If you're getting a new Mac (or you have any previous Mac tbh), I heavily recommend giving CleanMyMac a try! You can try it for FREE using my link - clnmy.com/ZONEofTECH Thanks to CleanMyMac for Sponsoring this Video! Also, sorry for taking so long with this video! We've tested close to 20 games (Native, Windows, Switch, PS3 and PS2) on almost all Apple Silicon Macs, whilst also moving into our new office. 😊A more regular video schedule will shortly return.
Should I get M2 Pro chip with 12‑core CPU and 19‑core GPU 1TB SSD 16GB Ram OR the new M4 Base with 1TB SSD 16GB Ram. I also edit 4K 60 videos a lot. Price is slightly more for the M2 Pro one but I just need the best value for my money. Please help
@@ishoboydanny You could look into picking up a lightly used M1 Max MBP. I just picked up a nearly maxed out 32gb, 2tb 14” for 1,100$ I’m going to do a comparison between that and my m3 pro MBP with 18gb, 1tb and my base M4 mini. Maybe even compare it against my work MBA m1 16gb, 1tb just to get a decent look.
THANK YOU for not testing the performance of the machine with MetalFX turned on. Some people in the tech RUclips don't know how to test the SoC's raw performance in games.
A hundred thumbs up for showing results across all the tiers of all the generations to help those of us considering upgrading see what we’d be getting!
Three months ago , i’ve bought a mac-mini with M2 Pro ( 12 cores CPU and 19 cores GPU ) , 16 GB Ram and 512 Gb SSD for 1499 Euros ( which means 1499 $ us , 1 $ us = 1 Euro ) , and now , this base mac-mini with M4 at 599 $ is has almost the same performance with my M2 Pro mac-mini .
Should I buy the M4 Mac mini with the m4 16gb 512gb or m4 pro 24gb 512gb for my use case? And do I need 1tb or 512gb is good enough? I need it for beginners photo and video editing, programming, web browsing, watching RUclips videos, listening to music and podcasts with high quality audio interface and headphones amp.
Nicely. Done. Have you tried the HDMI port to a monitor from the M4 Mac mini ? I'm having continuous black flashes for about .5 sec before returning :( I even rebooted the monitor and changed cables. No problems using the thunderbolt connection. Thanks
M4 Ultra Mac Studio is about to take over everything, my GOD I cannot even imagine gaming performance on the M4 Extreme Mac Pro, its gonna be an absolute banger! Apple needs to make every Mac have a Space Black option, Space Black Mac Studio or Space Black Mac Pro would sell out hour 1 of release!
W video 🔥 Is Mac Mini M4 Pro 16 Core CPU, 20 Core GPU good for heavy 3d editing on after effects like heavy 3d camera tracking & 4k editing? Plz reply!
Great video! I understand that M4 Pro performs better, but could there be an argument that M4 Pro performs better because it starts at 24GB ram vs base model M4 which starts at 16GB ram? I am wondering if the games would perform significantly better with upgraded 24GB ram on M4 model?
Imagine thinking that taking down the main repositories for an emulator completely deletes it from existence. You can find Ryujinx builds if you look for them. ;)
Key term: compact If you dont care about compactness, a $350 PC with a 1660 super will be better than this $600 + $200 for ssd+enclosure = $800 machine in terms of performance. And the mac cant even play many games so theres that.
It's not,the M4 pro is but the price is much more. The CPU is quite impressive and very good for the price but the GPU and ram capacity lags behind. But "just accept it"@@corgikun2579
Hi there 👋🏻 Can we pls get specs for the Base M4 and M4 Pro you have used with RAM in both please 🙏🏼 Gaming performance can vary considerably based on 8/16/24gb RAM 🫠
Would be cool to include results with metal FX turned on and off. There really isn't any reason to disable metal fx as most of these games were designed to use it. Most people nowadays are turning it on.
If you’re only spending $600 for the base model, you’re getting 256GB. That’s barely enough for three triple A games, which is what this video seems to be focused on. To get 1TB of storage you need to spend at least $1000, at which point a PC that runs those games natively starts to look much more appealing.
a 1tb external ssd costs £80 and it’s smaller than the already mini mac. for a total of £680 a mac with 1.25tb of storage, 16gb of memory and an m4 chip with all of the benefits of mac os, this is an unreal deal.
