To me the m4 pro variant is a bit of a loss. Like if you absolutely need the m4 pro variant, you'll probably do task that will benefit from extra ram, and if you had the option to go for 32gb of ram, then it would be a great sell. However you can only get 24/48/64gb, and if you do upgrade to 48gb of ram you're looking at the Mac Studio price range, which if we follow the MacBook Pro spec sheet for the m4 max, will have with its base model 14 cores cpu (same as unbinned m4 pro), 32 cores GPU (60% more compared to unbinned m4 pro), 36gb of memory, 400.9GB/s of bandwidth (46.9% more than the m4 pro), 10GbE (100 bucks on the m4 pro), more ports, better cooling (which will allow the soc to turbo more often) and TWO media engines, which means WAY faster video export time (or breezing through multi input timelines). And that for only like 2 or 300 bucks more. IMHO you're better off buying the base m4, getting a feel for it and then if you need more, sell it and buy the studio next year (and like, you'll probably be able to sell it for 400/450 without problems).
The future proof argument to get the M4 Pro. My counter argument is that the difference in money saved, like $800 can go towards the next Mac Mini when the 16G model hits a ceiling. At that point you have a brand new computer. Normally I would future proof as much as possible but the base model is SO capable for such a low price that the difference saved can get you another Mac Mini, so when the M6 or M7 version comes out, just get that.
I was confused about getting the base model or spending more on 24GB version or even the Mini Pro. You comment just cleared all my doubts and I'll buy the base model. You're completely right.
Very good point. With comparatively inexpensive devices like the mini, it might be better to think about upgrading more often as the preferable way to future proof. I'd probably avoid the 256 and go for 512, but even then the difference is 1399 - 799 = 600 which could be used towards a new M6 or M7 Mini in 3-4 years. The $400 difference between M4 MBP and M4 Pro MBP seems a much tougher call.
Here's my review as a developer purchasing a Mac OS for the first time. I got the M4 256gb (using external) , with 32gb ram. Came out to $879 with student discount if you know someone who is a student. They charge an $380 for an extra 16gb of ram which is criminal but for me worth it compared to going with the pro. An extra $500 for an m4 pro and 8gb of LESS ram did not make sense for me. I create many AI models and run heavy multitasking. When I have chrome, vscode, pgadmin, and MySQL up with no background tasks I am using 20gb of ram. 32gb of ram is necessary for me so I can run "basic" program. When I run intensive models I remote into desktop with a better CPU and RAM that is upgradable (as all computers should be). Don't know if any developers are looking at this, but $879 for this is a steal, if I could live with 16gb of ram 499 would be an absolutely insane deal for this
I bought the M4 256GB with 32gb RAM. Compiling Chrome-iOS took 45 minutes (22k files compiled). On the M1 Ultra Mac Studio, it took 10 minutes. The AMD 5950X took 7 minutes. Chrome Desktop would take significantly longer to compile at 70k files. The M4 mini wasn't worth it for me. Pro might do better since it has more cores, but not sure. I returned the mini. I'd avoid the regular mini, if doing a lot of parallel compute or compiling extremely large projects.
This is awesome to hear! I feel kind of bad because I had some viewers ask me to try the coding tests on these two, but life has been too hectic and I just wouldn't have the time to make this video with the other tests AND learn how to integrate/utilize coding effectively to really make it meaningful in a video. BUT, it's awesome to hear that it works great for you!
@ Nothing too crazy, I only have 24 GB. But I've managed so far to run things up to 7B, just haven't had the time to run anything larger yet. But as long as the model fits within the 24 gb, which you can check with % ollama ps That should show how much ram each model takes up while running. But see I couldn't even run any of the llama models, let alone anything else, on my old m1 air. I can't say that the llm thing is even remotely part of my daily workflow. I tend to stick with claude for the most part. But I still think it's neat that that can be done, and it's great for simper tasks that you want to do offline or just run privately. It gets the job done as long as the models fit. Honestly I might even be able to go a tad higher, just a little, just to get a slightly better model running. But yeah for me I just really like messing with them and this lets me do that
Just picked up the base Mac mini today. I don’t need much so it’s perfect and so cute on my desk. 😂🤣 I had an M1 Mac mini I picked up used for $150 and Apple gave me $280 trade in on it. Can’t complain.
Good advice! I feel too many people are encouraged to spend the extra money to get the higher specced device when they don’t really need it. I bought the base model (though with 512GB drive) rather than the vastly more expensive pro model because I wanted a powerful machine for photo and video editing but I am not a professional photographer or videographer. The pro model would have been wasted on me - like buying a Ferrari to just go grocery shopping.🏎️
I have found anytime you settle for the base, you end up regretting it and going to the Pro. Thats me though, I would suggest every day people just buy the base. With Apples planned obsolescence, you wont be keeping these too long, especially since Ai is booming. One thing that I have noticed over the last few years, is Apple resale value isnt that good anymore, so keep that in mind when purchasing.
You talked about Base 16 GB vs. Pro 24 GB, but what about Base 24 GB vs. Pro 24 GB? Especially if you’re doing RAM intensive stuff like After Effects? Do I just spend the extra $$$ for the Pro chip, even though the Base chip is enough for me?
yeah, I bought 24gb M4 Mac mini and base model m4 pro Mac mini, I found that m4 pro is better when use davinci resolve fusion, the price is double but the experience is not like 2 times faster
I have the same question. Still thinking if buying base model with 32gb or pro with 24gb? As there's no option for 32gb ram. You need to go to 48gb which is of course way more expensive.
