a problem for music, although its tight. So I recon that the base M4 model with 2TB will be more than enough. You can probably get 2, instead of upgrading. bump it up to 24GB if you want. That new mac mini is a sweet deal no mater how you look at it. it is crazy
The new Mac Mini is looking to be the best choice for most people especially if you already have monitor keyboard mouse. I am going with M4 Pro 20core, 24GB, 1TB and 10 Gig Ethernet if I need more storage then the thunderbolt 5 will give me option of external cheaper fast storage. I am tempted to increase unified memory to 48GB as a future safeguard!
I am actually not happy that it doesn’t have audio out at the back. Will look messy if you don’t connect your speakers through the monitor. Which I don’t because my monitors audio out is of bad quality. 😢
I like this computer as it makes sense for them to make this smaller and reduce packaging and shipping volume. The M4 looks like a very capable chip, and the best thing about AI is that it has perhaps forced Apple's hand on RAM. The SSD storage is still horribly measly, but, in a way, it doesn't matter in a computer that will probably be attached to fast internet via ethernet and supporting Thunderbolt external drives. I bought a Ryzen 7 Windows NUC clone for half the price of this with 32Gb RAM and 1 TB of storage, but to be honest, it feels much slower than my M1 MacBook Air, so go figure. I'm sticking with Mac.
I also got a ryzen 7 mini just to use to remote into work for my work from home days for clocking in and out. Otherwise for all the regular stuff like outlook, teams, VS Code, etc, I’m on the Mac. I like being able to RDP into the windows machine and just treat it as another window.
Similar to the M2 Pro variant of the Mac Mini, the M4 Pro version easily gets up in price to where it starts to compete with the Mac Studio with the M2 Mac SOC. I’m going to wait until the Mac Studio is refreshed, then make a purchasing decision.
@ I’m talking about when the Mac Studio eventually gets updated with the M4 Max and Ultra SOC’s. The price difference between a spec’d out M4 Pro Mac Mini will only be a couple hundred dollars less than a base M4 Max Mac Studio with the same amount of RAM and SSD storage.
@@DCuerpoJr Maxing out the Mini is really not worth it. If you need the m4 Pro then it would indeed be much better to wait for the studio m4. Although most people would have more then enough power in the base Mini, maybe upgrading RAM would be beneficial.
@@battman505 Decently fast but not as fast as the internal storage on thunderbolt 4. However if you do spend the extra money on the M4 Pro version with thunderbolt 5 you get 3x the write and 2x the read speeds.
The 16GB of ram is a boost for AI Apple had no choice as next year it would not be able to cope with future updates so they had to increase so part of this ram is saved for AI tasks just like on the new phones
Same here. My issue is do I really need that extra performance? the two games I play DBD and satisfactory seem to able to run well on it albeit through the apples gaming porting kit. So honestly I'm considering getting the base model and upgrading the ram to 32GB and ssd to 512GB. the issue is that if I do that if ONLY I spend 200 more dollars I can get the pro chip with 512Gb storage but at the cost of theram which ill only get 24GB as upgrading from 24 to 48 is too expesnive at my range. so it's speced up base model of 32Gb ram and 512 storage or higher powered chip with lower ram IE 24GB. I have a custom pc that works perfectly fine but I have this weird desire to get it. I have no apple products at all yet I see this small and powerful pc. I just want it even though I have a capable pc right in front of me.
@@PumperWolf Well yeah the price difference is going to be big when you choose to upgrade from 24 to 48gb ram. You don't need more than 32gb of ram unless you are doing heavy Ai workloads. 32Gb should be fine for anyone
@@Timely-ud4rm I was thinking about the same thing. m4 with 32GB RAM or m4 pro with 48 GB RAM. I went for the normal m4 with 32GB since that is plenty for what I (and most people) use it for (front end developer/some video editing). The choice Apple made to put 24GB in the pro model and not making it possible to upgrade to 32 is a very well thought out strategy to get people to upgrade to the 48GB. That much RAM is a really expensive upgrade for something almost no one will get to see the benefit from. If you actually want the pro the price gets so high it is better to wait for the new Mac Studio with the m4 Max, although i have no idea when that is released ofcourse. unless you work very high demanding tasks for RAM with for example very large video files or 3D modeling, the m4 with 32GB is an extremely capable pc!
@@PumperWolf 24Gb of ram should be fine for most tasks. but if you wanna do anything with local ai then 48 would be good. rmeeber this ram can't be upgraded. so it's best to decide on what you can affroad right but also if it's even neded
Thanks for the informative video. I was all set to buy a Mac Studio M2 & then the Mini M4 dropped. Looks like the M4 can be specced quite close to the Studio M2 but has newer features. If next year's M4 Studio is close to any current model, it will be the Mini M4, not the Studio M2. So, I see the new Mini as better future-proofing than the Studio M2, so I can push the purchase of the new Studio M4 out a couple of years without being stuck with older M2 tech for that time. If I hold onto the Mini M4 for a few years, it might also get me to the Studio M5 (maybe 2027-2028) as the new upgrade, or wherever chip tech takes us by that time. The Studio M2 probably won't do that.
With the M series chips they will run great with less RAM, but they steal a lot from the SSD for swap memory. The more RAM you have the less they do that. The more RAM you have, the the machine will use. It's different than X86-based RAM.