Thanks for using the 14 inch MacBook m3 max binned model, since I have it and is uncommon for benchmarking videos in general. You should try to benchmark Lies of P, since it’s native for Apple and can be played at Steam.
Can’t come close to my Mac Pro 2019 with rx6900xt running windows, but hey for 600 bucks it’s pretty impressive, I’ll be using my mini for content creation not gaming.
It actually is a compelling gaming machine with CrossOver and Steam Big Picture mode. Way more games than PS5 offers. The PS5 performance will be better though. You can always spec up past PS5 Pro performance if you want to put the money into it, but at that point you should get an x86 gaming PC. Really nice that Apple has some options to compete in gaming though. And if you are buying the computer for a different main purpose, this is a nice bonus.
But is it compatible with Fedora 41 spin KDE Plasma? I’d like to know if it’s possible to use another operating system without the restrictions of Apple’s OS and fully take advantage of the hardware
Why can't one use the SD Card port as a internal storage upgrade for Macs that have SD Card ports. Could one plug in a 2TB SD Card and increase the Mac's storage by 2TB? How much slower is it, but is it fast enough for use as storage? One would not use it as a scratch drive, but to long term store files we rarely use. Would that be possible? Can someone do some SSD Speed tests and post the comparisons?
It’s significantly slower. It is doable. I have seen one company selling an sd card just for macbooks for this purpose. It sits flush against the laptop’s body and doesn’t protrude like sd cards normally do. It is quite expensive though.
Indeed an awesome performance. Only wish the upgrade prices for storage and memory weren’t so ridiculous. 13:27 let’s not forget the console comes with 1TB storage 😂
I think that I will get a Mac mini some time in the future but not the most powerful one, until they "make me" change my mind, I'm playing with my xbox
Diablo 4: My M2 macbook air is pumping out 50-60fps. Sure, not high settings and stuff. You need the right setting with AMD ASMR 2.0 etc. But still, I'm sure the M4 can play diablo 4 marvously with medium settings
Im just gonna wait til they make 512gb or 1tb the base standard. By that time I'm pretty sure a crap load of games would get support for the Mac since Apple kinda advertise the Mac for gaming. Also, the performance would have jumped far.
Not sure why anyone would run with MetalFX disabled. Yeah, I guess it's cool to get the 'raw performance' numbers but in real world usage it's not something anyone would really do.
Need the mod for totk, fps is rough on most systems without it… also try new fork of ryujinx… I get 48 fps though I cap at 30 on m4 Mac… though I’m sure there’s already like 30 comments about this :) love the new mini :) also ryujinx is working on hyper visor support , still unstable though…. Also arm version of rpcs3 seems better performance less stability…
Why compare based M single core to previous gen Pro, Max, Ultra chip? Of course the new chip is going to be better. Single core is the same within the same gen chips
If the m5 mini in 18months can be as powerful as an m3 max, then we can finally game (medium graphics) on a Mac. Just 18 more months Dam that's tough. But m4 mac mini is a great computer at 500 dollars (if you use student discount or buy on amazon)
The M4 Mac Mini is not that powerful for my needs so i am getting the Mac Mini M4 Pro 14 core version as 4 performance cores is rubbish whilst using logic pro 11
Ratched & Clank my childhood game! i wonder if i could manage to play it on huawei laptop. It has 16GB of ram and intel i5 11th generation so i think is gonna be rough. :(
All good, but I just want this new M4 to synchronize better with the apps in the computer 🖥️ Which never happens. All those people working for Apple 🍎 are just useless if they can’t keep up with the changes.
@@corgikun2579 I have 2 tb ssd on my pc and one tb is almost gone. GAmes are huge these days. I just don't get Apple s base model with 256 gb storage. I am happy for you, that they bumped it up to 16 gb ram. They should have done the same with storage. A minimum of 512 would suit them. And the upgrade prices OMD, I'll just stay on upgradable PC's, which btw is much cheaper to upgrade in every way.
It’s ridiculous how people do this reviews in such a long video and never tell you the most important thing !!!! With base model at 256g after upgrading IOS and installing some apps with 2 or 3 games u left with less then 50G !!!! So not sure why buying something that’s it’s unusable . 2024 mini PCs should have at least 1Tb to be fully usable. Not mentioning iOS upgrades down the line !!!….. check minisforum elite AI 370 as an example !!!