Lets go! That makes me so happy to hear! Lots of learning curves as I don't typically do this kind of break down review so I am very grateful You and others have found it helpful 😊
I built a PC with a 3060 for about the same price as the M4 Pro and it honestly doesn't do great at 4k gaming either. I feel like thats totally acceptable and realistic to limit it mostly to HD gaming. I don't really have a problem with HD games and I feel thats true for a lot of gamers as well. There are diminishing returns when it comes goign past a certain point. The GPU power and cost need to move from HD to 4k is pretty high and visually not really worth that added cost in my opinion. The move from HD to 4k is much less significant than the move from SD to HD for example. Same for frame rates. I consider 60p to be a solid standard and anything above that to me feels like huge diminishing returns. Very little actual benefit but it again requires crazy amount of expensive GPU power that kind of feels like a waste in many ways. Much like the real difference between the M4 and M4 Pro Mac minis. We throw a ton of money at GPUs to slightly increase resolution or frame rates. I also feel visually games may have reached a peak as well. Every new attempt at added realism just doesn't have the impact it once did in the early days of 3D gaming. For many the quality and realism has reached a more than good enough level to be fun and enjoyable. It's neat there is hardware that can push that to new levels of realism but again there are diminishing returns to the value of it all. One thing I like about the mobile gaming world is how much they have had to work to optimize what could be done on lower end GPU power. I would like to see more of that on the computer gaming side instead of just throwing more processing on top of monster graphics cards. Fro ma video editing perspective to be honest 4k video is pretty darn easy to handle these days. Even my M1 Pro has zero issues until I need really complex processing like raw video noise reduction. Same for 3D animation. Even Hollywood at some needs to use render farms because it's just not very realistic to expect a main and only computer to chug through that kind of rendering. Rendering faster is very important but the Eevee renderer keeps getting better as well and is super fast compared to Cycles. Not everything needs to be ultra photo realistic with global illumination and physically accurate soft shadows. Things like video game assets, sprites, graphic design, and casual 3D rendered elements for videos likely should no be using Cycles at all and can render exceptionally fast on a Mac. for those that do need ultra realism there are a ton of very affordable online render services. They are very low cost and can render in minutes vs hours or days. Instead of investing thousands of dollars in graphics cards it may make more sense to just render wit ha service and pass the small fee on to a customer. For the $2000 cost of a 4090 right now one can buy a lot of render time. Of course it depends on how much one renders in Blender but if one does that much then they are tying up their expensive machine all the time. Even if one renders overnight what if a big project takes many nights to render? Should a client wait that long. I have become a big fan of using Eevee in Blender or having na modest system while creating and then use a render service to chug through the process that would take me days to complete. I used to create 3D animation for a manufacturing company and I would spend many days rendering projects. It was so bad I could barely even check email on the computer while it was rendering. Thats why I now prefer to just use a service and continue to use my main computer for other work and tasks.
@@digitaldevigner4080 Fun fact in raw performance the GPU in the M4 Pro is between the 4060 and 4060ti but in Blender it's more like a 3060ti. Though I'm sure it'll get better optimized with future versions. For example the M3 Max originally benchmarked around 3400 in Blender when it was initially released but with 4.2 and onward it's over 4k. The rest of the M series improved as well but the new architectures benefited the most.
@@chidorirasenganz I followed the development of the Metal support when Apple lent a developer to the Blender development team. He was able to pull off some impressive supports in a short period of time. There is still some room for optimizations. Nvidia also has many years ahead of Apple and for many years the Blender developers really refused t support anything but Cuda and Optix. So much so they even dropped AMD support at one point and AMD also had to loan their own developers to get the support working again. Cycles has been meticulously optimized with Blender for a decade. The fact that Apple is catching up and in most cases surpassed AMD is very impressive. A M4 Ultra is going to theoretically be very close to a 4090 with Blender. That should really frighten Nvidia. To be honest I'm very happy with the Blender performance on my desktop 3060. I feel it's a pretty good balance and likely very realistic of the majority of people using Blender out there. It's full capable of doing very creative work in Blender and beats the 1080tis the pros used to use in Blender. In fact at the Cuda level it's faster than most GPUs. It's Optix that pushes Nvidia past everyone else right now. I'm very impressed wit the M4 Pro for that very reason. Its literally at a production level of speed for just about every complex task under the sun.
Hello! I would like to get an expert opinion in the field. I would like to switch from Windows to MacOs. I am currently working on an AMD Ryzen 7 770x Desktop with 64 Ggia Ram and an NVidea 3060 OC video card. I have turned my attention to the Apple Mac Mini PC with Apple M4 Pro processor, 12 CPU cores and 16 GPU cores, 24GB, 512GB SSD or the Apple Mac Mini PC with Apple M4 Pro processor, 14 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores, 24GB, 512GB SSD or the Apple Mac Mini PC with Apple M4 Pro processor, 14 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores, 48GB, 1TB SSD. I would like to mention that I use LR photo editing and video editing in Davinci Resolve 4k in multicam (2 maximum 3 cameras). Are the ones I mentioned above better than the system I mentioned first in Windows and is it worth switching to Mac or not and which of the ones listed would cope? Thank you
Hey David. Im new to your channel and im planning on switching from windows to mac. Im literally useless when it comes to apple products since I never owned one. I simply want to switch because the connectivity in windows is a mess. All I need basically is to plug my guitar into an audio interface which will be connected to the mini mac and run some plugins and record music in a D.A.W. Is standard mini mac enough for my need?
Occasional video/photo editing and gaming. Originally, I was going to buy the M4 with 24 GB ram and a 512 SSD. When I weighed up the pros and cons, the M4 Pro is better in overall performance and future-proofing.
@@ZoneProduction448 I was in the same boat, as the graphics and multi-core performance are better - both of which gaming will use - I went with the base pro model. It's also got thunderbolt 5 which if you do want to run an external drive is nearly twice as fast - and irrespective of that, the internal SSD is quicker on the pro model (even if you upgrade to 512GB).
Hello, thank you very much for the video. I'm wondering whether it's worth choosing the even larger processor for the Pro model and whether 24GB of storage is enough if you'd rather use 48GB. I cut all my RUclips videos in 4k with my Mac. What would you recommend? Kind regards Till
Hey David. New to your channel and I really liked your previous Mac mini video. In this video, you mentioned something about 'crossover', and said that you'd put details about that setup in the comments. I'm interested in the M4 base for video editing (I might bump to 24gb ram). I editing in adobe premiere and prefer cutting in 1080p, so my hope is that this system will be enough. I'm also a lapsed gamer. I don't intend to buy anymore consoles (stopped at Series S), and I'm fine with 1080p for occasional AAA gaming. Will the base be enough? What is this 'crossover' stuff? I didn't see the link and I had not idea that gaming was even a real option on the Mac...