I'd get the m4 mini with the pro chip, and wait for a doc you can stick an NVME drive so you can avoid the insane markup on storage. If it's just going to sit on your desk, does it really matter if you're storage is external? For me, I'm going to go with a base mini. I have an M1 Max macbook pro, so I either need a desktop for everyday things for convenience, or a number crunching powerhouse that puts my laptop to shame. I don't think the M4 pro is going to do that, so I'll just get the m4 today and wait to see what happens with the studio / pro next year.
Save the $100 and get the Mac Mini. You can always add a small dock and get the additional ports if you really need them for some reason. Another thing to consider is getting an external drive for the Mac Mini and save money since Apple charges a lot for storage. Just a couple of ideas to throw your way.
As a person who uses cinema 4d I always chuckle when I see it as a use case. I have a MacStudio M1 Max, but I use a pc with a RTX 3090 for 3d work, there just is no comparison with performance.
The M4 max is probably something like 4-5 times faster in 3d work than an M1 Max with its RT cores. If the suppose ultra M4 studio comes out I’m guessing it’ll be closer to a 4090.
M4 pro won't be faster than M2 Max, but it will be on a similar speed. However, with Mac Studio you will get better cooling if you run intensive tasks. If you play occasional games then M4 pro mini would be the best choice. GPU wise M4 chips are much more superior to M1 and M2 chips.
for some of us we need the graphics cores, so what we need is a comparison between the capabilities of the new cores versus the old ones. The CPU will be faster of course, we know that, but as I say, for some of us graphic capabilities count.
Seems like the M4 Pro is very likely to be faster than the M3 Max based on the fact that it has only 2 less P cores but a far better architecture. To top this off the M4 chip which also has two less p cores than the M3 Pro seems to either beat or match it in multi core and demolish it in single core. The only drawback to these chips though is encoders, memory bandwidth, and of course the Gpu performance.
Base is thrash compared to the Pro. Future-proof your ports with the Thunderbolt 5. Go Pro with the extras: 10gb port 1tb SSD 24gb RAM add extra GPU $1749 + tax 10gb port 1tb SSD 48gb RAM add extra GPU $2109 + tax You can add the Apple Studio Display for $1300 or less, and you got the "iMac Pro". Less than $3k for an incredible desktop Mac.
Except that almost nobody needs a pro. People that would need a pro are better off waiting for the mac Studio m4 Max. Maxing out the Mini with a pro chip and more RAM was a bad deal on the m2 models and still is with the m4.
The big diffrence there is in the GPU I think. The M4 Pro is going to slightly outpace the M2 Ultra but there's a huge disparity between the GPU cores (even though the M4's are better/faster) so if those matter for your use case the Ultra might still be a better option.
Also don’t forget the raytracing cores are insanely faster at 3d applications than its non M2 variant. To the point the maxed M4 pro might outpace an M2 Ultra in something like blender.
@@tonyburzio4107 true but look at M3 using Raytracing cores vs non raytracing cores in blender. It much fast… this newer generation is suppose to be twice as fast as M3 in RT.
@@GlobalWave1 Yeah that's why I added that they were better/faster. I don't think we have enough information yet to say exactly how much but at the same time the M2 Ultra has quite a lot more of them which would need to be overcome. Exciting times for Mac users with all these really powerful options.
32 gb ram is plenty enough for everything. i have 32 and make 4k video with fcpx and davinci with zero problems. Also 1tb ssd is enough , i have all my footage on external ssd' s.
The only reason to still pick a Studio over the new mini is for the higher GPU core count. mini has a maximum of 20 cores but they should run faster, so in the end, both could be on par with each other. For everything else, the mini is far superior at a lower price point and footprint.
Apple doesn’t pay anyone. They don’t even give away the stuff we review. If you get it from them you have to send it back. I don’t get anything from them and have never had any contact with them.
I have traveled with my Mac mini. I will travel with it again in the future. What would be ideal is to allow my MacBook Air to control my Mac Mini. Let the Mac mini be controlled by the keyboard and pad, and use the screen of my MacBook Air this would allow you to travel with your MacBook Air and do all the light daily stuff but still have a powerhouse Computer at your disposal while you are traveling.
The value of 120G for TB5 is only for video, so you can run a 120Hz hi-res screen. Otherwise normal data transfer for TB5 is 80G. As for the higher-spec processor on the M4Pro, are you sure you need those extra couple of cores? Do you run into processor limitations now? And why do you want such a large internal SSD for a desktop? Get a TB external case and put an SSD stick in it.
Mac Mini is being hyped up and for most people is a good buy. Content creators need to consider system stability; I doubt that this tiny form factor is designed for optimal heat dissipation.
I wonder if a base m4 mac mini could tide you over until next year when the m4 mac studios come out. That way you have some performance for the mean time, and you don't have to commit the full price of the fully specced mac mini. I feel like the m4 mac studios are going to be insane, especially the max and ultras
I’d like to see way more in depth specs , , as always , it pays to read the fine print. On the MacBook vs the mini , the MacBook has a display and speakers, and you carry the MacBook wherever you want, portability is worth some brownie points imo , and you could run a monitor ( or two ? ) off the MacBook Pro , so it is versatile in that way , and the headphone jack out put is a question mark . I actually wouldn’t mind a Mac mini , though i have a couple of iphones an ipad and mac book pro , for my computer i have an old I7 pc mini with 16 gb of ram , it still works ok for general pc duties , but i wouldnt mind having an apple computer to complete my eco system . I’m a bit torn, the iMac comes with the whole caboodle , monitor , keyboard , mouse , its ready to go , going the mini option , by the time i buy a monitor suitable for Mac mini and accessories , i have an old 4k 27 inch monitor ( i don’t know if that would go with the mini or not ) , key board , mouse , usb hub to cover the ports i would no longer have on the mini or the iMac for that matter. Speaking of Mac mini monitor options , i wonder if apple is doing something with the studio display as far as updating goes ??
