Justify M4 Pro Mac mini over M4 Purely for Future Proofing?

[hajime]

Will there be M5 Mini this year given that Apple skipped M3? Not sure if the redesign caused the skipping or they did it for other reason.

 

[icemantx]

Will there be M5 Mini this year given that Apple skipped M3? Not sure if the redesign caused the skipping or they did it for other reason.

Hard to say what they will do. Apple previously release M1, M2, M4 Mac minis so it could go either way with regards to M5. Probably depends on just how much of a bump it is.

 

[throAU]

Will there be M5 Mini this year given that Apple skipped M3? Not sure if the redesign caused the skipping or they did it for other reason.

No one knows, however if you're buying into m4 of any spec, I'd suggest that the time to be planning your next machine after that would be M6 or m7 at least.

 

[rtjstevens]

OK, just to keep people up-to-date: I eventually bought the base M4 Pro. I know this this will induce scornful thoughts /comments- and I understand - the base M4 is much better value BUT, the cognoscenti seemed to suggest a 500Gb would be better in my situation (true - I have a 500GB M2 Mini which I wanted to replace/augment), but that apparently only made sense if one also bought the 24 GB version as well (for speed and reliability). Well, for an extra £350 or so I thought the MacM4Pro version was probably worth it for, perhaps, an extra year or so of use. (I decline to use the term "future proofing")! For those in the UK I bought the M4 from John Lewis who not only give a discount but also offer, for free, and extra year's warranty.

My thoughts so far: 1. Migration Assistant didn't work as well as expected and it needed several tries/workarounds before I got it to work, and, even then not all apps and passwords were transferred. Parallels and Win 11 eventually worked, but it all needed a manual install before it all worked as expected. 3. For general tasks I can see NO difference in speeds between the M2Pro and M4Pro units save Parallels/Win 11 is now better at playing, for example, a RailSim programme AND, just as important to see, a slightly more stable streaming connection between Apple Music and various Wiim devices spread around our house (thick stone walls!)

However, I do expect a (slight?) speed enhancement when using photo-enhancement software (yet to try).

In two minds whether it was worth the extra cash. I now need recommendations for some good AAA games (not necessary shoot-'em-ups to convince me I made a good investment!) Hope this helps others...

 

[Populus]

Will there be M5 Mini this year given that Apple skipped M3? Not sure if the redesign caused the skipping or they did it for other reason.

I actually expect the M5 Mac mini to release towards the end of his year, yes. The N3P node production should have started by now already (first half of 2025).

I’m honestly debating wether to buy an M4 mini now, or wait another 7 to 8 more months to get the M5. I don’t predict a big jump in CPU performance, but the graphics (GPU) could be much better. Basically, the M4 chip GPU is the same architecture than the M3, but with more cores. I expect the M5 GPU to have a more powerful architecture.

Besides this, I really expect higher chip bandwidth and, maybe who knows, even Thunderbolt 5 on the new entry level chips. That would be a great surprise that would make the wait worth itit.

However, I’m not sure if I should wait any longer. The current mini is already smaller and powerful enough to cover my needs but my plan is to get the 1TB/32GB model, and that one would lose more value on the second hand market, that’s what’s tempting me to wait until the M5… I’m not sure