Shoot, I knew I was forgetting so.ething. sorry about that! Here is the link, this guys does a great job explaining the process simply and providing the links needed! ruclips.net/video/rTQ0FAKviJM/видео.htmlsi=R9Zg8asy7Rb9S6ii For AAA gaming at 1080p, I can't say I have tried all the games out there but from the ones I have tried and watching other tests, the Base Model does handle 1080 at 50-60+ FPS (and more in a lot of situations) very well! That editing in 1080p I feel confident saying you'll be good! Especially with how well it handles my 4k Footage in 10 bit, 4.2.2 (most people don't shoot in this)
Hi, in your opinion for future proof and save a bit for budget. I planned to get the Mac mini base but with 24 gb ram with 512 storage - a silly question but will that help a bit with stutter and efficiency even tho I won’t be getting the pro model? Thank you
I bought the M4 Pro model. It should arrive in 2 days. Logic only uses Performance Cores and not Efficiency Cores so the M4 Pro should be amazing for what I do. For most people, the base model will be more than enough.
@@ZackPomerleauthe rep i talked to said all pro programs require 16 gb of ram, so i would assume yes… but that is similar to the question im wondering which is how do all the pro programs perform on the very base model with no upgrades. havnt found a confident answer yet
When it comes to the m4 pro is it worth upgrading the ram to 48gb for 4k editing? $400 seems like alot for ram upgrade and just curious if the standard 24gb of ram is enough for video editing, I dont do it as a business every single day, but why spend $400 if i dont have to lol
I'm not interested in what this thing can do for a RUclipsr with a base model configuration, I'm interested in how it would look completely spec'd out & used to handle Davinci Resolve with a heavy load of 8K video editing, multi-camera setups, Fusion effects, 10 bit sound tracks, etc. All these comparison videos seem to focus on things that only make a few hundred dollars difference, which is basically the cost of a high capacity CF Express B card or a cheap Z mount lens. That makes it of little interest to me at this price point. How does the M4 Mini Pro with a 14 core CPU, 20 Core GPU, 16 core neural engine, 64 GB of RAM, a 1TB storage SSD, and a 10 Gigabit Ethernet port stack up to it's Apple competition in the Mac Studio line as well as PC competitors? That's a $2500 computer without the monitor. That's nowhere near the price of the Mac Studio's top entries.Toss in an Apple Studio Display for $1600 & now were solidly in the Mac Studio mid-range tipping past the $4K price point. How would a Mini 4 Pro machine of this or a similar configuration do against equivalently priced PCs or the Studio?
@@MarkLewis-l3f This question has already been answered in other videos. The consensus was that the mini's price is inversely proportional to its value when compared to other, higher end macs. In other words, the more you spec out the mini, the less it is worth it for the money / performance ratio. I believe Snazy Labs was the one who made that video. But yes although you can do that, you'd be better off buying something else. Go check him out and see what you think. He can probably explain it better
For 8k multi cam and fusion, you are probably better waiting for a M4 Studio (whichever chip?) or building a PC with the new 5090 when it’s released. The Mac mini range is completely wrong for your workload.
ok so I'm about to buy one and I'm confused. I usually use Chrome with more than 30 tabs open, VDI remote working, and my main work is in Adobe LrC heavely, with 25Mb DNG files for now.. That's all, then ofcourse i listen to music, and most of my tasks are done in Google Workspace. I currently have a iMAC 27" 2022 with 32Gb RAM and 5112 GB of SSD, and it's getting slower every day. What i really want is a fast machine to work with LrC with no lag. Would it be better to have a Mac mini M4 with 24 or maybe 32 MB of RAM and 1TB SSD or a M4 pro with 24 GB or RAM and 1TB? I would appreciate your support on this expensive decision. thansk :)
I'm debating between the M4 512 GiB vs the M4 Pro. I think one thing that could have been an interesting comparison is adding that extra storage. We all know $200 is a complete rip off for 256GiB, but I myself can't work with the base 256 GiB and don't want an external solution. So, it would be closer to compare $800 vs $1400 with 16 GiB vs 24 GiB + CPU + GPU differences. Personally I'm rendering a lot of photos and vector art in affinity and debating if the price jump is worth...
256 is crap even if you use external drives.. once you load all of your software and a couple of extra stuff you are full.. 512 is the bare minimum imo (I am currently running 256 with a few external drives and a NAS server).
@@ПазарджикДевет I’m a graphic designer and I never needed more than 256Go. If you manage well your files and don’t have too many different usages, you can do it.
@ I edit videos on my mac, and not being able to load even a small project without carrying around an ssd (even tho they are small and lightweight) is kind of annoying tbh. Yes I work around that, yes it's doable, but should it be this way? Absolutely not. They got their shit together with the 16 gigs base ram with the new releases, but I hope they change the base storage to 512 as well!
@@ПазарджикДевет Editing videos is different than editing photos my buddy You don’t have the same usage than this guy, so you can’t compare Have a nice day
it will be my first Mac computer. i am getting mac mini M4. i will be getting external SSD as well please make a video on how to connect the ssd to mac mini
If you look up a channel called “Krishna Draws” he is a professional digital artist and has a video speaking on Photoshop/Illustrator with his base m4 mini with 24GB Ram and 512GB storage has been butter smooth for his use case.
I mostly work with Clip Studio Paint and Affinity Photo/Designer so it seems like practically same and was looking for videos on digital artists. So for 2D Illustration/Art seems more than sufficient using base m4 chip. The only thing I wonder is as I’ve been dabbling with 3D and if the base m4 would suffice or should I step up to m4 pro. I’m a newb using blender so I don’t think right now I won’t push the base m4 chip but I worry about down the road if I pursue 3D projects.
No, a normal workflow is at least 40GB of RAM. You also want to use Affinity. Adobe sucks and doesn't use metal well. Worth the week spending learning a new UI for the speed. The people above have no idea what they are talking about or just edit one photo at a time. If you are just editing one photo at a time it's fine.
@@borremoonkeyI’m in exactly the same predicament as yourself - I’m also average sub-user of AE & Blender that has got me thinking which? M4 base or M4 Pro?
