Apple M4 Macs: iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Pro

Looks like the reviewers are benchmarking their machines, since there's a flood of Geekbench test results for M4 Macs.

The long and short of it is that the M4 Pro and M4 Max in particular are beasts, at least in these benchmarks. You can get a MacBook Pro with an M4 Max that handily outperforms a Mac Pro with an M2 Ultra. Not entirely surprising given that we're two generations ahead of M2U, but still...

Of course, I'm most interested in the regular M4; the benches I've seen so far suggest it'll outrun Lunar Lake and Snapdragon X Elite, and maybe comparable Ryzen AI HX chips. But that's Geekbench, and I know that's not the whole story.
 
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uOpt said:
Why would you for a stationary computer? As external SSD should be fine on it, no?
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I do that at the moment, but it introduces all sorts of issues so I want to move away from that. Plus I want to know if it gets loud under load (it probably won’t) since it’s primary use will be as a DAW.
 
Aurelius said:
Looks like the reviewers are benchmarking their machines, since there's a flood of Geekbench test results for M4 Macs.

The long and short of it is that the M4 Pro and M4 Max in particular are beasts, at least in these benchmarks. You can get a MacBook Pro with an M4 Max that handily outperforms a Mac Pro with an M2 Ultra. Not entirely surprising given that we're two generations ahead of M2U, but still...

Of course, I'm most interested in the regular M4; the benches I've seen so far suggest it'll outrun Lunar Lake and Snapdragon X Elite, and maybe comparable Ryzen AI HX chips. But that's Geekbench, and I know that's not the whole story.
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Anyone run Baldur's Gate 3 yet? Also why compare the M4 to the M2? Shouldn't it be compared to the M3?
 
DukenukemX said:
? Also why compare the M4 to the M2? Shouldn't it be compared to the M3?
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Should be to both, but one main reason, natural target audience for an upgrade would be more the M1-M2 owner than M3 owner.
Upgrade pace, a lot of the competition tend to compare the new product to 2 years old product as well, as they do not have major yearly release.
 
DukenukemX said:
Anyone run Baldur's Gate 3 yet? Also why compare the M4 to the M2? Shouldn't it be compared to the M3?
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I haven't seen it yet, but then BG3 doesn't have a publicly searchable benchmark database as far as I know. You'll see the figures next week if some of the early reviewers are testing BG3.

I mentioned the M2 Ultra because it's been the absolute performance champ in some respects for a while, if just through brute force. It's effectively two M2 Max chips grafted together with 24 total CPU cores, 70 GPU cores, and 32 Neural Engine cores. If an M4 Max with 16 CPU cores, 40 GPU cores and 16 Neural Engine cores can comfortably outpace an M2 Ultra while using much less power, that's a pretty big achievement. Remember, the M2U is only available in the Mac Studio and Mac Pro desktops — you can get an M4 Max in a 14-inch MacBook Pro.

There was never an M3 Ultra, likely because Apple either saw limited gains or didn't want to commit to it on a short-lived 3nm process where chip yields might have been low.

Like-for-like M3 comparisons will probably be favorable; not necessarily dramatic, but enough that there'll be a good reason to buy an M4 version instead of a discounted M3 equivalent. Something I find amusing and promising: the early Geekbench data suggests that even the M4 Pro-based Mac mini could be Apple's most powerful desktop to date, so long as your GPU and I/O needs aren't greater.
 
I ordered the 16” M4 Max as an upgrade over my M1 Max that has been terrific. Also using a 16”
M2 Max for work. These are beasts at both model training and inference. Having CP2077 arriving on Mac is somewhat exciting, I have a lot of love for that game and that world.
 
sphinx99 said:
I ordered the 16” M4 Max as an upgrade over my M1 Max that has been terrific. Also using a 16”
M2 Max for work. These are beasts at both model training and inference. Having CP2077 arriving on Mac is somewhat exciting, I have a lot of love for that game and that world.
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The benefit of CP2077 is yet another tool to help properly benchmark this hardware. Gotta get away from the practice of using Cinebench and Geekbench.
 
