I like Artisright, but it would have been nice to let us hear the sound of the fans running loudly, rather than just describing it.
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First review about sound... fan noise
- Thread starter Cape Dave
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Thanks for the link, as suspected really..
Such a shame, I guess I'll keep my 2018 Mac Mini for another 6 months then, and wait for the next Mac Studio.
Your post made me chuckle. I can almost cook an egg on the top of my 2018 Mini
Yeah, it's a hot one!
Here's another video from the same youtuber, clarifying that under heavy loud the fans on the M4 Pro version almost start immediately. This is a fine computer for light work using the base chip, but for anything more demanding - it's probably a good idea to wait for the next Mac Studio, if you enjoy a quiet user experience.
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I know, right? My 2018 base Mini has been doing nothing but sharing a tethered iPhone's internet connection with my router (long story), which means it never sleeps, but that's a nothing task, right? It's warm enough that I feel the heat on the desk surface that is a few inches above the Mini that sits below it on a shelf with lots of airflow.
My base M4 mini is actually cool to the touch while it does nothing but serve up MR, so I guess I need to let it begin sharing the internet so I can see if that makes any difference.
Damn. That’s disappointing.Yeah, it's a hot one!
Here's another video from the same youtuber, clarifying that under heavy loud the fans on the M4 Pro version almost start immediately. This is a fine computer for light loud using the base chip, but for anything more demanding - it's probably a good idea to wait for the next Mac Studio, if you enjoy a quiet user experience.
Well I wouldn’t, obviously. As I said: “if I can find a 16/512 spec at a decent price, though the new M4 prices are pretty good value in comparison”.
UK prices for older devices haven’t had any additional discounts at all, so it makes zero sense to buy one. If I was in the US, and could save several hundred quid for an M3 instead, or an M2 Pro, then for my needs that would suffice.
I’m not necessarily looking for a massive performance upgrade from my current M1, I just want a separate device for music making, which as it’s just a hobby means I don’t have much of a budget for it.
At the current price, a base M4 Mini with a 512 upgrade is the best available deal here, which is probably what I’ll be ordering in the next few weeks.
As it happens, the M1 is fine, but not perfect. It would be nice to have a bit of a performance boost, for future proofing and to allow me to use more plugins, as I currently print most tracks to audio.
Apple offered me £200 for a trade-in for my £1049 16/512 M1, so at that rate I’ll keep it for basic day-job usage.
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A fan noise comparison of the M4 Mini vs Mini Pro is contained within this review of the base mini:
Hmmm that doesn’t sound as bad as the noise in the Artisright video to me.
So in other words, stick with the regular M4 mini unless you really really REALLY need that extra power that additional processing power that an M4Pro mini provides today. Don't try to future proof with upgrades to an M4 mini. If you really insist on future proofing then you would be better of waiting for the baseline (binned) M4 Mac Studio.
I bought a new Mac mini m4 pro yesterday to replace my Mac Studio m1 ultra.
the fan runs at 1000rpm under normal load and is quiet.
the fan doesn’t run in sleep.
when playing a game the device is warm, with occasional fan noise speeding up. But stops after a while.
Exactly. Future proofing for me is (finally) ensuring that future me doesn't regret the extra power/storage/features I didn't really need when something more fun/practical to buy/unbox/setup comes along.
That last video is pretty much what I was looking for. While in the video he refers to CPU testing, I know Cinebench 2024 does test both CPU and GPU. So the m4pro enclosed in the same box as the m4 does generate significantly more heat requiring ramping the fans up to a clearly more audible level. In practice, other than gaming and rendering / gpu assisted encoding, I don’t know why somebody would need added GPU cores, so I think if you want a quieter machine, the m4 is the way to go if you aren’t doing those activities.
I do wish he did a CPU-only test to see if the higher rpm mode fan still kicks in on the m4pro — I suspect it might since there are 8 performance cores as opposed to 4 on the m4; however there are also 16 gpu cores as opposed to 10. It’s unclear to me which might draw more power and thus more heat / fan noise. It would be great if somebody placed a kill-a-watt and phone dB meter on these tests.
I do wish he did a CPU-only test to see if the higher rpm mode fan still kicks in on the m4pro — I suspect it might since there are 8 performance cores as opposed to 4 on the m4; however there are also 16 gpu cores as opposed to 10. It’s unclear to me which might draw more power and thus more heat / fan noise. It would be great if somebody placed a kill-a-watt and phone dB meter on these tests.