Im using the m4 pro and my activity monitor says im using like 17 gb of ram, no swap yet so I guess im good with it ans wouls be swapping with the base m4
MacOS will basically use lots of memory even when not using memory intensive applications. The thing to look at is memory pressure which can be found in activity monitor (a utility in the utility folder). If that's green, you're good to go. If it's often yellow, more memory would be helpful. If red you need more memory.
Absolutely! I can't remember if you were here for last weeks video, but I really hope this video could be MORE helpful for you if you were or really helpful even if not 😊 Welcome to the channel!
I am still deciding between the two as well but your last part of the video made it clear. I am just not doing anything beyond Final Cut once in a while. So I will probably go the base but then I want 24gb or 32gb ram and Apple makes the price upgrade a bit harsh
How about Sony video formats like XAVC HS 4K 422 120fps video editing timeline on FCP ? A bit of luts, effects, denoising on a roughly 3-7mins video timeline ? Will the base model Mac mini m4 be enough for a smooth scrolling playback ? No proxies.
You may need the upcoming M4 Studio Max with at least 32 GB of RAM for the more robust GPU processing. If you were using the less resource intensive Pro Res codec (normally less compressed with All-I frames), I would say the M4 Pro Mini with plenty of RAM.
I don't know if I overbought or not but I'm future proofed for at least 10 years 🤣,M4 Mini Pro 14/20 - 64GB - 4TB. I stacked a few discounts and got it $600 off MSRP 💵.
@@Alperic27 I agree but hand it to Apple to delay the studio till mid 2025, I desperately needed a replacement for my late 2014 iMac i5 . Rumor has it the M4 studio will be approximately the same size as the M2, due to that I'll stay with the mini.
As a former sys admin I would advise against buying the 256gb model if you plan to use the system for 3yr and perhaps more. Upgrade to 512gb remember your not getting the full 512 there is a filesystem loss and the operating system and main user files take up space. Besides that ssd’s don’t like to run close to full capacity they need a couple % free space to run their maintenance and trim. And since I don’t like to use the build in browser safari I will also upgrade the mem to 24gb. But still I have works with a 16gig MacBook Pro i7 for years making virtual machines and running labs locally on my system 😂 so the mem upgrade is more of a put my mind at ease situation than need.
@@PedroDVC thank u for reply... what about ssd.. does it makes difference like macbook.. where 512 ssd is speed in write and reading that 256ssd.. do i have to upgrade to 512 ssd ?
Thank you for this. I tend to talk myself into into the higher spec, and you comment around saving a few minutes here or there etc making the pro stack up over time nearly had me. But I’m glad you reiterated that the base will be enough for most. I’ll probably upgrade my MacBook so there’s no need to spend huge dollars on my home desktop. I think I can concurrently get the base and look so upgrading the MacBook some time next year.
Actually it is as both are the base available off the shelf versions. I'll add that adding 24gb unified memory and 512gb storage at that point you're at $999 which at that point it's hard not to jump on to the Pro version. Especially for graphic work. I think the video is to show a basic difference between the base off the shelf available models.
@@JulianFernandez If you know a student, you can also get it for that price if you miss the black friday deals for any reason. I am a student myself and got the m4 pro for $100 off ish, and the base is 499.99 if that helps anyone
Are you guys team Base or Team Pro? Ive been super impressed by the $600 Model!
To me the m4 pro variant is a bit of a loss. Like if you absolutely need the m4 pro variant, you'll probably do task that will benefit from extra ram, and if you had the option to go for 32gb of ram, then it would be a great sell. However you can only get 24/48/64gb, and if you do upgrade to 48gb of ram you're looking at the Mac Studio price range, which if we follow the MacBook Pro spec sheet for the m4 max, will have with its base model 14 cores cpu (same as unbinned m4 pro), 32 cores GPU (60% more compared to unbinned m4 pro), 36gb of memory, 400.9GB/s of bandwidth (46.9% more than the m4 pro), 10GbE (100 bucks on the m4 pro), more ports, better cooling (which will allow the soc to turbo more often) and TWO media engines, which means WAY faster video export time (or breezing through multi input timelines). And that for only like 2 or 300 bucks more. IMHO you're better off buying the base m4, getting a feel for it and then if you need more, sell it and buy the studio next year (and like, you'll probably be able to sell it for 400/450 without problems).
Team pro for sure
Base for backup mac for pro stuff id get a Mac Studio and wait for the m4
I'm team base. I've had the M4 base since Nov 8 and it more than meets my modest needs. Super pleased with it.
@@bryans8656do you hear fan noise without heavy jobs?
The future proof argument to get the M4 Pro. My counter argument is that the difference in money saved, like $800 can go towards the next Mac Mini when the 16G model hits a ceiling. At that point you have a brand new computer. Normally I would future proof as much as possible but the base model is SO capable for such a low price that the difference saved can get you another Mac Mini, so when the M6 or M7 version comes out, just get that.
Very good point
I was confused about getting the base model or spending more on 24GB version or even the Mini Pro. You comment just cleared all my doubts and I'll buy the base model. You're completely right.
Macs usually last me 6 years. A Mac Mini M4 Pro purchased now will last me 6 years since I’m replacing a 2018 MacBook Pro. I’ve got no reason to wait.
@@larrysingI’m upgrading from a 2017 Threadripper PC, I’ve waited long enough, I also bought a M4 Pro with the intention of having it for 6-7 years.
Very good point. With comparatively inexpensive devices like the mini, it might be better to think about upgrading more often as the preferable way to future proof. I'd probably avoid the 256 and go for 512, but even then the difference is 1399 - 799 = 600 which could be used towards a new M6 or M7 Mini in 3-4 years. The $400 difference between M4 MBP and M4 Pro MBP seems a much tougher call.
