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Apple M4 Macs: iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Pro
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Mchart
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It's enough that I'm going to upgrade from the M2 Max.
DukenukemX
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When you put it like that then yea. Except Indigobench, all the Kvazaar tests, and Apache server which the M4 won but by a hair. Keep in mind that the M4 did come dead last in most tests with the FLAC audio coding as the only win for the M4. In some tests the M4 was extremely far behind compared to other chips. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 didn't exactly do better, but it's also a laptop chip that's trying to compete against desktop chips, just like the M4.
I can agree with the ram, but the storage I can't. I'm assuming that the base Mac Mini M4 is meant to get peoples feet wet and help developers port their applications over since developers can't run MacOS in a VM. If this was going to be my daily computer then 1TB is a minimum. My old HPDV7 that does dual boot Linux and Windows 10 but on separate drives used to have a 256GB just for Windows 10. The Linux Mint installation is on a 256GB SSD because it was an extra drive I had laying around and I just wanted to be able to boot Linux to diagnose things. The Windows 10 installation is used for things I can't run on Linux like BMW ISTA/INPA and Toyota Tech plus some GM stuff for my Vette. I had to upgrade my SSD to 512GB just due to BMW Daten files because I didn't have enough space. If I were to buy a Mac Mini M4 then it would be for things like hosting Jellyfin because it does eat very little power, but not with 256GB. Adding 1TB does bring it to $999 which isn't that bad compared to Beelink's SER9 but the SER9 does come with twice as much ram. Upgrade it to 32GB along with 1TB SSD and the price is $1,400 which is right around desktop PC gaming prices.
We can't test iMovie or Final Cut Pro because Apple doesn't port their software to other platforms. Keep in mind this is done on Linux which generally runs faster on x86 than Windows when it comes to these kinds of tests. People go nuts over Cinebench and Geekbench and no Mac user will ever run these.
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jbltecnicspro
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My work computer is a MacBook Pro M3pro. I have to say... I want a Mac now. The user experience is the chef's kiss. Super expensive (damn!) but it's sill nice. I'm thinking Mac mini M4 16GB / 512GB SSD.
The display is also fantastic (it's the 16 inch version). Mini LED has so many zones it's almost impossible to see any blooming. It's super accurate too. Just a fantastic display. Not a fan of the keyboard though.
The display is also fantastic (it's the 16 inch version). Mini LED has so many zones it's almost impossible to see any blooming. It's super accurate too. Just a fantastic display. Not a fan of the keyboard though.
Oh, I'm not saying the storage upgrade prices are great... just that fewer people will be rushing to get larger SSDs than in the past. That and with a Mac mini you can realistically leave an external SSD plugged in if you don't need more primary drive space.
You can't, but the point is that those are real-world apps that will meaningfully change performance and are often included in workflows. A video producer who needs to turn around a rough edit ASAP isn't going to leave Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro and process the clip in x265.
And yes, to repeat what I and others have been saying: we know Geekbench and Cinebench aren't real-world apps. They only simulate real-world tasks and serve as reference points. A good review includes them alongside more realistic examples.
On that note, Just Josh posted its review of the MacBook Pro M4 line; Geekbench/Cinebench are there, but the review also includes DaVinci Resolve, a video editor that's available on Linux in addition to Mac and Windows... and surprise, the Macs stomp on the PCs. (Skip ahead a few chapters if you want to see those figures.)
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rN6CEO31gM
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DukenukemX
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I'm not the only one complaining about the storage.
View: https://youtu.be/7CEQ-ItjtN8?si=TViBE1NmqMF8Uo9K
Why not Davinci Resolve? That's on Mac Windows and Linux.
I gotta watch this. Been one of those days.
jbltecnicspro
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So I guess the MacBook Air stays at M3 for now?
?
at t=712 and t=754
You need to go to the 14c-16c to beat a 14900hx-mobile 4080 in export time, by not that much, not sure upcoming mobile nvidia would not retake the lead (assuming this is using hardware encoding seeing the rtx 4090 laptop beating the 4080 with the same cpu but maybe it is just a better cooled laptop...)
If my rather well outfitted M1 MacBook Pro video recording and editing studio can fit in 150 GB (all apps and macOS), I don’t see why someone who is not a creative professional would need much more than 256 GB internal storage. Would I personally buy a Mac Mini with only 256 GB? Probably not, but my use case is not common for the average non-pro customer.