The big problem with the Mac mini is the price of the monitor you would want to add to a beast like that. Yes you can buy cheap 4K monitors, but with a beast like that I would like something with the same screen quality as the on in my 16 inch M1 Pro. That I cannot afford
I think best value is the base m4 pro with 500 storage, 24 ram ….. either that or the 500, 32 m4 (regular) but I think that the thunderbolt 5 will be so good with external storage that I can run swap memory or a cheap 256 gb external drive …
2:28 Sorry hate to be that guy, but TB1 is 10Gb/s, 2x10 under certain conditions. TB2 is 20Gb/s. TB3 and TB4 are both 40Gb/s but where they vary are in minimum speeds where TB3 is 16Gb/s and TB4 is 32Gb/s Edit: Also TB5 is only available on the M4 Pro model
The base model non pro mac mini has 3 thunderbolt 4 and 2 usb c 10 gigabits each in front. Pro version has 3 thunderbolt 5. Front 2 usb c are 10 gigabits each.
Wait for the m4 max studio , video editors need as many GPU cores as possible ! Plus knowing apple it will also be a little smaller than it is now for convenience of portability !
Yes, it's an exciting new machine, but it's something to get only if you need it. It seems that people often accumulate things even when they don’t need them, just because they are new. And sure powerful, and good looking :)
I don’t think too many people accumulate Macs. Usually you sell your previous computer to finance a new purchase or move it to a person or place that could use it.
Have to say this year, Apple is making me broke like broke and tears. I think what you really wanna think about is potentially how many monitors do you wanna run? This might help you determine if you wanna get a Mac mini or a Mac studio or I think the Mac mini's total amount of monitors that can be run on that device is three again I could be wrong where I know with Mac studio you could potentially run five monitors. And when I say this, what I mean is that macOS supports those monitors on those devices there are ways around this etc. but I think the real question is is how many monitors do you wanna run on the device? Also, I've been waiting 20 years for the Mac mini to be this small but the issue is I have four monitors? The Mac mini's only gonna be able to run three I have an M1 Max studio. It's not slow. It's not the base model. I really want the new shiny. The real question is in the next few months. Do I have the discipline not to buy a spec out Mac mini? :`( anyway if you've read all of this, thank you very much for listening to my rant. I love your hard work and your opinions Jason good luck with the dilemma you have because I have the same problem and my pockets are completely empty.
Given the form factor I would believe the Mac Studio could have better thermal capabilities and the sustained performance would be better than the Mini.
I am considering M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU / 20‑core GPU / 16-core Neural Engine / 64GB unified memory / 4TB SSD storage / 10 Gigabit Ethernet to play Minecraft with my son.
I have just figured out that I would need the M4 Pro model to evem beat my 2018 i7 6core beast with 16GB of RAM and i could just upgrade the RAM to 64GB instead as i am only looking at the performance cores for logic pro 11 and i will be also losing port also as i have 4 thunderbolt port and 2 USB A ports and with these new models I will be losing 1 port and the SD Card slot also
One design flaw, due to the usual dogmatic Apple form over function. 20-40% of the electricity used by power supplies is converted to heat. The Mac mini M1 consumes 39W when running. Why design the Mac mini M4 with the PSU right above the CPU and motherboard like a grill, toasting the electronics, when Apple could have used an external power supply like they have with the iMac? When you add unnecessary heat into an enclosed space, you add to the power load (and thus more heating) to run fans and a cooling system. Heat rises. Let it out the top. Don't force it downwards past the CPU, and use an external PSU.
Have you ever used an M series Mac? They can design them this way because the system produces very little heat. You can think of it in terms of old models.
@@thejasontlewis Yes. I am typing this on my 67 W M1 Macbook Pro Pro which has a huge area to dissipate heat compared with the much more powerful 155W Mac mini M4 and it occassionally audibly ramps up the fans.
Mac mini will be faster in everything, except at video editing because Pro version only comes with one media engine and M2 Max still hast two. So, there’s that.
the lowest tier m4 mac mini isnt even 2 times faster than the m1 (and were 3 chips down the line from the m1) how is that enticing enough to want to upgrade?
That seems like a vast difference in case uses. To me, it seems like if you need a $3000 computer, you would have to switch to a different platform like the studio. I didn’t realize you could spec the Mini so expensively.
A useable desktop at $600 is certainly welcome. Having said that, M1 Macbook air is around same price and it has great screen and battery life as well.
I’m finding the M1 still so so capable for my needs
Me to have the m1 studio and it’s just fine
The solid aluminum milled enclosure was the most expensive part of the original so cutting this material by over 50% seriously increases their margins along with reducing material cost on packaging and warehouse space and shipping.