Here's my review as a developer purchasing a Mac OS for the first time. I got the M4 256gb (using external) , with 32gb ram. Came out to $879 with student discount if you know someone who is a student. They charge an $380 for an extra 16gb of ram which is criminal but for me worth it compared to going with the pro. An extra $500 for an m4 pro and 8gb of LESS ram did not make sense for me. I create many AI models and run heavy multitasking. When I have chrome, vscode, pgadmin, and MySQL up with no background tasks I am using 20gb of ram. 32gb of ram is necessary for me so I can run "basic" program. When I run intensive models I remote into desktop with a better CPU and RAM that is upgradable (as all computers should be). Don't know if any developers are looking at this, but $879 for this is a steal, if I could live with 16gb of ram 499 would be an absolutely insane deal for this
⭐ Can you briefly describe your external storage setup? Portable SSD, or m.2 enclosure? Bootable or secondary. Thx
I bought the M4 256GB with 32gb RAM. Compiling Chrome-iOS took 45 minutes (22k files compiled). On the M1 Ultra Mac Studio, it took 10 minutes. The AMD 5950X took 7 minutes. Chrome Desktop would take significantly longer to compile at 70k files. The M4 mini wasn't worth it for me. Pro might do better since it has more cores, but not sure. I returned the mini.
I'd avoid the regular mini, if doing a lot of parallel compute or compiling extremely large projects.
@@brandont103you have the slower drive on the base mini also which is likely a factor
I'm an m4 pro user. The build times in xcode are amazing, and the fact that I can run LLMs on my tiny tiny desktop is absolutely wild
This is awesome to hear! I feel kind of bad because I had some viewers ask me to try the coding tests on these two, but life has been too hectic and I just wouldn't have the time to make this video with the other tests AND learn how to integrate/utilize coding effectively to really make it meaningful in a video.
BUT, it's awesome to hear that it works great for you!
Which LLM‘s ?
@ Nothing too crazy, I only have 24 GB. But I've managed so far to run things up to 7B, just haven't had the time to run anything larger yet. But as long as the model fits within the 24 gb, which you can check with % ollama ps
That should show how much ram each model takes up while running. But see I couldn't even run any of the llama models, let alone anything else, on my old m1 air. I can't say that the llm thing is even remotely part of my daily workflow. I tend to stick with claude for the most part. But I still think it's neat that that can be done, and it's great for simper tasks that you want to do offline or just run privately. It gets the job done as long as the models fit. Honestly I might even be able to go a tad higher, just a little, just to get a slightly better model running. But yeah for me I just really like messing with them and this lets me do that
I’m using an outdated iMac from 2011. I’m ready for this. Either model is still faster, better than my old maxed out spec i7 iMac.
Just picked up the base Mac mini today. I don’t need much so it’s perfect and so cute on my desk. 😂🤣 I had an M1 Mac mini I picked up used for $150 and Apple gave me $280 trade in on it. Can’t complain.
You actually made profit on that M1 mac mini, which is quite rare on products that normally go down in price quickly.
Hey, love your content.
I am curious about buying between Mac mini M4 (24 gb ram) or M4 pro (24 gb).
Pl suggest
if you are going to upgrade anything on the mini, just get the pro.
Good advice!
I feel too many people are encouraged to spend the extra money to get the higher specced device when they don’t really need it.
I bought the base model (though with 512GB drive) rather than the vastly more expensive pro model because I wanted a powerful machine for photo and video editing but I am not a professional photographer or videographer.
The pro model would have been wasted on me - like buying a Ferrari to just go grocery shopping.🏎️
I have found anytime you settle for the base, you end up regretting it and going to the Pro. Thats me though, I would suggest every day people just buy the base. With Apples planned obsolescence, you wont be keeping these too long, especially since Ai is booming.
One thing that I have noticed over the last few years, is Apple resale value isnt that good anymore, so keep that in mind when purchasing.
You talked about Base 16 GB vs. Pro 24 GB, but what about Base 24 GB vs. Pro 24 GB? Especially if you’re doing RAM intensive stuff like After Effects?
Do I just spend the extra $$$ for the Pro chip, even though the Base chip is enough for me?
I have the exact same question.
yeah, I bought 24gb M4 Mac mini and base model m4 pro Mac mini, I found that m4 pro is better when use davinci resolve fusion, the price is double but the experience is not like 2 times faster
I have the same question. Still thinking if buying base model with 32gb or pro with 24gb? As there's no option for 32gb ram. You need to go to 48gb which is of course way more expensive.
@@miki0mrkvica you wanna go m4 pro with 48 gb and 2TB it's the best mac ever released.
Why does my Mac Mini M4 Pro hit 106°C on some cores during stress tests, and score only 19,400 in Cinebench R23 multicore?
Mac mini whit 24gm ram or 32 gb ram, or
M4pro 24GB RAM for editing 4k and Affter effects(or fusion davinci)?
that's my doubt too... I do editing with premier and using after effects.
This is amazing!! Best tech RUclipsr!!!
Like the attitude, like the information provided. Well done
Thanks for the video … which monitor are you using and how do you like it?
Finally someone not just running at 1080p to get the highest FPS 🙌
Haha, yes! Have to try that 4k gameplay! Cool to see the M4 Pro handle that pretty solidly!
Great video! This video was probably the most helpful review of the m4 Mac mini for me!
Lets go! That makes me so happy to hear! Lots of learning curves as I don't typically do this kind of break down review so I am very grateful You and others have found it helpful 😊
I built a PC with a 3060 for about the same price as the M4 Pro and it honestly doesn't do great at 4k gaming either. I feel like thats totally acceptable and realistic to limit it mostly to HD gaming.
I don't really have a problem with HD games and I feel thats true for a lot of gamers as well. There are diminishing returns when it comes goign past a certain point. The GPU power and cost need to move from HD to 4k is pretty high and visually not really worth that added cost in my opinion. The move from HD to 4k is much less significant than the move from SD to HD for example.
Same for frame rates. I consider 60p to be a solid standard and anything above that to me feels like huge diminishing returns. Very little actual benefit but it again requires crazy amount of expensive GPU power that kind of feels like a waste in many ways. Much like the real difference between the M4 and M4 Pro Mac minis.
We throw a ton of money at GPUs to slightly increase resolution or frame rates. I also feel visually games may have reached a peak as well. Every new attempt at added realism just doesn't have the impact it once did in the early days of 3D gaming. For many the quality and realism has reached a more than good enough level to be fun and enjoyable.