@@Wusyaname_I think they meant just an ssd + an enclosure. Not upgrading the internal ssd. I personally got a 2tb Samsung nvme ssd and an enclosure for $265.
@@Wusyaname_ the apple one costs $600, I'm not talking about that cuz thats just ridiculous pricing. I'm talking about external storage. An ssd enclosure costs around $80 and a good 1 tb ssd costs around $120, although you can get it for a bit cheaper but will sacrifice on speed and life.
@@corgikun2579 stupidest thing i heard today. Me and my buddies play elden ring, valorant, assetto corsa and MFS and many other games. You don't 'finish' multiplayer games. I also like to play Hollow Knight, Wukong and Sekiro. Most people regularly play games they like.
If you're getting a new Mac (or you have any previous Mac tbh), I heavily recommend giving CleanMyMac a try! You can try it for FREE using my link - clnmy.com/ZONEofTECH
Thanks to CleanMyMac for Sponsoring this Video!
Also, sorry for taking so long with this video! We've tested close to 20 games (Native, Windows, Switch, PS3 and PS2) on almost all Apple Silicon Macs, whilst also moving into our new office. 😊A more regular video schedule will shortly return.
My m3 pro MBP 18gb/1tb smokes my base m4 mm.
Should I get M2 Pro chip with 12‑core CPU and 19‑core GPU 1TB SSD 16GB Ram OR the new M4 Base with 1TB SSD 16GB Ram. I also edit 4K 60 videos a lot.
Price is slightly more for the M2 Pro one but I just need the best value for my money.
Please help
@@ishoboydanny You could look into picking up a lightly used M1 Max MBP. I just picked up a nearly maxed out 32gb, 2tb 14” for 1,100$ I’m going to do a comparison between that and my m3 pro MBP with 18gb, 1tb and my base M4 mini. Maybe even compare it against my work MBA m1 16gb, 1tb just to get a decent look.
@@keenobservations3050 im trying to find M1 Max but there are way too expensive here in Canada even the used ones…
I would love to see you setup a small Mac mini base render farm.... of maybe 5 m4 Mac minis? Then using Blender to use the farm to render scenes.
Andrew Garfield back with another banger video 🔥
I know a lot of mac mini reviews dropped, but the only ones actually worth watching even this much later are ZOT and Optimum, love this stuff
Thanks a ton!! 👏🏻😊
Add Snazzy Labs to this list. There’s a nice one with the new Mac Mini.
THANK YOU for not testing the performance of the machine with MetalFX turned on. Some people in the tech RUclips don't know how to test the SoC's raw performance in games.
I use mine as a Steam box. Currently hooked up to a TV along with my PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch. Works great.
Thinking about doing the same. What about Steam games, is it good?
Oh, you're walking on the edge by showing Zelda emulation footage.
A hundred thumbs up for showing results across all the tiers of all the generations to help those of us considering upgrading see what we’d be getting!
No, the ultimate gaming Mac is the M4 Pro-powered Mini with its 14 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores. That’s a GPU that’s twice as fast as the base model.
And for the price ?
1600$ and you’re still stuck to 1080p for consitant smoothness across games. The only true gaming capable Mac is the coming M4 Max/ultra Mac Studio
Overpriced for mac
I mean, if you really want to do "Gaming" then most of the time even a $250 graphics card outdoes anything integrated, but whatever
Apple Silicon is the best the Mac has ever been for gaming, and its only getting better with each release!
Three months ago , i’ve bought a mac-mini with M2 Pro ( 12 cores CPU and 19 cores GPU ) , 16 GB Ram and 512 Gb SSD for 1499 Euros ( which means 1499 $ us , 1 $ us = 1 Euro ) , and now , this base mac-mini with M4 at 599 $ is has almost the same performance with my M2 Pro mac-mini .
I bought the m2 mac mini a month ago. I returned it and got the m4 hehe
I’m undecided between a Mac mini or a Mac desktop. Can you recommend some good inexpensive monitors for it?
Should I buy the M4 Mac mini with the m4 16gb 512gb or m4 pro 24gb 512gb for my use case? And do I need 1tb or 512gb is good enough? I need it for beginners photo and video editing, programming, web browsing, watching RUclips videos, listening to music and podcasts with high quality audio interface and headphones amp.