Hopefully with the M5 this could lead to a price decrease. After all looking at the past the M1 Mac Mini was $699 and then the M2 Mac Mini was $599. We could only hope that the M5 would be actually cheap enough to produce with the Mac Mini for this to still be viable for Apple.
As someone who is an audiophile, plus is looking to upgrade from a 15” 2019 MacBook Pro, to a more permanent option, I think this’ll be great.
I'm glad you're still reviewing tech. Outstanding content as always 🤘🔥🤘
I appreciate it, thanks!
Love to see you're back at it and excited again
it's never economical to max out any configuration. If you stick to 32GB, it's significantly cheaper. and 1/4 the weight and 1/4 the size.
I feel seduced by the new mac mini, too but then I step back and think about my reality. My mac studio M1 Max from over two years ago, is an incrediable powerful machine that serves me well. I did not have a moment when I thought: "Oh Jesus, this mac needs to be replaced because it's getting slow". The machine did cost me over 4000 Euro and it was an investment for my small business. Honestly, it is supposed to serve me at least another 5 years. My old mac (trash can) pro was nine years in use without regrets, before my mac studio replaced it - and it still is, now as our "family mac". So no, I do not buy a new mac, because it is simply not necessary. However, I have to admid the new minis look very nice and are extreemly powerful. Greetings from Germany, Thomas.
More than likely the limiting factor on the Mac mini, at least for video editing is it still only has one encoder for various video codecs. The Mac Studio Max has two encoders. While the rest of the M4 will no doubt to some extent make up for the encoder limitation, it sill needs to put all video through the encode. That's why you see so little gain between M1-M2-M3 in video encoding times no matter if you are talking Pro or Max. Of course we don't know if any of the internal chip improvements and the slightly faster bus speed will compensate for the one encoder, so its a case of waiting until some benchmarks come out. On the positive, I personally found it very interesting that Apple went out of their way to basically not mention using the new mini for video editing (only mentioned with AI updates) as a use case. That means it's either lousy at video editing (very unlikely) or it is indeed getting too close to M2 Studio and Apple is worried about losing sales on those before the refresh. It's all going to come down to benchmarks to see where the mini comes out. It could be the sleeper you are hoping for, but we can't really be sure just from the tech specs.
AV1 Encoding could still be on the table for the higher end chips but we'd have to see if Apple will only add it to those. Still though looking at the architecture and the huge memory bandwidth improvements compared to the M3 class silicon I'd assume it might be able to make up but we will have to see once tests actually come out for these devices.
Hey man. I’m doing a similar video. Just a tip here , it’s only thunderbolt 5 on the 1399 model with the M4 Pro chip 👍
Thanks for letting me know, appreciate the heads up!
@ hey Jason no worries. I just dropped my video on these as well. Appreciate you giving me some support also and we can maybe collaborate sometime. Thanks !
@@thejasontlewis respectfully it’s kind of concerning that you didn’t know that and yet are doing a video of this so the others may rely upon. I don’t mean to be rude, I just generally find it a little bit concerning.
Having said that I continued on and I think you’re absolutely spot-on about the fact that once you spec up and you met mini you get into almost exactly the same pricing as the Max studio. So for those that can afford to wait until the Max studio is updated then They will get a much better deal by buying a similar spec Max studio with the benefits of the additional I owe, cooling solution et cetera in essence Apple computers including the new M4 and M4 pro based Mac minis are only really good value if you don’t upgrade them. As soon as you start upgrading them they become that’s good value for money and harder to recover your investment. Should you ever want to sell it?
@@xray2785 Hey man, I'm taking the info as it comes and trying to get it out there. I know what everyone else knows: Not everything. Nobody's perfect.
thunderbolt5 is only for m4 PRO model only...... the regular m4 gets thunderbolt 4
Is 4 toooo slow?
@@Espiritu_Santu Depends on what you do with it. Though, on a Mac, you can't do anything extraordinary with TB anyway.
@@SaschaRobitzki That makes me curious? What abilities are lacking in TB on a Mac? Compared to Windows or Linux?
right, but I am thinking about what should I connect to TB5 if I buy the M4 pro model...
right, but I am thinking about what should I connect to TB5 if I buy the M4 pro model...
im 100% getting this to replace my m1 mini... I travel, so KG is all important. will get the PRO model.
alas im not buying the "green washed credentials" because it does not have parts for sale to repair so its going to end up in landfill once used.
I would only go with the cheapest version for the form factor and enough power to make some music.
M1 8GB 32 sample buffer, never had a problem for music, although its tight. So I recon that the base M4 model with 2TB will be more than enough. You can probably get 2, instead of upgrading. bump it up to 24GB if you want. That new mac mini is a sweet deal no mater how you look at it. it is crazy
The new Mac Mini is looking to be the best choice for most people especially if you already have monitor keyboard mouse. I am going with M4 Pro 20core, 24GB, 1TB and 10 Gig Ethernet if I need more storage then the thunderbolt 5 will give me option of external cheaper fast storage. I am tempted to increase unified memory to 48GB as a future safeguard!