Apple hates this simple trick. Apple users won't get it.
2 macs cheaper than 1.png
 
uOpt said:
That is more the result of the very low base price.
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I am not sure charging a litteral $1000 canadian dollars to go from 256 ssd to a 2tb ssd type of pricing is more the result of the very low base price (or that the base price is more than just fine here).

The answer is probably because they can, someone that need space for an Apple mini and for some reason, do not want it to be an external harddrive is probably ready to play, because that would be an really high value device (and I imagine they make it complicated for someone to just change the harddrive themselve for a nice 2tb 990 pro).
 
My pricing sheet from Apple is a few months old and doesn't have the new M4 stuff, but this is what I see they were charging previously.
1730828467039.png


on the website, though I can't even see the configuration the post is talking about, this seems to be the top-end.
1730828565916.png
 
sc5mu93 said:
maybe i have missed it, but at this point is there enough critical mass/installed user base for native games? The macmini launch video demoed gaming with Control which launched for PC in 2019. Are devs/apple just not interested? If they were, I would expect a more recent release.
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One of the things I've read is that the development pipeline to develop and release a game on macOS is extremely difficult to work in, which turns a lot of developers away. Then you have the chicken & egg problem, where a developer or publisher isn't going to want to spend the money to get a version working on an OS with a small user base that is interested in gaming. It seems like support for macOS in the gaming industry has slightly increased in the past decade versus where they were in the 2010s, though.
Aurelius said:
Right now it’s because Apple finally has computers that can play modern games decently, and some devs are willing to bring over recent games. My question isn’t so much “isn’t Control old?” as much as it is “why not BG3 or other newer games that would also run well?”

Apple does seem to be on a better path for gaming, but it’s still going to be a long road unless it can get devs writing Mac versions en masse.
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Baldur's Gate 3 has had a native macOS version since release.
 
LukeTbk said:
once you click you can boost it before buying, you can turn it into 10 gigabits, 8 TB ssd and 64Gig or memory, $6000 canadian at that config level.
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$4700 but yeah, I look forward to my updated price sheet.
 
Armenius said:
Baldur's Gate 3 has had a native macOS version since release.
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I know, hence why I mentioned it!

From what I've seen since, it's simply that Control is a good example of ray tracing in a Mac-native game. BG3 and other titles are much newer, but they either don't have ray tracing (often on any platform) or wouldn't really be a good showcase for it.

It's also that Apple is only really throwing things wide open with the M4 release. The M3 didn't reach any desktops besides the iMac, and developers have only had about a year to implement any kind of ray tracing. Now, you can expect it even on a $599 Mac mini, and it's going to be ubiquitous across the lineup. I'm not expecting a flood of RT-ready games, but you could see updates for some titles.
 
DukenukemX said:
Another way of looking at it, twice the compute and external monitor support for the price of one. Does this mean the M4 chip is cheaper than ram and ssd storage?
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I also know that Apple and SKHynix formed some sort of partnership last year, I don't know the details of what that partnership entails but I would think that with any partnership there are cost benefits awarded to each side, so maybe they become Apple's exclusive provider for memory and storage and in turn they get a discount?
The M3 chip was using TSMC N3B node which was their initial version of the N3 lineup, it had a high failure rate, while being slow to physically produce.
The M4 chip is using the refined TSMC N3P node which is the "relaxed" N3B version, which is easier to work with and has power and performance advantages over N3B while being cheaper and faster to work with than the N3B process.
I believe TSMC has stopped offering the N3B node and it was only Apple who ever ended up using it, it was too problematic to continue offering.
 