DukenukemX
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So I looked at the video and it's mostly Geekbench and Cinebench. The Cinebench single core is rather impressive as it jumped up a lot, though I'd like to see how this applies to real applications. They used... wildlife extreme to tests graphics. Blender was impressive except the M4 ran out of GPU memory. Interesting that Apple made the M4 Pro and M4 Max equal in CPU configuration. Premiere Pro seems to like Intel chips as he points out. M4 in general seems to do really well at video editing. Other than the video editing tests, the rest are really pointless. I'd wish these guys used games to test the GPU as that would make sense. Especially since Cinebench claims much higher single core IPC and Wildlife Extreme shows the M4 being nearly as fast as an RTX 4090, so I'd expect games to perform nearly as well, in theory. All I can say is that AMD and Intel have better up their CPU performance because these results look damning. AMD has yet to release Strix Halo, though I don't have much faith in increase single core performance but just more cores. Intel... needs a miracle at this point. Though I do wonder if Windows is a part of this problem. Windows tends to lose against Linux, even applications like Davinci Resolve which are usually faster on Linux, and not by a little either.
View: https://youtu.be/m9dZkRwWEj8?si=Ec26NUKNeq1GKYjr
ManofGod
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Welp, I am definitely sticking with the M4 Mac Mini. I do not have space for another set of speaker so I use my Airpods on the Mini, bought a USB C dock with M.2 spot and have connected up a 2.5 inch 2TB SSD with a USB C interface. For some reason, at least at home, I am enjoying it more than Windows at the moment, probably because I did not have to build the computer just to have something fast.
ManofGod
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I do think that Windows is the issue, primarily because it has to support things in a way that is more generic across a large range of software and hardware. This, all well holding on the all the legacy code, which really is needed for backwards compatibility. It is a shame we cannot have the Windows desktop experience with the Linux performance combined.
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Not sure about the windows issue, for the things being tested here at least
take premiere pro export test at 11:54
HX 370: 13:28 minutes
M4: 22:43 minutes
On linux the HX370 performance advantage was pretty much the same.
https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m4-intel-amd-linux/6
take premiere pro export test at 11:54
HX 370: 13:28 minutes
M4: 22:43 minutes
On linux the HX370 performance advantage was pretty much the same.
https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m4-intel-amd-linux/6
DukenukemX
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Linux already supports a wider range of software and hardware compared to Windows. Linux also does a better job with legacy code, though a lot of it is also recompiled. We've already seen performance differences with Zen5 and Arrow Lake compared to Windows vs Linux. I feel that this is another indication that Windows isn't putting it's hardware in the best light. Even when it comes to battery drain when the laptop is in sleep, it still seems like a Windows problem. Here is a video from 5 years ago that shows Davinci Resolve on Linux being 15% faster compared to Windows. I can't find more recent benchmarks but I wouldn't be surprised if that's still true to this day.
View: https://youtu.be/9GpBsfdPmP0?si=J7Gr7OP722pikQTT
I think a lot of testing is also flawed. Cinebench does paint the M4 as a massive performance increase compared to the M3, and of course compared to AMD and Intel. Forget multicore performance, as it shows a massive increase in single threaded performance. Either AMD and Intel are really that behind compared to Apple, or we have flawed testing tools.
View: https://youtu.be/dMzf7qZlhFI?si=g5plAUVisDFz1UXk
ManofGod
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It is becoming clear to me that the M4 and MacOS is far more optimized than Windows 11 by far. I have pretty much been using my M4 Mac Mini for past week almost exclusively when I am home. It is amazing how such as small box has so much power when compared to my PC installed in a 5000D Airflow case.
Still heavier on synthetic tests than I’d like, I’ll agree. But we won’t get the gaming benches in earnest until there are more high end Mac games, like Cyberpunk as you’ve mentioned.
I keep reminding myself that Apple only really made ray tracing an option as of November last year, and then only for some Macs. It might only be next year that we see RT-capable Mac games arrive in earnest.
AMD and Intel do need to be nervous right now. Laptop-oriented SoCs doing this well at much lower power draw doesn’t bode well for them. And remember, we haven’t seen an updated Mac Studio yet; that’ll have an M4 Max with more cooling than a laptop can provide, and of course the M4 Ultra.
Intel is just hurting full stop. Lunar Lake is the most impressive release it has right now, and it still struggles in multi-core.
ManofGod
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The real issue, in my opinion, is that Arm Based Windows is an dumpster fire, at least when compared to the X86 version. That alone is going to continue to be a pain up the backside of both AMD and Intel.
Mchart
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I’ll run BG3 on my m4 max when I get it. I suspect it’ll run twice as fast as compared to the M2 Max. That’s nearing the point that I’ll dump my 4080 gaming PC.
Tengis
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I understand computer hardware quite well but my lack of interest in Apple products and the lack of time prevent me from researching why these are increasingly becoming an anomaly with how they perform vs power usage.