It's neat there is hardware that can push that to new levels of realism but again there are diminishing returns to the value of it all. One thing I like about the mobile gaming world is how much they have had to work to optimize what could be done on lower end GPU power. I would like to see more of that on the computer gaming side instead of just throwing more processing on top of monster graphics cards.
Fro ma video editing perspective to be honest 4k video is pretty darn easy to handle these days. Even my M1 Pro has zero issues until I need really complex processing like raw video noise reduction. Same for 3D animation. Even Hollywood at some needs to use render farms because it's just not very realistic to expect a main and only computer to chug through that kind of rendering. Rendering faster is very important but the Eevee renderer keeps getting better as well and is super fast compared to Cycles. Not everything needs to be ultra photo realistic with global illumination and physically accurate soft shadows. Things like video game assets, sprites, graphic design, and casual 3D rendered elements for videos likely should no be using Cycles at all and can render exceptionally fast on a Mac.
for those that do need ultra realism there are a ton of very affordable online render services. They are very low cost and can render in minutes vs hours or days. Instead of investing thousands of dollars in graphics cards it may make more sense to just render wit ha service and pass the small fee on to a customer. For the $2000 cost of a 4090 right now one can buy a lot of render time. Of course it depends on how much one renders in Blender but if one does that much then they are tying up their expensive machine all the time. Even if one renders overnight what if a big project takes many nights to render? Should a client wait that long.
I have become a big fan of using Eevee in Blender or having na modest system while creating and then use a render service to chug through the process that would take me days to complete. I used to create 3D animation for a manufacturing company and I would spend many days rendering projects. It was so bad I could barely even check email on the computer while it was rendering. Thats why I now prefer to just use a service and continue to use my main computer for other work and tasks.
@@digitaldevigner4080 Fun fact in raw performance the GPU in the M4
Pro is between the 4060 and 4060ti but in Blender it's more like a 3060ti. Though I'm sure it'll get better optimized with future versions. For example the M3 Max originally benchmarked around 3400 in Blender when it was initially released but with 4.2 and onward it's over 4k.
The rest of the M series improved as well but the new architectures benefited the most.
@@chidorirasenganz I followed the development of the Metal support when Apple lent a developer to the Blender development team. He was able to pull off some impressive supports in a short period of time.
There is still some room for optimizations. Nvidia also has many years ahead of Apple and for many years the Blender developers really refused t support anything but Cuda and Optix. So much so they even dropped AMD support at one point and AMD also had to loan their own developers to get the support working again.
Cycles has been meticulously optimized with Blender for a decade. The fact that Apple is catching up and in most cases surpassed AMD is very impressive. A M4 Ultra is going to theoretically be very close to a 4090 with Blender. That should really frighten Nvidia.
To be honest I'm very happy with the Blender performance on my desktop 3060. I feel it's a pretty good balance and likely very realistic of the majority of people using Blender out there. It's full capable of doing very creative work in Blender and beats the 1080tis the pros used to use in Blender. In fact at the Cuda level it's faster than most GPUs. It's Optix that pushes Nvidia past everyone else right now.
I'm very impressed wit the M4 Pro for that very reason. Its literally at a production level of speed for just about every complex task under the sun.
What about difference of fan noises?
Hello! I would like to get an expert opinion in the field. I would like to switch from Windows to MacOs. I am currently working on an AMD Ryzen 7 770x Desktop with 64 Ggia Ram and an NVidea 3060 OC video card. I have turned my attention to the Apple Mac Mini PC with Apple M4 Pro processor, 12 CPU cores and 16 GPU cores, 24GB, 512GB SSD or the Apple Mac Mini PC with Apple M4 Pro processor, 14 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores, 24GB, 512GB SSD or the Apple Mac Mini PC with Apple M4 Pro processor, 14 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores, 48GB, 1TB SSD. I would like to mention that I use LR photo editing and video editing in Davinci Resolve 4k in multicam (2 maximum 3 cameras). Are the ones I mentioned above better than the system I mentioned first in Windows and is it worth switching to Mac or not and which of the ones listed would cope? Thank you
Anyone have tried M4 with Topaz AI softwares ?
Hey David. Im new to your channel and im planning on switching from windows to mac. Im literally useless when it comes to apple products since I never owned one. I simply want to switch because the connectivity in windows is a mess. All I need basically is to plug my guitar into an audio interface which will be connected to the mini mac and run some plugins and record music in a D.A.W. Is standard mini mac enough for my need?
I was thinking of buying the M4 Pro base but was also in two minds about updating the CPU. I’ll make my decision over the next few weeks.
@ZoneProduction448 That's fair! It's a really capable machine. What do you need it for?
Occasional video/photo editing and gaming. Originally, I was going to buy the M4 with 24 GB ram and a 512 SSD. When I weighed up the pros and cons, the M4 Pro is better in overall performance and future-proofing.
@@ZoneProduction448 I was in the same boat, as the graphics and multi-core performance are better - both of which gaming will use - I went with the base pro model. It's also got thunderbolt 5 which if you do want to run an external drive is nearly twice as fast - and irrespective of that, the internal SSD is quicker on the pro model (even if you upgrade to 512GB).
Hello, thank you very much for the video. I'm wondering whether it's worth choosing the even larger processor for the Pro model and whether 24GB of storage is enough if you'd rather use 48GB. I cut all my RUclips videos in 4k with my Mac. What would you recommend?
Kind regards Till
Hey David. New to your channel and I really liked your previous Mac mini video. In this video, you mentioned something about 'crossover', and said that you'd put details about that setup in the comments. I'm interested in the M4 base for video editing (I might bump to 24gb ram). I editing in adobe premiere and prefer cutting in 1080p, so my hope is that this system will be enough. I'm also a lapsed gamer. I don't intend to buy anymore consoles (stopped at Series S), and I'm fine with 1080p for occasional AAA gaming. Will the base be enough? What is this 'crossover' stuff? I didn't see the link and I had not idea that gaming was even a real option on the Mac...
Shoot, I knew I was forgetting so.ething. sorry about that!