16-inch Liquid Retina XDR display²
Standard display
Apple M4 Max chip with 16‑core CPU, 40‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
48GB unified memory
2TB SSD storage

Comes December 2. I
Might be able to drop windows and just use it for games. Going to test this beast out when I get it
 
Epyon said:
16-inch Liquid Retina XDR display²
Standard display
Apple M4 Max chip with 16‑core CPU, 40‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
48GB unified memory
2TB SSD storage

Comes December 2. I
Might be able to drop windows and just use it for games. Going to test this beast out when I get it
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You're going to drop Windows and use your Mac ... for games? Gaming on Mac is balls, unless you play World of Warcraft or something.

Edit: Do you mean just use Windows for games?
 
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Shoganai said:
You're going to drop Windows and use your Mac ... for games? Gaming on Mac is balls, unless you play World of Warcraft or something.

Edit: Do you mean just use Windows for games?
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Well, if you’re a big Cyberpunk fan, you’re about to get a viable option as well…

I would love to see Apple use its clout to get a big online game on the Mac, like Valorant. There would also be a wonderful full-circle moment if the Marathon reboot was available on Macs (but I’d take Destiny in the meantime).
 
Shoganai said:
You're going to drop Windows and use your Mac ... for games? Gaming on Mac is balls, unless you play World of Warcraft or something.

Edit: Do you mean just use Windows for games?
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yes the pc would be for games and houdini 3d rendering only
 
Aurelius said:
Well, if you’re a big Cyberpunk fan, you’re about to get a viable option as well…

I would love to see Apple use its clout to get a big online game on the Mac, like Valorant. There would also be a wonderful full-circle moment if the Marathon reboot was available on Macs (but I’d take Destiny in the meantime).
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I worded it odd. The PC would be for houdini 3d rendering and PC games only. everything else would be on a mac in clam shell with a HDMI cable. I hate windows.
 
1.1.2.3.5... said:
I am interested in how it does
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Spoiler, not well.
Aurelius said:
Well, if you’re a big Cyberpunk fan, you’re about to get a viable option as well…
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I personally hated the game but to each their own.
I would love to see Apple use its clout to get a big online game on the Mac, like Valorant. There would also be a wonderful full-circle moment if the Marathon reboot was available on Macs (but I’d take Destiny in the meantime).
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If Apple wants games then Apple has to pay for the ports. The Apple ecosystem is just not friendly for gaming in general.
 
DukenukemX said:
If Apple wants games then Apple has to pay for the ports. The Apple ecosystem is just not friendly for gaming in general.
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Doesn’t sound like it is, actually — it’s just making the business case that the cost of a port is low enough that the developer is going to make some incremental profit. Low-hanging fruit.

And I’m not sure if I want Apple to simply buy its way into gaming. It needs to know that there will still be releases after the initial money dries up. One of Microsoft’s problems with Windows Phone was that it paid for big-name apps, but the platform was still so unattractive that the devs rarely stayed committed. The Mac is a lot better on that front, especially with M4 and the easier porting tools.
 
Aurelius said:
Doesn’t sound like it is, actually — it’s just making the business case that the cost of a port is low enough that the developer is going to make some incremental profit. Low-hanging fruit.

And I’m not sure if I want Apple to simply buy its way into gaming. It needs to know that there will still be releases after the initial money dries up. One of Microsoft’s problems with Windows Phone was that it paid for big-name apps, but the platform was still so unattractive that the devs rarely stayed committed. The Mac is a lot better on that front, especially with M4 and the easier porting tools.
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Apple buying game publishers is my idea of purgatory, because that's what Apple would need to do to get the ball rolling if even by a little. People who generally buy powerful computers are not doing so because they need a Speedometer of 40 or even to do video editing, but because of gaming. People who buy powerful computers do it for productivity or gaming, and I think people over estimate how many Mac users are doing productivity tasks. Whoopi Goldberg thought her Mac was a gaming machine. If you wanted to game you could get a lot more for a lot less, while also having access to a lot more games. This is why I feel that Apple hasn't had much success in Mac sales since the launch of the M1, because either people were disappointment in that they couldn't play their favorite games or because the M1 machine is just a glorified Chromebook and they're happy with it and need nothing more. This is why CP2077 is a good thing because Apple needs to show what their hardware can actually do, besides Geekbench and Cinebench.
 