I am actually not happy that it doesn’t have audio out at the back. Will look messy if you don’t connect your speakers through the monitor. Which I don’t because my monitors audio out is of bad quality. 😢
I like this computer as it makes sense for them to make this smaller and reduce packaging and shipping volume. The M4 looks like a very capable chip, and the best thing about AI is that it has perhaps forced Apple's hand on RAM. The SSD storage is still horribly measly, but, in a way, it doesn't matter in a computer that will probably be attached to fast internet via ethernet and supporting Thunderbolt external drives. I bought a Ryzen 7 Windows NUC clone for half the price of this with 32Gb RAM and 1 TB of storage, but to be honest, it feels much slower than my M1 MacBook Air, so go figure. I'm sticking with Mac.
I also got a ryzen 7 mini just to use to remote into work for my work from home days for clocking in and out. Otherwise for all the regular stuff like outlook, teams, VS Code, etc, I’m on the Mac. I like being able to RDP into the windows machine and just treat it as another window.
Similar to the M2 Pro variant of the Mac Mini, the M4 Pro version easily gets up in price to where it starts to compete with the Mac Studio with the M2 Mac SOC. I’m going to wait until the Mac Studio is refreshed, then make a purchasing decision.
The M2 was a hot mess, the M4 is not at all the M2.
@ I’m talking about when the Mac Studio eventually gets updated with the M4 Max and Ultra SOC’s. The price difference between a spec’d out M4 Pro Mac Mini will only be a couple hundred dollars less than a base M4 Max Mac Studio with the same amount of RAM and SSD storage.
@@DCuerpoJr Maxing out the Mini is really not worth it. If you need the m4 Pro then it would indeed be much better to wait for the studio m4. Although most people would have more then enough power in the base Mini, maybe upgrading RAM would be beneficial.
$599 for the base model new Mac Mini with 16GB seems like an incredible deal.
And 499 on the edu site
Just order a 512 model for next 3-5yr.
16GB of memory is very cool but 256GB SSD is a joke.
Eh at least it’s possible to add fast external storage, you can’t upgrade ram on these things so 8gb was a joke.
@@battman505 Decently fast but not as fast as the internal storage on thunderbolt 4. However if you do spend the extra money on the M4 Pro version with thunderbolt 5 you get 3x the write and 2x the read speeds.
The 16GB of ram is a boost for AI Apple had no choice as next year it would not be able to cope with future updates so they had to increase so part of this ram is saved for AI tasks just like on the new phones
ALL MY DATA IS IN THE CLOUD
I fell in love with this new Mac mini, goods specs for price and cool design, i’ll buy one but i can’t decide between regular M4 or M4 Pro
Same here. My issue is do I really need that extra performance? the two games I play DBD and satisfactory seem to able to run well on it albeit through the apples gaming porting kit. So honestly I'm considering getting the base model and upgrading the ram to 32GB and ssd to 512GB. the issue is that if I do that if ONLY I spend 200 more dollars I can get the pro chip with 512Gb storage but at the cost of theram which ill only get 24GB as upgrading from 24 to 48 is too expesnive at my range. so it's speced up base model of 32Gb ram and 512 storage or higher powered chip with lower ram IE 24GB. I have a custom pc that works perfectly fine but I have this weird desire to get it. I have no apple products at all yet I see this small and powerful pc. I just want it even though I have a capable pc right in front of me.
@ i will, but regular m4 is more capable than it seems, I can’t decide in a matter of RAM, 24 GB of M4 or 48GB of M4 Pro, price difference is huge
@@PumperWolf Well yeah the price difference is going to be big when you choose to upgrade from 24 to 48gb ram. You don't need more than 32gb of ram unless you are doing heavy Ai workloads. 32Gb should be fine for anyone
@@Timely-ud4rm I was thinking about the same thing. m4 with 32GB RAM or m4 pro with 48 GB RAM. I went for the normal m4 with 32GB since that is plenty for what I (and most people) use it for (front end developer/some video editing). The choice Apple made to put 24GB in the pro model and not making it possible to upgrade to 32 is a very well thought out strategy to get people to upgrade to the 48GB. That much RAM is a really expensive upgrade for something almost no one will get to see the benefit from. If you actually want the pro the price gets so high it is better to wait for the new Mac Studio with the m4 Max, although i have no idea when that is released ofcourse. unless you work very high demanding tasks for RAM with for example very large video files or 3D modeling, the m4 with 32GB is an extremely capable pc!
@@PumperWolf 24Gb of ram should be fine for most tasks. but if you wanna do anything with local ai then 48 would be good. rmeeber this ram can't be upgraded. so it's best to decide on what you can affroad right but also if it's even neded
Great video. Thank you.
Thanks for the informative video. I was all set to buy a Mac Studio M2 & then the Mini M4 dropped. Looks like the M4 can be specced quite close to the Studio M2 but has newer features. If next year's M4 Studio is close to any current model, it will be the Mini M4, not the Studio M2. So, I see the new Mini as better future-proofing than the Studio M2, so I can push the purchase of the new Studio M4 out a couple of years without being stuck with older M2 tech for that time. If I hold onto the Mini M4 for a few years, it might also get me to the Studio M5 (maybe 2027-2028) as the new upgrade, or wherever chip tech takes us by that time. The Studio M2 probably won't do that.
What is your reason for maxing out the ram at 64? Future proofing, better performance now, … ? Thanks.
With the M series chips they will run great with less RAM, but they steal a lot from the SSD for swap memory. The more RAM you have the less they do that. The more RAM you have, the the machine will use. It's different than X86-based RAM.