It's my understanding that these are mainly a product of a closed hardware/software system where everything is proprietary which allows them to optimize beyond anything capable with x86 and Windows.
Why do these perform so well?
Are they actually performing this well in real world scenarios? A lot of the reviews I've seen are running synthetic benchmarks.
Is the hardware really that impressive or is it a product of the closed system?
Why is it taking so long for the competition to respond?
At the end of the day, I will still never spend five grand on a laptop so this is clearly not directed towards me. I do lots of Photoshop, Illustrator, and Solidworks on an older Ryzen 5 laptop with a 1060 and I have never once wished I had something faster.
It's my understanding that these are mainly a product of a closed hardware/software system where everything is proprietary which allows them to optimize beyond anything capable with x86 and Windows.
Why do these perform so well?
Are they actually performing this well in real world scenarios? A lot of the reviews I've seen are running synthetic benchmarks.
Is the hardware really that impressive or is it a product of the closed system?
Why is it taking so long for the competition to respond?
At the end of the day, I will still never spend five grand on a laptop so this is clearly not directed towards me. I do lots of Photoshop, Illustrator, and Solidworks on an older Ryzen 5 laptop with a 1060 and I have never once wished I had something faster.
You are better than me at using it, because when clients send us their scene they have issue with, I often wish I had a workstation instead of a regular computer.
Part is node and pricing power advantage, their competition to not spend tsmc 3NM die space for 16GB-128GB of "cache" and all the power that can save.
The base 10 core M4 chips has around 28 billions transistors (M3 pro was 37 billions, the M4 pro could be a bit above 40 billions), a 16 core desktop 9950x has about 16.6 billions an HX370 soc around 19 billions, Apple is selling you a lot more chips than the competition and do not have to make them work as much by transistor.
The M4 is on the second generation of N3 by now (N3E), AMD is still on N4, help them reaching those amounts.
And the 285k cinebench single core score is the same as the Apple M3 pro, they are just a gen behind in that regard, some snapdragon cpu have the same multi-core cinebench per watt than a M4 pro
DukenukemX
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In theory the M4 Max should be as fast or faster than the fastest gaming PC. Cinebench shows that the M4's have the highest IPC, which games really like. The M4 Max according to 3D Mark is nearly as fast as an RTX 4090.
Those are useless benchmarks tho
It's a lot better than it used to be — I honestly enjoyed using a Surface Laptop 7 when I got to try it for a little while this summer. But there was always that app compatibility asterisk, knowing that I couldn't really use it for gaming or any creative apps that weren't already ARM-native (the ones I normally use are).
I suspect it won't be quite that great in practice, but the fact that an integrated GPU can be mentioned in the same breath as high-end dedicated GPUs is saying something.
As it stands, I still find it wild that 'base' M4 systems are entirely viable if the games you want to play are Mac-friendly. On x86, the latest integrated GPUs still feel like compromises next to most dedicated graphics.
Make you wonder how close it will be on game with an mac silicon decent port:
View: https://youtu.be/bgyzU_1HDTk?t=669
Vs an msi 18 inch 4090 mobile (about a low-mid powered desktop 4080, I think)
Gta 5......: 110 vs 172, (I would imagine driver for old game would give nvidia big advantage)
Cyberpunk..: 86 vs 98, that already close, with the upcoming arm version they could get faster than the mobile 4090
Tomb raider: 175 vs 114, that one has a MacOs version and it is 50% faster on the M4 Max.
Do not know how big 40 gpu core is (so how impressive it is), but it could potentially be quite impressive.
DukenukemX
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There are a number of native ports on Apple silicon, but the only game in his tests that was native was Tomb Raider. He tested the M4 max on a 14" which people have found to actually thermal throttle the chip, so he wasn't showing the M4 Max in the best light. Most likely he tested the 14" because it was cheaper. The... MSI stealth AI studio A1 comes with an Ultra 9 185H mated with a mobile RTX 4090. Besides the stupid name, the laptop combines a powerful RTX 4090 mobile chip with Intel's not very fast 185H. I didn't think anyone would waste an RTX 4090 with a 185H but yep MSI absolutely built that mistake of a laptop. Would make more sense to include a i9-14900HX despite the terrible battery power that would come with it. I would recommend a laptop with something like a Ryzen 9 7945HX but majority of laptops with an RTX GPU seems to included Intel's 13th and 14th generation CPU's. Makes one wonder how this idiot found the one laptop with a 185H. As usual, the comments section is the most informative as people did point these things out. One guy had to return his M4 Pro as he tested it with Davinci resolve magic mask test. He claims 49 minutes to track the whole clip on M4 pro vs 8 minutes on the 4090.