M4 Pro. The cost isn't that much different, once you spec out the M4 tbh.
Nicely. Done.
Have you tried the HDMI port to a monitor from the M4 Mac mini ?
I'm having continuous black flashes for about .5 sec before returning :(
I even rebooted the monitor and changed cables. No problems using the thunderbolt connection.
Thanks
I trust this reviewer because he really knows what he is talking about, I watched his video is for the first time 7 years ago.
Thanks, I ordered the M4 24/512 to accompany my 2011 mini. It will be a killer gaming machine😀
It's not. It won't.
@ I’m just kidding. I will use the mini for graphic and light video editing.😎
Does the m4 pro MacBook Pro perform as well as the m4 pro Mac mini?
Ok...will it run Star Citizen or Nolvus Ascession Skyrim? If the answer is yes to both I'll buy one this weekend.
How funny the Mac Mini is the current fastest desktop Apple currently sell in their lineup at $600 😂
M4 Ultra Mac Studio is about to take over everything, my GOD I cannot even imagine gaming performance on the M4 Extreme Mac Pro, its gonna be an absolute banger!
Apple needs to make every Mac have a Space Black option, Space Black Mac Studio or Space Black Mac Pro would sell out hour 1 of release!
Love the new studio!
Yay! Thank you! 🤩
@@ZONEofTECH The wallpaper on the office walls, is absolutely gorgeous as well.
W video 🔥
Is Mac Mini M4 Pro 16 Core CPU, 20 Core GPU good for heavy 3d editing on after effects like heavy 3d camera tracking & 4k editing? Plz reply!
Great video!
I understand that M4 Pro performs better, but could there be an argument that M4 Pro performs better because it starts at 24GB ram vs base model M4 which starts at 16GB ram?
I am wondering if the games would perform significantly better with upgraded 24GB ram on M4 model?
Id like to see current AAA Games at 1440p
They can easily run at 60fps, if you enable Dynamic Resolution scaling.
Forget it man, RUclipsrs/Reviewers doesn’t even know 1440p gaming exists 😂
@ sad
@@rodolfocamposjimenez2566 According to latest steam poll, most people still use 1080p soooooo...
@@ZONEofTECH You mean MetalFX upscaling right? I am heavily considering a Mac as my next laptop.
Thank you! This is exactly the video I wanted to see.
Glad it was helpful! 😊
What switch emulator are you using? I thought all the ones were taken down
Imagine thinking that taking down the main repositories for an emulator completely deletes it from existence. You can find Ryujinx builds if you look for them. ;)
I use mine to play gamecube and ps2 games. Ive been playing Socom II online with perfect performance. My new gaming machine
but I thought you required JIT for Dolphin?
Been using my base m4 pro for emulation and its absolutely insane.
Should I buy a base M4 mac mini or should I upgrade my pc?
The new studio looks striking. It’s a beautiful space to shoot in about any styles of videos. I wish I could borrow it.
Oh crap you showed Nintendo emulation. Get ready for their lawyers!
probably the best cheapest compact gaming pc right now
Key term: compact
If you dont care about compactness, a $350 PC with a 1660 super will be better than this $600 + $200 for ssd+enclosure = $800 machine in terms of performance. And the mac cant even play many games so theres that.
@@askeladden450 naahh, the mac mini is better, just accept it
@@corgikun2579 why?
It's not,the M4 pro is but the price is much more. The CPU is quite impressive and very good for the price but the GPU and ram capacity lags behind. But "just accept it"@@corgikun2579
Nope those bs windows game are only litterly 30fps
Hi there 👋🏻
Can we pls get specs for the Base M4 and M4 Pro you have used with RAM in both please 🙏🏼
Gaming performance can vary considerably based on 8/16/24gb RAM 🫠
No more 8gb, 16gb is now the base.
@ yes 🫡
Would be cool to include results with metal FX turned on and off. There really isn't any reason to disable metal fx as most of these games were designed to use it. Most people nowadays are turning it on.
If you’re only spending $600 for the base model, you’re getting 256GB. That’s barely enough for three triple A games, which is what this video seems to be focused on. To get 1TB of storage you need to spend at least $1000, at which point a PC that runs those games natively starts to look much more appealing.
