Its been 15 years, almost to the day, since I last purchased Mac Mini - I hadn't realized it's been that long, but I'm once again the owner of a Mac Mini - M4 Pro flavor.
As noted in my other thread, I was debating a number of configurations. After careful analysis I felt that the M4 Pro was providing the best bang for my buck, in terms of providing better ram, storage, cpu cores and gpu cores. YMMV but for me I think the M4 Pro offered a lot including peace of mind.
Here's how the Cinebench 2024 numbers stack up; My PC (AMD 3700X/RX7800XT) vs. M4 Pro Mini. All is good on the CPU side, the M4 is blowing the doors off the CPU in both mult-core and single core. GPU is a bit surprising, as the RX7800 XT is mid-tier (equivalent to a 4070) released in 2023 - maybe upper mid-tier
The good:
Performance, the environment is snappy, fast computer, love the integration with my iPhone
The bad:
Temps, I knew this going in, but if I push the mini hard, I'm looking at 80c, I've downloaded and I'm using Macs fan control - all is good now on that front.
The ugly:
Games - I don't play a lot of high end games, my favorite go to game is Fallout 76. Playing that on my M1 MBP (crossover), it was a bit jittery and laggy, I naturally thought with the better CPU/GPU of the M4 things would be good. That game is unplayable on my mini as well. Its not the end of the world, but its disappointing. I think some apple fans over-state how well Macs do in gaming. Naturally playing a game natively the experience will be better then in crossover and/or parallels, but gaming still is Apple's weakest link on the Mac platform.
The verdict, its a great computer, so happy that I got it, makes life a lot easier.
As noted in my other thread, I was debating a number of configurations. After careful analysis I felt that the M4 Pro was providing the best bang for my buck, in terms of providing better ram, storage, cpu cores and gpu cores. YMMV but for me I think the M4 Pro offered a lot including peace of mind.
Here's how the Cinebench 2024 numbers stack up; My PC (AMD 3700X/RX7800XT) vs. M4 Pro Mini. All is good on the CPU side, the M4 is blowing the doors off the CPU in both mult-core and single core. GPU is a bit surprising, as the RX7800 XT is mid-tier (equivalent to a 4070) released in 2023 - maybe upper mid-tier
The good:
Performance, the environment is snappy, fast computer, love the integration with my iPhone
The bad:
Temps, I knew this going in, but if I push the mini hard, I'm looking at 80c, I've downloaded and I'm using Macs fan control - all is good now on that front.
The ugly:
Games - I don't play a lot of high end games, my favorite go to game is Fallout 76. Playing that on my M1 MBP (crossover), it was a bit jittery and laggy, I naturally thought with the better CPU/GPU of the M4 things would be good. That game is unplayable on my mini as well. Its not the end of the world, but its disappointing. I think some apple fans over-state how well Macs do in gaming. Naturally playing a game natively the experience will be better then in crossover and/or parallels, but gaming still is Apple's weakest link on the Mac platform.
The verdict, its a great computer, so happy that I got it, makes life a lot easier.
