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M4 Pro Mac mini - form over function?
- Thread starter Peter_M
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The purpose of the high performance mode is to crank up the fans to the maximum, keep the system as cool as possible, and eke out a few more cycles of performance. That means audible fan noise.
I don’t think people can measure a consistent difference unless they are doing a multi-hour process at 100% utilization, or have a controlled testing process including ambient conditions and materials. The latter would still take tens of minutes.
Have to wait for someone who actually does something like this to see if they can see a difference. It has to be 100% utilization.
A few of the reviewers have turned on the feature to test but yeah they only tested briefly and the performance improvement in the short time frame was negligible. I think for 99% of users, this high performance mode is useless.
Hopefully that is the case, and that "automatic" mode works fine. Still, the real test will be with the 14/20 M4 Pro chip.
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I just purchased an M4 Pro Mac mini (512/24), and I’m going to unbox it in few minutes
I did so to take advantage of the two months of return period, and see if the 24GB of RAM falls short for my usage and potential uses.
If I see the 24GB of RAM aren’t enough for me, I’ll return it and order a BTO M4 with 32GB of RAM and 512/1TB of storage.
Why do I say this on this thread? Because I will report the fan noise (if there is) or excessive heat I could perceive. You can ask me any workflow that I can humbly reproduce with my limited knowledge.
I did so to take advantage of the two months of return period, and see if the 24GB of RAM falls short for my usage and potential uses.
If I see the 24GB of RAM aren’t enough for me, I’ll return it and order a BTO M4 with 32GB of RAM and 512/1TB of storage.
Why do I say this on this thread? Because I will report the fan noise (if there is) or excessive heat I could perceive. You can ask me any workflow that I can humbly reproduce with my limited knowledge.
Nice! Looking forward to hear about your findings (please make sure if it's in performance mode or not).
It would be interesting to hear if the CPU throttles, and if so - how often. Will running the CPU at say 70-80% capacity create fan noise etc.
I am no expert. But, surely Apple have tested thermals and such, no?
And, I am talking even with testing the unit under excessive load for apps and such.
Honestly, I don't need an M4 Mac mini, but seriously considering one to replace my M1 Mac mini. Trade in is around $230...
And, I am talking even with testing the unit under excessive load for apps and such.
Honestly, I don't need an M4 Mac mini, but seriously considering one to replace my M1 Mac mini. Trade in is around $230...
Yeah, those trade in values suck. I will sell my M1 16 GB 1 TB Mac mini privately or on eBay or something.
Yeah, it will be interesting but mine is the binned 12c/16c M4 Pro and I suspect that one is less likely to experience thermal throttling than the unbinned 14c/20c M4 Pro. Less cores, less heat, is that simple.
By the way the regular M4 on the base MBP doesn’t seem to throttle even with a slightly higher power consumption than the M3, so I would assume it doesn’t throttle on the mini either.
I have the base M4 model and it’s dead silent even when gaming. Gpu on max 99% and it’s still dead silent.
Mine is an M1 8GB memory, 256GB storage. And, I believe I have had it at least 28 months now. Thus, to me, that trade in value isn't half bad...
How often do you need to do heavy processing that would benefit from the special high power mode? In those circumstances would fan noise matter? In normal mode you still have high performance but no noticeable noise.
That’s a bit like saying, “what good is a car if I can’t floor it all the time?”.
I see that the OP is already reading the other thread discussing this. My advice there applies to him as well.
For the benefit of everyone else, the thread is worth checking out. I don't think the question is 100% settled yet but it sure looks like this is a non-issue.
For the benefit of everyone else, the thread is worth checking out. I don't think the question is 100% settled yet but it sure looks like this is a non-issue.
I've yet to own an Apple silicone machine, so I first thought there were only two modes. But if running on "automatic" mode works well with little fan noise, that would be fine.
Still, I'm curious about the full 14/20 M4 Pro chip, and how well it does with temps and fan noise.
ok, so this afternoon I've returned the base M4 and got the base M4 Pro. Did my usual quick Dota 2 test and I have to say I'm disappointed with the noise. Here is the breakdown:
M4 base - max settings, 60fps = zero noise
M4 Pro base - max settings, 120fps = a lot of noise - not as bad as my 2017 MBP Intel but its still VERY audible.