This is the one and only time I had ordered from Apple and then later cancelled. I have an M1 Studio Max and the Mini M4 Pro is notably faster. As I do photo and some upscaling of video, it would have been a brilliant fit. However, I will wait for the next Studio as my system is reasonable on the photo side and patience still needed on the video side.
Yes — I think if you’re a heavy creator of content (rendering, video processing / encoding) or a gamer… and especially if you are more averse to added fan sound… then waiting until mid 2025 for the m4 max/ultra studio models make sense. If you’re a casual desktop user with moderate use, data/download throughput, and are keeping the unit close to your ears or in a common living area (as I will, with it attached to my TV)… I think the base m4 is the way to go.
The truth is likely that Apple wanted to sell a bridge machine in the mini m4pro until 6-9 months from now when new Studios will come out. I believe the redesign and thermals of the new Mac mini primarily took into account the more affordable price point to the masses in the m4 and the added fan noise for processing other tasks with the m4pro is something they assumed either people will learn to tolerate, or skip in favor of the newer studios. I don’t believe the chassis redesign was targeted at the m4pro — I think they found a design that would work for it, but it was really geared for the base model which will probably be 70+% of their sales in the mini.
I think for general use, the Mac Mini M4 is an amazing computer.
Admittedly, I prefer the footprint of the last Mini over this one and exploit the extra space within for cooling.
Meanwhile, I will have to wait.. and live vicariously through others that share their experiences here (and on YouTube).
This review has an unboxing and some benchmark tests of the M4 Pro. At the timestamped link, he states it stayed cool and had no fan noise.
www.youtube.com
Seems like there is some variance in peoples experiences.
M4 Pro Mac Mini - Live Unboxing & Testing
Apple Mac Mini: https://howl.link/zx0bqpgcahjncApple Mac Book Pro: https://howl.link/yuhaqxvg5pp1jMonitor Stand as seen in Video: https://amzn.to/4fKYGeH*Aff...
www.youtube.com
Seems like there is some variance in peoples experiences.
The praise is given by early reviewers who lack in depth of their benchmarks and want clicks just highlighting the footprint side of things. Apple should be given credit for this engineering feat, but other than dramatically reducing the power consumption (which isn’t really possible if you’re taxing the m4pro), there’s no magical way to get around the physics of making a box smaller that’s acting as an internal heater — you either have to pump that heat out at a faster rate (louder / higher rpm fans) , or find clever ways to dissipate it via spreading the heat to the box’s surface for passive cooling; the latter is easier to do if you have a larger box to work with and more surface area / openings for air volume venting. I don’t think the m4pro’s various thermals are likely to be lower than the m2pro when fully taxed which makes the heat issue of a smaller box more complicated.
We are in agreement. I believe that the past design of the Mini had all that extra room that would have provided the means to better cooling (and silencing) the M4 Pro when given a serious stress load. However, what is here now is here and I will wait for the upcoming Studio. For me, the Studio is ideal in both function and physical design.
Mostly agree, except with air cooling it is the air mass flow rate (can described in pounds/minute). This can be achieve by either blowing the air faster (higher fan RPM) or using a bigger blower or more fans. That is why the Studio can cool a hotter chip, the Studio uses 2 fans. Also I'm still not convinced the new Mac mini's fan is the same size at the previous mac mini's fan. The diameter of the fan housing is about the same but the fan in the new mac mine seems (to me) to be flatter than the fan in the previous mini.
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How much extra space is there actually?
Have you calculated the internal volumes of the two and how much more heat dissipation that allows?
I'd be willing to bet the any extra noise is from extra processing power and/or a new fan curve as opposed to the lower internal volume
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I am starting to wonder how many of those complaining of loud fan on the m4 pro are running with High Power mode turned on.
From Apple’s website:
“High Power Mode allows the fans to run at higher speeds. The additional cooling capacity may allow the system to deliver higher performance in very intensive workloads. When High Power Mode is enabled, you may hear additional fan noise.”
From Apple’s website:
“High Power Mode allows the fans to run at higher speeds. The additional cooling capacity may allow the system to deliver higher performance in very intensive workloads. When High Power Mode is enabled, you may hear additional fan noise.”
I do not hear any fan noise exporting in Final Cut Pro (24 watts power usage at wall) but exporting with Adobe Media encoder (60 watts power usage) I do head a slight fan noise.