Here is the link, this guys does a great job explaining the process simply and providing the links needed!
ruclips.net/video/rTQ0FAKviJM/видео.htmlsi=R9Zg8asy7Rb9S6ii
For AAA gaming at 1080p, I can't say I have tried all the games out there but from the ones I have tried and watching other tests, the Base Model does handle 1080 at 50-60+ FPS (and more in a lot of situations) very well!
That editing in 1080p I feel confident saying you'll be good! Especially with how well it handles my 4k Footage in 10 bit, 4.2.2 (most people don't shoot in this)
@@DavidAVelez1 Thanks!
Hi, in your opinion for future proof and save a bit for budget. I planned to get the Mac mini base but with 24 gb ram with 512 storage - a silly question but will that help a bit with stutter and efficiency even tho I won’t be getting the pro model? Thank you
I bought the M4 Pro model. It should arrive in 2 days. Logic only uses Performance Cores and not Efficiency Cores so the M4 Pro should be amazing for what I do. For most people, the base model will be more than enough.
I’m curious. I’m wanting to get an iMac for logic use. Not sure if I need 24gb for recording actual instruments?
@@ZackPomerleauthe rep i talked to said all pro programs require 16 gb of ram, so i would assume yes… but that is similar to the question im wondering which is how do all the pro programs perform on the very base model with no upgrades. havnt found a confident answer yet
Fan noise? m4 pro?
Awesome video, man!!
@Peóny-k2r Thank you a ton! I hope this video could be more helpful than the last one!
@DavidAVelez1 you did the best way to handle critiques, here before you got big!!
@@Peóny-k2r I really appreciate that! I'm not perfect at this whole thing and never pretend to be so I always appreciate the feedback from you guys!
Are ypu hearing fan noise wİth mac mini during regular works like web browsing,watching videos etc. ?
@@ertana.3276 Nope! Whisper quiet so far in those situations on both!
You're not in the business; you are the business!
When it comes to the m4 pro is it worth upgrading the ram to 48gb for 4k editing? $400 seems like alot for ram upgrade and just curious if the standard 24gb of ram is enough for video editing, I dont do it as a business every single day, but why spend $400 if i dont have to lol
I'm not interested in what this thing can do for a RUclipsr with a base model configuration, I'm interested in how it would look completely spec'd out & used to handle Davinci Resolve with a heavy load of 8K video editing, multi-camera setups, Fusion effects, 10 bit sound tracks, etc. All these comparison videos seem to focus on things that only make a few hundred dollars difference, which is basically the cost of a high capacity CF Express B card or a cheap Z mount lens. That makes it of little interest to me at this price point. How does the M4 Mini Pro with a 14 core CPU, 20 Core GPU, 16 core neural engine, 64 GB of RAM, a 1TB storage SSD, and a 10 Gigabit Ethernet port stack up to it's Apple competition in the Mac Studio line as well as PC competitors? That's a $2500 computer without the monitor. That's nowhere near the price of the Mac Studio's top entries.Toss in an Apple Studio Display for $1600 & now were solidly in the Mac Studio mid-range tipping past the $4K price point. How would a Mini 4 Pro machine of this or a similar configuration do against equivalently priced PCs or the Studio?
@@MarkLewis-l3f This question has already been answered in other videos. The consensus was that the mini's price is inversely proportional to its value when compared to other, higher end macs. In other words, the more you spec out the mini, the less it is worth it for the money / performance ratio. I believe Snazy Labs was the one who made that video. But yes although you can do that, you'd be better off buying something else. Go check him out and see what you think. He can probably explain it better
For 8k multi cam and fusion, you are probably better waiting for a M4 Studio (whichever chip?) or building a PC with the new 5090 when it’s released. The Mac mini range is completely wrong for your workload.
So compared to your M1 MacBook, how is the base M4 Mini? That would be the reference i have as well (16 GB memory).
Much better m4 is much powerful
ok so I'm about to buy one and I'm confused. I usually use Chrome with more than 30 tabs open, VDI remote working, and my main work is in Adobe LrC heavely, with 25Mb DNG files for now.. That's all, then ofcourse i listen to music, and most of my tasks are done in Google Workspace. I currently have a iMAC 27" 2022 with 32Gb RAM and 5112 GB of SSD, and it's getting slower every day. What i really want is a fast machine to work with LrC with no lag. Would it be better to have a Mac mini M4 with 24 or maybe 32 MB of RAM and 1TB SSD or a M4 pro with 24 GB or RAM and 1TB? I would appreciate your support on this expensive decision. thansk :)
I'm debating between the M4 512 GiB vs the M4 Pro. I think one thing that could have been an interesting comparison is adding that extra storage. We all know $200 is a complete rip off for 256GiB, but I myself can't work with the base 256 GiB and don't want an external solution.
So, it would be closer to compare $800 vs $1400 with 16 GiB vs 24 GiB + CPU + GPU differences.
Personally I'm rendering a lot of photos and vector art in affinity and debating if the price jump is worth...
To me if you are a pro and use it for your work, get the pro version because time=money. If it’s just for side personal projects get the base model.
256 is crap even if you use external drives.. once you load all of your software and a couple of extra stuff you are full.. 512 is the bare minimum imo (I am currently running 256 with a few external drives and a NAS server).
@@ПазарджикДевет I’m a graphic designer and I never needed more than 256Go. If you manage well your files and don’t have too many different usages, you can do it.
@ I edit videos on my mac, and not being able to load even a small project without carrying around an ssd (even tho they are small and lightweight) is kind of annoying tbh. Yes I work around that, yes it's doable, but should it be this way? Absolutely not. They got their shit together with the 16 gigs base ram with the new releases, but I hope they change the base storage to 512 as well!
@@ПазарджикДевет Editing videos is different than editing photos my buddy
You don’t have the same usage than this guy, so you can’t compare
Have a nice day
it will be my first Mac computer. i am getting mac mini M4. i will be getting external SSD as well please make a video on how to connect the ssd to mac mini
Hi, for photo shop and illustrator, the m4 pro mac mini base 24/512 will be sufficient?