Here's something to point out but current laptop x86 chips are terrible for Nvidia's RTX GPU's. Intel's best gaming laptop CPU the i9-14900HX is not even good for portable use as it's terrible on battery. The Ultra 185H isn't even good for performance but probably Intel's best mobile chip if you consider power consumption. AMD's Ryzen AI 9 370 HX is currently their best offering and it wasn't made to be coupled with a discrete GPU, though you can buy this Asus TUF with the 370 HX and RTX 4070. It's the only laptop I could find that combines the two. AMD will release their Strix Halo but adding an RTX GPU is a waste. Intel's Core Ultra 200HX series will likely be Nvidia's only hope to sell their GPU's. Assuming that Intel doesn't also put really good graphics like Apple is doing.
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ManofGod
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I have been toying with the idea of selling my gaming PC, since I barely game anymore, buying the M4 Mac Mini Pro and returning my regular M4 Mac Mini. Faster processor, more P Cores, more GPU cores and faster ones, it would game well enough, perhaps.
This makes me wonder: how hard do you think Apple is courting Rockstar to get a Mac-native version of GTA VI? That could literally reshape the computer gaming market when GTA Online is both very popular and has had very long legs so far.
I did say that I hope Apple isn't paying for ports, and I don't want it to here, but I won't be surprised if executives and engineers are making frequent visits.
if I could play my gacha games I might grab a beefy one since FF14 runs on mac even with not the most amazing performance. Most are on playstation but sony requires their own separate accounts because of course they do. Still not sure why we can't play iphone/ipad games on mac.
DukenukemX
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GTA VI would pivot Apple's market share if they could convince Rockstar to release it on Mac. Especially since the PC version isn't getting released anytime soon. People would run out and buy a Mac just to play the game. The question is why is Rockstar holding back the PC version, because this may apply to Apple as well? If Rockstar is trying to get people to buy the game twice, then even Apple will take a back seat.
If Apple gets GTA VI (that's a big if, to be clear), it'll probably be linked to the expected 2026 release window for PCs. Although I must admit I'd be very amused if there was an earlier release for the Mac.
There's no mystery as to why Rockstar holds back PC launches, as it has for over a decade: it's easier to get the console versions done sooner as you're targeting a much narrower set of hardware that still has a large audience. If Apple gets an early release, it'll be for that same reason: Rockstar would only have to target Apple Silicon and a relatively small mix of computers.
ManofGod
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Never thought I would be willing to pay $1400 for a pre built computer (M4 Pro Mac Mini) but here we are. 
I am going to try it out and decide if I want to keep this one or the Base M4 Mac Mini I have been using since the 8th of November. I have not been using my PC at all so I literally wiped and reinstalled Windows 11, just in case I decide to sell it, part it out or leave it aside to game on only, even though I barely game anymore.
I am going to try it out and decide if I want to keep this one or the Base M4 Mac Mini I have been using since the 8th of November. I have not been using my PC at all so I literally wiped and reinstalled Windows 11, just in case I decide to sell it, part it out or leave it aside to game on only, even though I barely game anymore.I was going to say, they make some if not actually the most complex piece of software ever, the simplest target first and not pushing the release 1 year (with 500-600 millions of spending eating interest instead of revenue) is probably a simple enough possible scenario here.
ManofGod
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Well, I picked up the M4 Pro Mac Mini with th 512GB SSD and 24 GB of ram. Let me say that it definitely feels fast and, at least in my opinion, it is not a placebo effect. It also games a lot better and, at least for my eyes, a lot smoother.
Red Falcon
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Jeff Geerling is definitely worth listening to, especially on the ARM ISA and its various platforms.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FICjyf-e8k
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FICjyf-e8k
After a week with my M4 Max, I'm... impressed. It's stupid fast. It's ridiculously well built. All of the HMI bits - keyboard, trackpad, screen, speakers, mics, webcams - are the absolute best in class or right up there. This is the most well rounded laptop I am aware of.
Complaints? Not many, but I'd prefer softer edges when the lid is up. The backlit keyboard is pretty good but not best-in-the-world. Once a week or so, the notch annoys me for a few seconds.
But, it's amazing.
Complaints? Not many, but I'd prefer softer edges when the lid is up. The backlit keyboard is pretty good but not best-in-the-world. Once a week or so, the notch annoys me for a few seconds.
But, it's amazing.
You could use this: https://topnotch.app
I’m contemplating replacing a lab with the basic M4 variant my only concern is the lack of an ability to secure them to the desk or wall. They would grow legs.
Won't be surprised if there's a cage (specially designed or generic) you could chain or clamp. And they could still probably use the ports if it's large enough!
Nothing like a Kensington lock? Weird.
Don't wanna drill holes and bolt them to the desks?
Don't blame you.