Bad as in not worth it compared to the proI don't understand this take.
This year's Pro is good
The M3 Pro is the outlier odd duck here.
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M4 Pro Chip Benchmark Results Reveal an Extremely Impressive Performance Feat
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Keep in mind that it's a desktop, which means one thing you can do is add external storage without much hassle. Something like https://www.owc.com/solutions/ministack-stx will be adapted for the new Mac mini design in no time, and besides from that, you can also just get any kind of external disk.
Because of that, I recommend against going too high on Apple's storage options. They're very fast, but also very pricy. For example, going from 512 GB to 1 TB is another $200 with Apple (probably something like €250 in Spain), but an entire external 2 TB SSD can be had for around $150 even today. You intend to keep it for ten years, and additional external storage will only become cheaper.
Now, you mention Thunderbolt 5 storage. Thunderbolt-based SSDs are indeed faster. A typical USB NVMe SSD will "merely" reach 1 GiB/s; a Thunderbolt 3 one 3 GiB/s. But I'd question how often you actually reach those speeds, unless you do things like video editing. And for those files you do want very high speeds on, put them on the internal disk.
Second, I wouldn't overindex on LLMs. Yes, Apple will be using them more, but overall, we're also in the middle of a hype cycle. Some stuff works really well with LLMs, and other stuff does not. And both of your options are at least 24 Gigs of RAM; that's a fair amount.
Third, transcoding video will be hardware-accelerated. Even on the M4 (without Pro), it'll be very fast. However, new codecs will come out eventually that won't be hardware-accelerated; that's when the CPU will start mattering.
Putting all that together, I'm leaning towards the second config, but both will be fantastic upgrades over what you have now.
Again I make the same point. Real people buy computers to do real work, not as investments to watch the eBay price of every day. The value of a Mac is in getting real work done every day, and for most of us our ability to do real work does not change when next year's faster chip comes out.
The reason is that the software side (OS and apps) has inertia, so it takes years for the apps/OS to advance to where they take most advantage of the latest hardware (RAM always having been an essential component of that hardware; even moreso now with Apple's Unified Memory Architecture, "UMA"). That time frame before apps/OS advances justify new hardware has typically been ~4-6 years; shorter for people building low-spec boxes and longer for people building high-spec boxes or those with mundane workflows.
Apple now building its own bespoke chips means the OS will not lag as far behind hardware as in the past, a good thing that will no doubt facilitate other changes in app development, etc. that advance tech ever faster. People like me will love that but people like you will hate it. It is what it is.
Edit: Specific chip changes [e.g. hardware ray tracing] may make any new chip have a quantum leap of performance for some specific task, making a new chip "must have" for folks running that task. E.g. I would want to upgrade my M2 Max to M4 Max right now if Blender was an essential part of my workflow. But Blender and its ilk are not part of my images-heavy workflow, so the M2 box will probably suffice for another 5+ years.
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saw this coming the day Apple Silicon was announced. people spent years and years bitching about the lack of CPU improvement in Macs due to the Intel curse…now they’ll bitch about the opposite because of FOMO, or something.
an M1/M2 will realistically last the everyday user at least 5-10 years. Apple has a crazy advantage in terms of now making computers that actually have longevity while consistently upgrading their SKUs for customers whose workflows demand the best of the best (and for whom money spent towards tech upgrades is no object).
all that said, looking forward to when I can save up for a nano-texture MBP upgrade! easily the most under-appreciated feature of the announcement!
No, not for general performance. Only if you ran some specific thing that the M4 newly specializes in like hardware ray tracing.
Yes. If one is going to buy new hardware it would be dumb not to buy it immediately and start getting the real work improvement benefits immediately.
MR 10/28 posted 4.3 versus 4.05. So if "Geekbench shows M4 Pro and Max both clocking in at 4.5 GHz" that is a very substantial reported difference. Are MR's numbers a spec and Geekbench's numbers as-tested? Perhaps someone could explain.
From what I recall Jony (or his company) were brought in for at least some parts of the M-series iMac's design.
Looks like M4 Pro 14/20 48gb is the winner! Yes, the Mac Studio M4 Max base is likely the better option. However, it does not exist. When it does it will be amazing. Right now, it doesn't. Time is a factor, and Apple is in a position of maximum benefit.
When the Studio M4 Max arrives, the Mac Mini will still be a tiny capable package I can put in my pocket if I want to. Mac studio is luggable, but Mac Mini is pocketable and I can use it with my iPad Pro as a screen and possibly a pair of VR goggles if I feel so inclined.
I will put in an order on one asap
When the Studio M4 Max arrives, the Mac Mini will still be a tiny capable package I can put in my pocket if I want to. Mac studio is luggable, but Mac Mini is pocketable and I can use it with my iPad Pro as a screen and possibly a pair of VR goggles if I feel so inclined.