I'd get the m4 mini with the pro chip, and wait for a doc you can stick an NVME drive so you can avoid the insane markup on storage. If it's just going to sit on your desk, does it really matter if you're storage is external? For me, I'm going to go with a base mini. I have an M1 Max macbook pro, so I either need a desktop for everyday things for convenience, or a number crunching powerhouse that puts my laptop to shame. I don't think the M4 pro is going to do that, so I'll just get the m4 today and wait to see what happens with the studio / pro next year.
Save the $100 and get the Mac Mini. You can always add a small dock and get the additional ports if you really need them for some reason. Another thing to consider is getting an external drive for the Mac Mini and save money since Apple charges a lot for storage. Just a couple of ideas to throw your way.
"I'm not sure what the front ports are USB-C or TB4/5" Ok, how about you hold off the UA-cam recording then?
Right? A lot of them did that when the specs are on the website lol
Gotta get the vid out quickly when it comes to apple news
As a person who uses cinema 4d I always chuckle when I see it as a use case. I have a MacStudio M1 Max, but I use a pc with a RTX 3090 for 3d work, there just is no comparison with performance.
The M4 max is probably something like 4-5 times faster in 3d work than an M1 Max with its RT cores.
If the suppose ultra M4 studio comes out I’m guessing it’ll be closer to a 4090.
M4 pro won't be faster than M2 Max, but it will be on a similar speed. However, with Mac Studio you will get better cooling if you run intensive tasks. If you play occasional games then M4 pro mini would be the best choice. GPU wise M4 chips are much more superior to M1 and M2 chips.
for some of us we need the graphics cores, so what we need is a comparison between the capabilities of the new cores versus the old ones. The CPU will be faster of course, we know that, but as I say, for some of us graphic capabilities count.
Seems like the M4 Pro is very likely to be faster than the M3 Max based on the fact that it has only 2 less P cores but a far better architecture. To top this off the M4 chip which also has two less p cores than the M3 Pro seems to either beat or match it in multi core and demolish it in single core. The only drawback to these chips though is encoders, memory bandwidth, and of course the Gpu performance.
Base is thrash compared to the Pro.
Future-proof your ports with the Thunderbolt 5.
Go Pro with the extras:
10gb port
1tb SSD
24gb RAM
add extra GPU
$1749 + tax
10gb port
1tb SSD
48gb RAM
add extra GPU
$2109 + tax
You can add the Apple Studio Display for $1300 or less, and you got the "iMac Pro". Less than $3k for an incredible desktop Mac.
u don't need to future proof a $500 computer
Except that almost nobody needs a pro. People that would need a pro are better off waiting for the mac Studio m4 Max. Maxing out the Mini with a pro chip and more RAM was a bad deal on the m2 models and still is with the m4.
The big diffrence there is in the GPU I think. The M4 Pro is going to slightly outpace the M2 Ultra but there's a huge disparity between the GPU cores (even though the M4's are better/faster) so if those matter for your use case the Ultra might still be a better option.
Also don’t forget the raytracing cores are insanely faster at 3d applications than its non M2 variant. To the point the maxed M4 pro might outpace an M2 Ultra in something like blender.
When the M2 came out, Apple realized their graphics routines were broken, and they went to Blender to fix the problem.
@@tonyburzio4107 true but look at M3 using Raytracing cores vs non raytracing cores in blender. It much fast… this newer generation is suppose to be twice as fast as M3 in RT.
@@GlobalWave1 Yeah that's why I added that they were better/faster. I don't think we have enough information yet to say exactly how much but at the same time the M2 Ultra has quite a lot more of them which would need to be overcome. Exciting times for Mac users with all these really powerful options.
32 gb ram is plenty enough for everything.
i have 32 and make 4k video with fcpx and davinci with zero problems.
Also 1tb ssd is enough , i have all my footage on external ssd' s.
Wait for the new studios
The only reason to still pick a Studio over the new mini is for the higher GPU core count. mini has a maximum of 20 cores but they should run faster, so in the end, both could be on par with each other. For everything else, the mini is far superior at a lower price point and footprint.
Feels like Apple started paying these tech reviewers these days. New Marketings Strategies!!!
Apple doesn’t pay anyone. They don’t even give away the stuff we review. If you get it from them you have to send it back. I don’t get anything from them and have never had any contact with them.
For the data encoding I do, the M3 Ultra was able to handle it. So the Mac Studio is the way to go for me
I have traveled with my Mac mini. I will travel with it again in the future. What would be ideal is to allow my MacBook Air to control my Mac Mini. Let the Mac mini be controlled by the keyboard and pad, and use the screen of my MacBook Air this would allow you to travel with your MacBook Air and do all the light daily stuff but still have a powerhouse Computer at your disposal while you are traveling.
The value of 120G for TB5 is only for video, so you can run a 120Hz hi-res screen. Otherwise normal data transfer for TB5 is 80G. As for the higher-spec processor on the M4Pro, are you sure you need those extra couple of cores? Do you run into processor limitations now? And why do you want such a large internal SSD for a desktop? Get a TB external case and put an SSD stick in it.
Mac Mini is being hyped up and for most people is a good buy. Content creators need to consider system stability; I doubt that this tiny form factor is designed for optimal heat dissipation.
Seems like that will only really be an issue when streaming for long periods or trying to edit large video files.