We’ve been running all games from a thunderbolt drive. So you don’t actually need that much internal storage
a 1tb external ssd costs £80 and it’s smaller than the already mini mac. for a total of £680 a mac with 1.25tb of storage, 16gb of memory and an m4 chip with all of the benefits of mac os, this is an unreal deal.
Thanks for using the 14 inch MacBook m3 max binned model, since I have it and is uncommon for benchmarking videos in general. You should try to benchmark Lies of P, since it’s native for Apple and can be played at Steam.
What about the temperature condition in the extreme condition? please share
This is the gaming video I wanted to see for the M4 Mac Mini - thanks 👍
this Mac mini is with its price its gonna be most sold Mac mini
Were you using the latest version of D3DMetal from GPTK 2.0b3?
Unbelievably, unbelievable !
Can’t come close to my Mac Pro 2019 with rx6900xt running windows, but hey for 600 bucks it’s pretty impressive, I’ll be using my mini for content creation not gaming.
It actually is a compelling gaming machine with CrossOver and Steam Big Picture mode. Way more games than PS5 offers. The PS5 performance will be better though. You can always spec up past PS5 Pro performance if you want to put the money into it, but at that point you should get an x86 gaming PC. Really nice that Apple has some options to compete in gaming though. And if you are buying the computer for a different main purpose, this is a nice bonus.
I'm waiting for the M4 15" Air... should be amazing compared to previous models
But is it compatible with Fedora 41 spin KDE Plasma? I’d like to know if it’s possible to use another operating system without the restrictions of Apple’s OS and fully take advantage of the hardware
Asahi Linux can run on apple silicon
Great video. Would've been nice to see the M4 Pro binned version as well.
Very well organised and edited video. Well done guys.
I didnlt know that Drake bell was a great tech reviewer.... just teasing haha thanks for this great review, i ordered one.
Nice video. Congratulations with moving into your new office
Why can't one use the SD Card port as a internal storage upgrade for Macs that have SD Card ports. Could one plug in a 2TB SD Card and increase the Mac's storage by 2TB? How much slower is it, but is it fast enough for use as storage? One would not use it as a scratch drive, but to long term store files we rarely use. Would that be possible? Can someone do some SSD Speed tests and post the comparisons?
It’s significantly slower. It is doable. I have seen one company selling an sd card just for macbooks for this purpose. It sits flush against the laptop’s body and doesn’t protrude like sd cards normally do. It is quite expensive though.
Indeed an awesome performance. Only wish the upgrade prices for storage and memory weren’t so ridiculous. 13:27 let’s not forget the console comes with 1TB storage 😂
I think that I will get a Mac mini some time in the future but not the most powerful one, until they "make me" change my mind, I'm playing with my xbox
Just bought one to be my ps1 and ps2 emulator. It will be a console under my tv
What about the new releases of Total War? Can you play them well? Also: World of Warcraft plays well?
Diablo 4: My M2 macbook air is pumping out 50-60fps. Sure, not high settings and stuff. You need the right setting with AMD ASMR 2.0 etc. But still, I'm sure the M4 can play diablo 4 marvously with medium settings
Can not wait for the M4 MacBook air!
Im just gonna wait til they make 512gb or 1tb the base standard.
By that time I'm pretty sure a crap load of games would get support for the Mac since Apple kinda advertise the Mac for gaming.
Also, the performance would have jumped far.
Why use the studio display when it runs at 60Hz?
Not sure why anyone would run with MetalFX disabled. Yeah, I guess it's cool to get the 'raw performance' numbers but in real world usage it's not something anyone would really do.
Need the mod for totk, fps is rough on most systems without it… also try new fork of ryujinx… I get 48 fps though I cap at 30 on m4 Mac… though I’m sure there’s already like 30 comments about this :) love the new mini :) also ryujinx is working on hyper visor support , still unstable though…. Also arm version of rpcs3 seems better performance less stability…
I was looking forward to seeing MetalFX gains. Good video!
As always you deliver ❤❤❤
Thanks!
Why compare based M single core to previous gen Pro, Max, Ultra chip? Of course the new chip is going to be better. Single core is the same within the same gen chips
mac m1 pro vs m4 macbook air?
If the m5 mini in 18months can be as powerful as an m3 max, then we can finally game (medium graphics) on a Mac.
Just 18 more months
Dam that's tough.