DukenukemX said:
Apple buying game publishers is my idea of purgatory, because that's what Apple would need to do to get the ball rolling if even by a little. People who generally buy powerful computers are not doing so because they need a Speedometer of 40 or even to do video editing, but because of gaming. People who buy powerful computers do it for productivity or gaming, and I think people over estimate how many Mac users are doing productivity tasks. Whoopi Goldberg thought her Mac was a gaming machine. If you wanted to game you could get a lot more for a lot less, while also having access to a lot more games. This is why I feel that Apple hasn't had much success in Mac sales since the launch of the M1, because either people were disappointment in that they couldn't play their favorite games or because the M1 machine is just a glorified Chromebook and they're happy with it and need nothing more. This is why CP2077 is a good thing because Apple needs to show what their hardware can actually do, besides Geekbench and Cinebench.
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But it's already getting the ball rolling; I don't think I've ever seen so many devs bring well-known games to the platform in the past year or so, even if they still tend to be good-but-not-stellar ones like Death Stranding and RE: Village. Cyberpunk is definitely a good get, both in terms of recognition and how it should demonstrate what Apple Silicon can do.

Please don't make assumptions about what us Mac users do with our machines. I don't know that the ratio of "glorified Chromebook" users is significantly higher; I do know that many of us do some pretty heavy lifting with ours. I'm getting a MacBook Pro because Photoshop, advanced web apps, and a ton of supporting apps absolutely crush my poor 2019 iMac. I know many audiovisual editors and even straight-up office workers who need some extra power, too.
 
Aurelius said:
But it's already getting the ball rolling; I don't think I've ever seen so many devs bring well-known games to the platform in the past year or so, even if they still tend to be good-but-not-stellar ones like Death Stranding and RE: Village. Cyberpunk is definitely a good get, both in terms of recognition and how it should demonstrate what Apple Silicon can do.
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If the next Assassin Creed get the day 1 Mac release, it could feel like the biggest release, Cyberpunk is a giant game but old, Baldur gates was a giant game, but took 1-2 months to get on apple and like Civ 7 which an other big one, feel more mac natural being mouse click base and not an Xbox controller AAA action game.

And that will probably an other ubisoft be an Raytracing always on title, maybe a M4 pro could do ok versus old PC gpu, if Apple claim are 66% of how they sound.
 
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Aurelius said:
But it's already getting the ball rolling; I don't think I've ever seen so many devs bring well-known games to the platform in the past year or so, even if they still tend to be good-but-not-stellar ones like Death Stranding and RE: Village. Cyberpunk is definitely a good get, both in terms of recognition and how it should demonstrate what Apple Silicon can do.
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Apple has always had outliers when it comes to gaming, but that's not going to change anything. Apple needs to fundamentally change how it does things for gaming to be taken serious on Apple. Like adopt Vulkan, make better tools to port games by not adopting Crossover, and not being abusive to their developers. I would even go so far as to say that Apple should let other companies sell computers with MacOS installed. Of course, do not prevent users from sideloading applications.


View: https://youtu.be/X6HZlpPGFf0?si=U1Cx0SrlCYRNxhgq
Please don't make assumptions about what us Mac users do with our machines.
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No.
I don't know that the ratio of "glorified Chromebook" users is significantly higher; I do know that many of us do some pretty heavy lifting with ours.
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Personal experience doesn't mean anything. Most Windows users are just web browsing and I assume that's the case on Mac. Guess what us Linux users are also mostly doing?
 
DukenukemX said:
Personal experience doesn't mean anything. Most Windows users are just web browsing and I assume that's the case on Mac. Guess what us Linux users are also mostly doing?
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Yet lot of resistance from some when battery life test focus on that type of users usage..... or for benchmark suite that give a lot of points and tests toward that type of experience
 
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