I will put in an order on one asap
Mostly I agree with your well thought out comment. However the statement "...24 Gigs of RAM; that's a fair amount" is too low even for a short life cycle, and especially for someone trying to achieve a ten-year life cycle starting now.
Wow. Thank you much for that comment. The idea of a Mac Mini as pocketable with an iPad as display and possibly with AVP is huge. Truly a mind-expanding suggestion. Thanks again.Looks like M4 Pro 14/20 48gb is the winner! Yes, the Mac Studio M4 Max base is likely the better option. However, it does not exist. When it does it will be amazing. Right now, it doesn't. Time is a factor, and Apple is in a position of maximum benefit.
When the Studio M4 Max arrives, the Mac Mini will still be a tiny capable package I can put in my pocket if I want to. Mac studio is luggable, but Mac Mini is pocketable and I can use it with my iPad Pro as a screen and possibly a pair of VR goggles if I feel so inclined.
I will put in an order on one asap
My workload is composition software and blender for 3d and zBrush. A M3 Pro with 48gb was quite decent. I think a M4 Pro 14/20 with 48 gb will be very decent for me on this workload in a semi-professional setting. I DO like the increase in memory bandwidth, M3 Pro 153.6GB/s vs M4 Pro 273 GB/s, it felt like the M3 Pro was a bit memory starved when I tested it on a 48gb model. So this is a welcome change I think will make it more useable.
I am hesitant about 512gb ssd, but I will grin and bear it and expand with plenty fast external ssd`s. (Unless 512gb is significantly slower than 1tb) I would be surprised if it was slower tho due to them receiving significant critique on slow one chip ssds in previous systems.
I was thinking the 24gb base would be good enough, but... SINCE it is a unified memory structure, you will have necessary system resources taking up a chunk, you will have gfx taking up a chunk... And the resulting memory is what you have to use for your app. With that in mind, coming from a 32gb ram and 16gb vram system from 2017... I do not feel comfortable going below that, so 48gb it is. Wish I could go 64gb, but is not an option right now.
You are welcome! Look at this gorgeous implementation
Not available for 12,9/13inch ipad Pro or M4 mini... But I might try and jerryrig one!
Yes, I know it isn't quite a serious prospect nor a thing people would really be interested in. However I do like the idea of bringing my main system with me easily on longer trips, or even the coffeeshop or library.
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Currently Apple Silicon's GPU is no way near RTX 4090 in many ways and yet it uses 3nm while RTX 40 series are still 5nm.
Even if Apple manage to bring the performance as good as RTX 4090, Mac itself lack tons of GPU based software compared to Windows.
GPU is the only problem in terms of performance and they really need to increase GPU cores dramatically.
Even if Apple manage to bring the performance as good as RTX 4090, Mac itself lack tons of GPU based software compared to Windows.
GPU is the only problem in terms of performance and they really need to increase GPU cores dramatically.
Yep.
Well, you can unregister your device, and should do that when intending to sell it.
It depends. You can't fully replicate the low latency and high bandwidth of internal PCIe slots with a Thunderbolt breakout box, but you can get close enough for most needs.
The 2023 Mac Pro has PCIe 4 slots; one x16 of those is 31.5 GiB/s per direction, whereas Tb 5 is either 80 Gb/s (10 GiB/s) per direction or 120 up/40 down (15 GiB/s up/5 down). So even with PCIe 4, that's still a lot faster than Thunderbolt.
But recent Intel CPUs support PCIe 5, and an M4 Ultra could, too. Then it's 63 GiB/s! That's way more than Thunderbolt.
(PCIe 6 is also already final, with 128 GiB/s, and PCIe 7 with 242 GiB/s is coming next year, so even that might be ready for the M4 Ultra.)
Of course, just because PCIe offers it in theory doesn't mean Apple is interested in that niche.
This isn't true.
For example, AMD Threadripper, which is the high-end workstation brand, is currently two generations behind AMD's desktop CPUs.
Similarly, Intel often launches new microarchitectures on laptops first, desktops second, servers even later. For example, Intel Xeon Granite Rapids has started rolling out, and uses Redwood Cove as its microarchitecture. The consumer variant of that is Meteor Lake, which rolled out for laptops last year, and is already obsolete.
Don't buy them based on Cinebench scores either. Geekbench is more tuned towards what a realistic usage might be.
Wait, what?
I didn’t read the M4 being faster than the M3 Pro when the M4 iPad Pro launched. Are Mac’s M4 running at a faster clock than the ones in the iPad Pro? Do they have more cores?
The M4 being so much faster than what I initially thought would make me choose the M4 + 1TB + 32GB configuration instead of the M4 Pro + 512GB + 24GB of much faster RAM
This is a fair point. I think future-proofing the RAM amount is tricky.