If you look up a channel called “Krishna Draws” he is a professional digital artist and has a video speaking on Photoshop/Illustrator with his base m4 mini with 24GB Ram and 512GB storage has been butter smooth for his use case.
I mostly work with Clip Studio Paint and Affinity Photo/Designer so it seems like practically same and was looking for videos on digital artists. So for 2D Illustration/Art seems more than sufficient using base m4 chip.
The only thing I wonder is as I’ve been dabbling with 3D and if the base m4 would suffice or should I step up to m4 pro. I’m a newb using blender so I don’t think right now I won’t push the base m4 chip but I worry about down the road if I pursue 3D projects.
It will be more than sufficient.
No, a normal workflow is at least 40GB of RAM. You also want to use Affinity. Adobe sucks and doesn't use metal well. Worth the week spending learning a new UI for the speed.
The people above have no idea what they are talking about or just edit one photo at a time. If you are just editing one photo at a time it's fine.
@@borremoonkeyI’m in exactly the same predicament as yourself - I’m also average sub-user of AE & Blender that has got me thinking which? M4 base or M4 Pro?
Im using the m4 pro and my activity monitor says im using like 17 gb of ram, no swap yet so I guess im good with it ans wouls be swapping with the base m4
MacOS will basically use lots of memory even when not using memory intensive applications. The thing to look at is memory pressure which can be found in activity monitor (a utility in the utility folder). If that's green, you're good to go. If it's often yellow, more memory would be helpful. If red you need more memory.
Thanks for this.
Absolutely! I can't remember if you were here for last weeks video, but I really hope this video could be MORE helpful for you if you were or really helpful even if not 😊 Welcome to the channel!
@@DavidAVelez1 Thanks
I am still deciding between the two as well but your last part of the video made it clear. I am just not doing anything beyond Final Cut once in a while. So I will probably go the base but then I want 24gb or 32gb ram and Apple makes the price upgrade a bit harsh
How about Sony video formats like XAVC HS 4K 422 120fps video editing timeline on FCP ? A bit of luts, effects, denoising on a roughly 3-7mins video timeline ? Will the base model Mac mini m4 be enough for a smooth scrolling playback ? No proxies.
You may need the upcoming M4 Studio Max with at least 32 GB of RAM for the more robust GPU processing. If you were using the less resource intensive Pro Res codec (normally less compressed with All-I frames), I would say the M4 Pro Mini with plenty of RAM.
I don't know if I overbought or not but I'm future proofed for at least 10 years 🤣,M4 Mini Pro 14/20 - 64GB - 4TB. I stacked a few discounts and got it $600 off MSRP 💵.
Daaaaannnggg, yes you're good for quite some time 🤣 That's awesome, though, and a great discount!
makes zeroooo sense… waiting for the base studio m4 max would have been so much smarter… 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
@@Alperic27 I agree but hand it to Apple to delay the studio till mid 2025, I desperately needed a replacement for my late 2014 iMac i5 . Rumor has it the M4 studio will be approximately the same size as the M2, due to that I'll stay with the mini.
I didnt understand what you showed regarding lightroom denoising AI times?,
Great video! I hate to say it, but it should be "your" in the video title.
@@lespaulio Hahahah, oh shoot! Thank you 🤣 I missed that, I just fixed it!
Trophy for you 🏆
Gostei dos testes que fez, pode fazer mais usando estresses mais pesados e insanos?
As a former sys admin I would advise against buying the 256gb model if you plan to use the system for 3yr and perhaps more. Upgrade to 512gb remember your not getting the full 512 there is a filesystem loss and the operating system and main user files take up space. Besides that ssd’s don’t like to run close to full capacity they need a couple % free space to run their maintenance and trim. And since I don’t like to use the build in browser safari I will also upgrade the mem to 24gb. But still I have works with a 16gig MacBook Pro i7 for years making virtual machines and running labs locally on my system 😂 so the mem upgrade is more of a put my mind at ease situation than need.
Loud fan noise pro version?
Why buy a mac mini when you can simply build a rtx 4090 mini itx gaming pc and heat up the entire neighborhood this winter?
Base is fine for me. I'm not a power user
which is best for trading... base or pro model ?
Base is more than enough
@@PedroDVC thank u for reply... what about ssd.. does it makes difference like macbook.. where 512 ssd is speed in write and reading that 256ssd.. do i have to upgrade to 512 ssd ?
What was that Back to the Future DeLorean artwork?
Thank you for this. I tend to talk myself into into the higher spec, and you comment around saving a few minutes here or there etc making the pro stack up over time nearly had me. But I’m glad you reiterated that the base will be enough for most.
I’ll probably upgrade my MacBook so there’s no need to spend huge dollars on my home desktop. I think I can concurrently get the base and look so upgrading the MacBook some time next year.
Why would a business even use the basic config M4? That is audience is not the target, just saying.
Real world application using adobe or blender is way helpful to the viewers than showing numbers.
cyberpunk will be native on apple in 2025 waiting for tests
Your comparing 24g vs16g. Not a good comparison
Actually it is as both are the base available off the shelf versions. I'll add that adding 24gb unified memory and 512gb storage at that point you're at $999 which at that point it's hard not to jump on to the Pro version. Especially for graphic work. I think the video is to show a basic difference between the base off the shelf available models.
‘The pro model is more for people like myself” lol….ok
Temperatures? I don’t know what warm, kinda warm means…
No Ragrets
@@MrHtech "REGRET: REGRET, REGRET - REGRET!"
500 bucks now on Amazon. No brainer.
@@JulianFernandez If you know a student, you can also get it for that price if you miss the black friday deals for any reason. I am a student myself and got the m4 pro for $100 off ish, and the base is 499.99 if that helps anyone
not sure what is up with your video but the colors are disgusting
DISGUSTING!? 🤣 Why so?
He’s right 😂 in 2 years you’ll be looking at this comment and be like: yeah, guess he was right, I get it now.
@@xXxDamon96 Hahaha, that's fair! But what exactly about it?
I did just move into a new space and haven't had time to pin down the lighting
Very flat. Not much range between light and dark.
bad colors - too orange!!!
David, cover if possible, the resolution and scaling you use or recommend on your Mac for the monitor (non 5k) you are using.