But m4 mac mini is a great computer at 500 dollars (if you use student discount or buy on amazon)
With 256GB storage, you pretty much can only install 2 or 3 games at a time.
Great and to the to the point review.
The M4 Mac Mini is not that powerful for my needs so i am getting the Mac Mini M4 Pro 14 core version as 4 performance cores is rubbish whilst using logic pro 11
Ratched & Clank my childhood game! i wonder if i could manage to play it on huawei laptop. It has 16GB of ram and intel i5 11th generation so i think is gonna be rough. :(
I'm amazed that it's actually playable on the base M4 Mac mini!
@ I might think about getting one very soon. Thank you for this video Dan! Appreciate you always
I think you could have run a PS2 game on just about anything
All good, but I just want this new M4 to synchronize better with the apps in the computer 🖥️ Which never happens. All those people working for Apple 🍎 are just useless if they can’t keep up with the changes.
Can I stream and play with no problems? Just like a regular PC?
No
@ why is that? Genuinely asking
How many games can the base model hold on a 256 gb ssd?
more than you have skills to finish for sure
@@corgikun2579 I have 2 tb ssd on my pc and one tb is almost gone. GAmes are huge these days. I just don't get Apple
s base model with 256 gb storage. I am happy for you, that they bumped it up to 16 gb ram. They should have done the same with storage. A minimum of 512 would suit them. And the upgrade prices OMD, I'll just stay on upgradable PC's, which btw is much cheaper to upgrade in every way.
Nintendo might come after this video
Ps5 killer, and you can do more at a much cheaper price
iMac 32'' will be the ultimate gaming machine!!!🎮
No CS2 Test?
literally a game changer
At this point apple needs to port more games to mac
Excellent video
It’s ridiculous how people do this reviews in such a long video and never tell you the most important thing !!!! With base model at 256g after upgrading IOS and installing some apps with 2 or 3 games u left with less then 50G !!!! So not sure why buying something that’s it’s unusable . 2024 mini PCs should have at least 1Tb to be fully usable. Not mentioning iOS upgrades down the line !!!….. check minisforum elite AI 370 as an example !!!
Can it handle AAA games
why does no one have m2 max 14 mbp
Andrew Garfield 😅
great video
Its not $600, you arent going to fit games in the 256gb storage, you need $200 more worth of ssd + enclosure to make it viable
Or you can get a $50 external drive? I don’t see a point to overspend on Apple’s storage for a desktop pc. A MacBook? Maybe.
@@Wusyaname_I think they meant just an ssd + an enclosure. Not upgrading the internal ssd. I personally got a 2tb Samsung nvme ssd and an enclosure for $265.
@@Wusyaname_ the apple one costs $600, I'm not talking about that cuz thats just ridiculous pricing. I'm talking about external storage. An ssd enclosure costs around $80 and a good 1 tb ssd costs around $120, although you can get it for a bit cheaper but will sacrifice on speed and life.
finish one game and then install another. what's the point of having games you don't play or finish?
@@corgikun2579 stupidest thing i heard today. Me and my buddies play elden ring, valorant, assetto corsa and MFS and many other games. You don't 'finish' multiplayer games. I also like to play Hollow Knight, Wukong and Sekiro. Most people regularly play games they like.
Someone needs to mod M4 Mac Mini into handhelds asap lol
Wait gaming on a mac!? Don't tell Viva La Dirt League this! ^^ for those who know know ^^
And clean new background!
Macs are way too limited for gaming... if your casual enough to game on a Mac you can probably just game on your phone.
Hey Dan 😊 xx
$499 forever at apple education store online. No student ID required. 😊
It seems like Apple is trying to enter the gaming industry, at lest having a device for it.
What about baldurs gate 3?? Anyone?
This is now $499 at Coscto! Enjoy!
Can a computer even be a good PC if it can hardly be upgraded by the user?
Andrew Garfield but a tech guy
You are going to be Nintendo-struck by showing Switch emulation
diablo 30fps playable?!?! is crazy 💀
All I care about is WoW and FFXIV. I know we'll never see Call of Duty 6 or above on Mac anytime soon, let alone in this lifetime.
What about some eSports titles like Apex legends, Fortnight and pubg... Bruh! 😒
New studio looks off 😢
SNAP into a slim Jim