I wonder if a base m4 mac mini could tide you over until next year when the m4 mac studios come out. That way you have some performance for the mean time, and you don't have to commit the full price of the fully specced mac mini. I feel like the m4 mac studios are going to be insane, especially the max and ultras
It's possible. I'd probably go for at least the one with 512gb. I can't get my boot drive down to 256gb.
Really wish they would make a iMac Pro.
Me too
@@thejasontlewis I think they want you us velcro a Mac Mini M4 Pro to the back of a Studio Display.
Which is the only thing that makes any environmental sense. Replacing a monitor to upgrade the cmputer? E Waste.
@@tonyburzio4107 they could make the computer turn into a monitor with some clever technology after use.
I’d like to see way more in depth specs , , as always , it pays to read the fine print.
On the MacBook vs the mini , the MacBook has a display and speakers, and you carry the MacBook wherever you want, portability is worth some brownie points imo , and you could run a monitor ( or two ? ) off the MacBook Pro , so it is versatile in that way , and the headphone jack out put is a question mark .
I actually wouldn’t mind a Mac mini , though i have a couple of iphones an ipad and mac book pro , for my computer i have an old I7 pc mini with 16 gb of ram , it still works ok for general pc duties , but i wouldnt mind having an apple computer to complete my eco system .
I’m a bit torn, the iMac comes with the whole caboodle , monitor , keyboard , mouse , its ready to go , going the mini option , by the time i buy a monitor suitable for Mac mini and accessories , i have an old 4k 27 inch monitor ( i don’t know if that would go with the mini or not ) , key board , mouse , usb hub to cover the ports i would no longer have on the mini or the iMac for that matter.
Speaking of Mac mini monitor options , i wonder if apple is doing something with the studio display as far as updating goes ??
The upgrade to Thunderbolt 5, faster chip and better neural chip are why you should choose the mini over the studio
Definitely have to wait for the M6 Pro chip
The big problem with the Mac mini is the price of the monitor you would want to add to a beast like that. Yes you can buy cheap 4K monitors, but with a beast like that I would like something with the same screen quality as the on in my 16 inch M1 Pro. That I cannot afford
I think best value is the base m4 pro with 500 storage, 24 ram ….. either that or the 500, 32 m4 (regular) but I think that the thunderbolt 5 will be so good with external storage that I can run swap memory or a cheap 256 gb external drive …
Since the Mini has Thunderbolt 5 - wouldn't external storage be cheaper and faster than paying for increased internal storage?
Once i saw storage upgrade price, i decided to move to windows pc. I cant give that much money just to get decent internal storage.
That's the Apple tax for ya.
That's a Mac Mini I could be happy with. Sadly, I left the walled garden a long time ago. Thanks for the review.
What are you using now?
So why are you watching this? You made a terrible decision and you're now trying to get people to agree? Well you did a silly thing.
So what do you prefer? Windows?
Go for the M4 Pro mini as it should be much faster than the Studio.
There's faster and there's more powerful. Not always the same thing, right?
Can this Mac book mini support two monitors 24” to work independently from each other?
Supports 3
does it have HDMI 2.1?
I'm worried about heating issue...
Take the mini pro with 512GB storage.
Get a nvme enclosure with a 4 TB stick. You lose one thunderbolt but you save a ton of money.
New Mac mini is awesome
2:28 Sorry hate to be that guy, but TB1 is 10Gb/s, 2x10 under certain conditions. TB2 is 20Gb/s. TB3 and TB4 are both 40Gb/s but where they vary are in minimum speeds where TB3 is 16Gb/s and TB4 is 32Gb/s
Edit: Also TB5 is only available on the M4 Pro model
The base model non pro mac mini has 3 thunderbolt 4 and 2 usb c 10 gigabits each in front.
Pro version has 3 thunderbolt 5.
Front 2 usb c are 10 gigabits each.
I have the thunderbolt 27” Cinema Display , can those ports use the Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter?
The power consumption itself for the Mac Mini will saved up for the electricity bill in a long run over the Mac Studio.
Waiting for the studio is the answer assuming you were looking at the Pro variants
You can always connect an iVanky dock to this just like I do to my MacBook Pro M2 Max.
Wait for the m4 max studio , video editors need as many GPU cores as possible ! Plus knowing apple it will also be a little smaller than it is now for convenience of portability !
Yes, it's an exciting new machine, but it's something to get only if you need it. It seems that people often accumulate things even when they don’t need them, just because they are new.
And sure powerful, and good looking :)
I don’t think too many people accumulate Macs. Usually you sell your previous computer to finance a new purchase or move it to a person or place that could use it.
@@thejasontlewis Good point, still, for many the new is unnecessary.
Have to say this year, Apple is making me broke like broke and tears. I think what you really wanna think about is potentially how many monitors do you wanna run? This might help you determine if you wanna get a Mac mini or a Mac studio or I think the Mac mini's total amount of monitors that can be run on that device is three again I could be wrong where I know with Mac studio you could potentially run five monitors. And when I say this, what I mean is that macOS supports those monitors on those devices there are ways around this etc. but I think the real question is is how many monitors do you wanna run on the device? Also, I've been waiting 20 years for the Mac mini to be this small but the issue is I have four monitors? The Mac mini's only gonna be able to run three I have an M1 Max studio. It's not slow. It's not the base model. I really want the new shiny. The real question is in the next few months. Do I have the discipline not to buy a spec out Mac mini? :`( anyway if you've read all of this, thank you very much for listening to my rant. I love your hard work and your opinions Jason good luck with the dilemma you have because I have the same problem and my pockets are completely empty.
