Apple's New Mac mini Sports up to an M4 Pro with 14-core CPU and 20-core GPU

[Darmok N Jalad]

That's likely one of the biggest lies ever, surprised some Mac cultists still defend it to this day

While macOS is better with memory management, I don't see many "cultists" defend it. Rather, I actually don't hear many Apple enthusiasts defending this claim at all. Most on the forums I visit have been calling for 16GB base for years.

I honestly can't understand why Mac and PC has to be a zero sum game. It's not "us vs them." I have both, and I like both for my own reasons. We really need to stop looking at the worst examples of people as proof of our claims or as a reason to feel better about our own choices.

 

[Lew Zealand]

While macOS is better with memory management, I don't see many "cultists" defend it. Rather, I actually don't hear many Apple enthusiasts defending this claim at all. Most on the forums I visit have been calling for 16GB base for years.

I honestly can't understand why Mac and PC has to be a zero sum game. It's not "us vs them." I have both, and I like both for my own reasons. We really need to stop looking at the worst examples of people as proof of our claims or as a reason to feel better about our own choices.

Exactly this. But it's quite the human experience for those who take sides to trot out their favorite strawmen about the perceived 'other' side whenever possible.

 

[AusWolf]

Exactly this. But it's quite the human experience for those who take sides to trot out their favorite strawmen about the perceived 'other' side whenever possible.

If my swap to Linux ends up being a success in terms of game compatibility (fingers crossed), I'll be sooo happy to slag off all of you sour souls still on Windows!

Only joking. (am I really?)

 

[kondamin]

Today base price is cheaper. Why?

$599 << $806.61.

That 499 model had user upgrade able ram and storage.
i think the later ones when they moved to intel even had the possibility to upgrade the cpu one time.

 

[R0H1T]

While macOS is better with memory management, I don't see many "cultists" defend it. Rather, I actually don't hear many Apple enthusiasts defending this claim at all. Most on the forums I visit have been calling for 16GB base for years.

I know some cultists on Macrumors have defended that—not the exact claim that "8 GB" memory on Mac is worth 16 GB on Windows, but something along the lines! As for upping the base memory, come on now even Android phones come with up to 24GB RAM at the top end, possibly even 32GB next year. Apple should at the very least feel ashamed of keeping the cult going; that's if they had any shame at all, which I'm sure they don't

 

[Verpal]

I know some cultists on Macrumors have defended that—not the exact claim that "8 GB" memory on Mac is worth 16 GB on Windows, but something along the lines! As for upping the base memory, come on now even Android phones come with up to 24GB RAM at the top end, possibly even 32GB next year. Apple should at the very least feel ashamed of keeping the cult going; that's if they had any shame at all, which I'm sure they don't

Come on, you know bringing Android phone ram count into this is absolutely stupid, Android can barely utilize 8GB right now, let alone 24GB.

 

[R0H1T]

It's not stupid at all considering the argument being made around that the base Mac price has held steady for 19 years! You're telling me that storage/memory prices haven't gone through the floor in the last 10-15 years? Apple if they wanted to, could easily have done a base 16GB Mac year back—guess why they didn't

 

[goodeedidid]

Why are there holes on the front?

Did someone at Apple forget to use Photoshop's Fill command? Does it need that much cooling? Did someone drop the prototype and nobody noticed?

Are you okay over there??

 

[Sunlight91]

The base model is really not a bad price for Apple. If it had user upgradable storage and RAM I would seriously consider it.

 

[Aleksandar_038]

The base model is really not a bad price for Apple. If it had user upgradable storage and RAM I would seriously consider it.

Then it wouldnt cost 599, but double
On the other side, it is, even without upgradeability, very very interesting proposition

 

[ErikG]

Mac mini base model is the best Apple offer in years. Great video editing device.

 

[Squared]

Today base price is cheaper. Why?

$599 << $806.61.

In 2005 the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ was $272. CPUs today are roughly the same price ignoring inflation as 19 years ago.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

In 2005 the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ was $272. CPUs today are roughly the same price ignoring inflation as 19 years ago.

Well, while we're getting off topic, something for $272 expensive dollars for just one core and a paltry number of transistors compared to the number of transistors in a last generation core....

 

[close]

Is it or does it rely on external (chips) support like the ones you mentioned?


Not really a complement when you consider what $100 worth could buy you in terms of NAND or DRAM just 5 years back! I've said probably a million times now but worth mentioning it again that Apple's upgrade, or base, prices are an effin daylight robbery


That's likely one of the biggest lies ever, surprised some Mac cultists still defend it to this day

Funnily enough you picked the worst time to have your millionth and one time to say it. This time $600 for the base model is actually a great deal considering what else you can get for the money or for this level of performance.