However, if I put a cap on fps to 60fps (basically the max the M4 base could reach) then the M4 Pro is silent also.
Last 24 hours with the base M4 I never heard the fans.
1 hour with base M4 Pro and I already heard a very loud fans.
Now I'll do more testing but initial impressions not very good
M4 base - max settings, 60fps = zero noise
M4 Pro base - max settings, 120fps = a lot of noise - not as bad as my 2017 MBP Intel but its still VERY audible.
However, if I put a cap on fps to 60fps (basically the max the M4 base could reach) then the M4 Pro is silent also.
Last 24 hours with the base M4 I never heard the fans.
1 hour with base M4 Pro and I already heard a very loud fans.
Now I'll do more testing but initial impressions not very good
This was why I was apprehensive about the smaller case for the M4 Pro. A larger case would have allowed a larger heatsink and a larger fan, which would allow for moving the same amount of cooling with less noise.
Honestly, all they needed to do was to put the PSU outside like the iMac or MBP. The form is great, it's just the PSU is taking a lot of space. It's disappointing, I was excited about the M4 and thought how fantastic it is but my workflow just needs more power and the Pro is not silent. Will test Unreal Engine etc. and see how it performs there.
Really appreciating your feedback. I’m looking at an m4 or m4pro and plan to put this in my living room plugged into my tv / partly use it headless as well with VNC… to replace an intel NUC. I almost never would game on it or do intensive encodes or media processing. I would appreciate TB 5 ports but what really concerns me is extra fan noise with its proximity and constant use close to me in the living room. I’d probably get 24Gb ram and 512Gb or 1Tb with a 10G LAN.
With the noise you’re noticing on the m4pro with fans running, is that on automatic mode (not the high performance setting)? Is this with ordinary tasks, with maxing out CPU, or only when maxing out CPU+GPU? I’m really curious about how much more power draw (and heat) comes from the m4pro vs m4 that would trigger this — it must be a lot more given they have the same chassis
Honestly, for your usage it should be a non issue.
The fan kicks in when the GPU goes to about 95% or so. Otherwise its dead silent.
So, unless you max the GPU then you will be fine.
For CPU I don't think you will ever max all cores unless you are rendering or something similar to that so you will be fine too.
The fan kicks in when the GPU goes to about 95% or so. Otherwise its dead silent.
So, unless you max the GPU then you will be fine.
For CPU I don't think you will ever max all cores unless you are rendering or something similar to that so you will be fine too.
That’s useful to know, thanks. It’s unfortunate that there isn’t a way to dial down or disable the extra GPU / CPU cores to render the fan function in the pro to be analogous to the m4. Is there a “lower” performance mode setting or some other power setting in control panel (as compared with High Performance and Automatic) that tamps down on fan behavior presumably by way of dialing down the cores?
Yes there is a lower performance setting, but M4 Pro sounds like it would be total overkill for your described purpose. Why do you need Thunderbolt 5?
SSD expansion to maximal specs for transfer rates and also I believe the native SSD is also much faster on the m4Pro when I was looking at the side-by-side comparison of read/write performance. I plan to do a fair amount of file transfer dumps / downloads coming on a 10gig fiber isp that I plan to update with a wifi7+10GBE lan.
EDIT. Do you know what the low performance mode actually does?
10 GbE is roughly 1000 MB/s and change. For sequential large file transfers, Thunderbolt 4 can handle over 3000 MB/s.
About Power Modes on your Mac - Apple Support (CA)
Power Modes allow you to tailor your Mac's performance to your workload.
I’d be very curious to see what one of those video export/encode times is on an m4 vs m4pro on low power mode as compared with automatic. Same for average fps in a game. I’m guessing per the description the fan would be inaudible on low power.
Edit: found this - Cinebench scores are almost the same on single core, less than half on multi core cpu, and 2/3 on GPU. (This was tested on an m4pro)
www.digitaltrends.com
Edit: found this - Cinebench scores are almost the same on single core, less than half on multi core cpu, and 2/3 on GPU. (This was tested on an m4pro)
The performance downgrade made to the M4 Pro that no one is talking about
Apple has made a change to its Low Power mode that drastically reduces performance.
www.digitaltrends.com
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