Yeah, the willpower is hard to come by. I’m trying to be strong. 💪
Given the form factor I would believe the Mac Studio could have better thermal capabilities and the sustained performance would be better than the Mini.
To this point, thermals haven’t impacted performance on M series Macs that have a fan. The fans barely move.
The M4 chip has AV1 decoder which M2 lacks.
you should wait for MAC STUDIO M4
I have an OG base M1 Mini...drives a nice mid-grade 50" 4K TV as a monitor....love love love it....but I WANT Apple to take my money.
I am considering M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU / 20‑core GPU / 16-core Neural Engine /
64GB unified memory / 4TB SSD storage / 10 Gigabit Ethernet
to play Minecraft with my son.
I have just figured out that I would need the M4 Pro model to evem beat my 2018 i7 6core beast with 16GB of RAM and i could just upgrade the RAM to 64GB instead as i am only looking at the performance cores for logic pro 11 and i will be also losing port also as i have 4 thunderbolt port and 2 USB A ports and with these new models I will be losing 1 port and the SD Card slot also
is this M4 (base) chip really faster than the M1 Pro? It appears to have even less cores?
The graphics algorithm changed thanks to Blender and the silicon itself is a lot better thanks to TSMC.
Imagine if they added a screen to this thing - it'd be awesome. Oh, wait ... hmm. Can't afford it :(
Yeah, they call that the MacBook Air or Pro.
The worst part is power button located in the bottom.
Yes I can see that confusing a whole lot of people especially in work settings.
Go with the Mac Studio.
I would go with the M 4 Mini rather than the studio. Spending even $100 less is good.
Totally.
One design flaw, due to the usual dogmatic Apple form over function.
20-40% of the electricity used by power supplies is converted to heat. The Mac mini M1 consumes 39W when running.
Why design the Mac mini M4 with the PSU right above the CPU and motherboard like a grill, toasting the electronics, when Apple could have used an external power supply like they have with the iMac?
When you add unnecessary heat into an enclosed space, you add to the power load (and thus more heating) to run fans and a cooling system.
Heat rises. Let it out the top. Don't force it downwards past the CPU, and use an external PSU.
Have you ever used an M series Mac? They can design them this way because the system produces very little heat. You can think of it in terms of old models.
@@thejasontlewis Yes. I am typing this on my 67 W M1 Macbook Pro Pro which has a huge area to dissipate heat compared with the much more powerful 155W Mac mini M4 and it occassionally audibly ramps up the fans.
Wait for the 2025 Mac Studio with M4 Max 😎
Keep waiting.
Mac mini will be faster in everything, except at video editing because Pro version only comes with one media engine and M2 Max still hast two. So, there’s that.
A quick answer to the clickbait question - yes,
smaller size but it have a big appeal
YES. End of conversation.
the lowest tier m4 mac mini isnt even 2 times faster than the m1 (and were 3 chips down the line from the m1)
how is that enticing enough to want to upgrade?
A lot, because in the PC world a 10% increase is amazing.
@@tonyburzio4107 No one is talking about the "PC WORLD" 🥴🥴🥴🥴
@@MatthiasHamiltonno we are talking about how amazing the performance gains for Apple have been compared to everyone else.
so... does this mean that I could get this mac mini and use my old intel 2017 iMac 5k retina as a second display? Anyone???
no bodys stopping you do it :)
I don’t this can be done?
Would’ve been cooler if you could power it with Usb C
Why would you want to?
@ just gives it extra utility, especially when travelling, could be powered directly from a monitor etc.
i still use a 2012 Mac Mini.
Good value for money. Wow
it looks like an apple tv
Yes.
Wow! It’s hard to believe that they can allow a $699 computer to get spec’d out to $3000.
Why?
That seems like a vast difference in case uses. To me, it seems like if you need a $3000 computer, you would have to switch to a different platform like the studio. I didn’t realize you could spec the Mini so expensively.
It will never be enough.
NO Wifi 7? for this or any M4 Mac...
Do you have a WiFi 7 router?
m4 pro has thunderbolt 5 m4 has thunderbolt 3
Get the Mac mini
Or the base model
If you buy an ivanky hub you'll have never lack of connections
I have a couple of Thunderbolt hubs and I hate them. They’re a solution for laptops but it sick to use one with a desktop
They should atleast increase base storage to 512gb and i will be okay with 100 hundred price bump ,
Glad they finally moved that annoying and ugly power button on the front. Underneath the unit is a much better place for it.
I don't understand. My old mac mini power button is on the back. And I don't care how ugly it is because I cant see it.
It was actually on the back, no wonder you thought it was ugly you had it backwards the whole time. haha
A useable desktop at $600 is certainly welcome. Having said that, M1 Macbook air is around same price and it has great screen and battery life as well.
But this is 16gb compared to the 8 of the macbook air m1
The M1 is too slow at games.
@@tonyburzio4107 Mac mini does have a market . M1/M2 air price may reduce now, maybe.
please Jesus m4 13 inch MacBook air 🙏