 

[R0H1T]

That's only because the last deal was awfully bad at 8GB while x86 chips keep getting better like wine ~

AMD Works with Microsoft to Improve Zen 3 thru Zen 5 Performance in Windows 11 24H2

AMD Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors have been out for a couple of weeks now, and the "Zen 5" based processors have fallen short of gaming performance expectations, set mainly by some of the numbers AMD put out in its Computex 2024 reveal for the processors. The consensus among the...

www.techpowerup.com

Admittedly, fruity loops still leads a lot in efficiency & ST performance, but there's a massive downside to going with them in terms of longevity.

 

[RUSerious]

Even the 10Gbps NIC is an optional extra and RAM upgrades are ridiculous. So just another day of robbery from fruit company.

As per usual with Apple. I've wanted to switch to Mac for a while, but once I upgrade to what I'd put into a new Windows PC, it's twice as much as what it cost for me to build one (since I'm a DIYer). I'm not playing AAA games anymore - so I don't need a higher end GPU these days.

 

[unwind-protect]

The claim that amount of RAM is worth more under Apple Silicon than other architectures has always been nonsense. The same data structure are the same size as on amd64 and code is actually a little bigger under ARM.

The only thing making this a tiny bit true is that there is always very fast paging to Apple's internal SSD, whereas you can screw that up on PCs. But that fast M1 SSD was already in the last Intel Macs.

 

[RUSerious]

The claim that amount of RAM is worth more under Apple Silicon than other architectures has always been nonsense. The same data structure are the same size as on amd64 and code is actually a little bigger under ARM.

The only thing making this a tiny bit true is that there is always very fast paging to Apple's internal SSD, whereas you can screw that up on PCs. But that fast M1 SSD was already in the last Intel Macs.

The MacOS pager was also better at maximizing free physical memory - but it's a marginal improvement over windows (more Linux like - unsurprisingly).

 

[unwind-protect]

The MacOS pager was also better at maximizing free physical memory - but it's a marginal improvement over windows (more Linux like - unsurprisingly).

But free physical memory is useless memory.

 

[RUSerious]

But free physical memory is useless memory.

What I meant by that was 'on the fly'. Windows pages memory in a stupid manner (FIFO w/Working Sets). So Win pages larger blocks of memory than it needs to. MacOS doesn't. As you point out - this is less of a problem since SSDs showed up; but it exists nonetheless.

Anyway, waiting to see these new Macs properly benched (and disassembled). The New Pro (and Max) are looking more like they have the kind of compute that I'd like to having going forward. Obviously, for desktop, the Max will be waiting for the new Mac Studio.

 

[capdauntless]

No. Why? I don't buy apple products.

EDIT: I should qualify that by meaning I was a huge iPod fan back in the day but they never convinced me to buy a mac.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Why I answered "No" to the poll: software compatibility. Be it embedded tools or games, the things I use just don't work on ARM, or Mac for that matter. Then there's how Apple treats developers and users, I want to use my computer however I want, not however Apple sees fit.

The hardware is pretty awesome, but until Apple changes their attitude it's all going to waste.

I've said it before: apple would have a lot more converts if they just supported vulkan and proton. The hardware is good but that walled garden is far too annoying to deal with.

 

[AusWolf]

I've said it before: apple would have a lot more converts if they just supported vulkan and proton. The hardware is good but that walled garden is far too annoying to deal with.

The "if you want our product, you'll have to use 7546774 more of our products" philosophy has always kept me away from Apple. The last Apple product I deeply wanted was the iPod Shuffle, but I didn't buy one because of the stupid mandatory iTunes music transfer.

It's not just a walled garden. It's a walled garden with a dress code where you have to pay an entry fee, keep quiet and stay on the designated footpath at all times, not to mention no eating, drinking or smoking is allowed.

 

[RUSerious]

The "if you want our product, you'll have to use 7546774 more of our products" philosophy has always kept me away from Apple. The last Apple product I deeply wanted was the iPod Shuffle, but I didn't buy one because of the stupid mandatory iTunes music transfer.

It's not just a walled garden. It's a walled garden with a dress code where you have to pay an entry fee, keep quiet and stay on the designated footpath at all times, not to mention no eating, drinking or smoking is allowed.

iPods are what brought me back to using Apple products. They were small and worked very well. iTunes allowed me to import all my CDs - so it was all fine by me.

 

[hsew]

Storage upgrade pricing of $400/TB is still asinine, but I'll give Apple the single compliment that over the course of 19 years the Mac Mini has only seen a $100 increase for the base model spec. $499 in 2005, $599 in 2024.

They’re making it up from their icloud, App Store purchases, and other subscription services.