Apple unveils a smaller Mac mini with M4 and M4 Pro
The new Mac mini is powered by the M4 and M4 Pro chips and features a smaller enclosure, front-facing ports, Apple Intelligence and other improvements.
Unveiled via a press release and a website update on Tuesday, October 29, the new Mac mini measures just five by five inches, less than half the size of the previous design and approaching the Apple TV size. There are also front-facing ports, like those found on the Mac Studio. The machine starts at $600, like before.
The previous model released in January 2023 used M2 and M2 Pro. Apple says the standard M4 Mac mini brings 1.8x faster CPU performance and 2.2x faster graphics performance versus 2020’s M1 model. “When compared to the best-selling PC desktop in its price range, Mac mini is up to 6x faster at one-twentieth the size,” Apple boasts.
Here comes the new Mac mini with M4 and M4 Pro
To shrink down the Mac mini size, Apple has developed a new thermal system that guides air to different levels of the system. All venting happens through the foot of the machine.
The standard model with the M4 chip has ten processing and ten graphics cores. The M4 Pro one can be configured on the online store with fourteen cores (ten performance and four efficiency cores) and 20 graphics cores.
Apple claims the M4 Pro GPU is twice as powerful as the GPU in the standard M4. The GPU in both the M4 and M4 Pro also sports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, available on the Mac mini for the first time. The 3x faster Neural Engine than in the M1 Mac mini ensures Apple Intelligence will run well on this system.
Ports, networking and video support
Front-facing ports include two USB-C ones (with support for USB 3 speeds up to 10Gbps) and a 3.55mm audio jack with high-impedance headphone support. Thudnerbolt ports, HDMI and Gigabit Ethernet can be accessed from behind.
The M4 Mac mini has three Thunderbolt 4 ports (up to 40 Gbps each) out the back, with the M4 Pro Mac mini featuring Thunderbolt 5 ports (up to 120Gbps) instead.
All new Mac minis support three external displays without using DisplayLink or similar tricks. “With M4, Mac mini can support up to two 6K displays and up to one 5K display, and with M4 Pro, it can support up to three 6K displays at 60Hz for a total of over 60 million pixels,” Apple writes.
Thunderbolt 4 on the M4 models supports native DisplayPort 1.4 output over USB-C. Thunderbolt 5 digital video output on the M4 Pro model supports native DisplayPort 2.1 output over USB‑C. There’s also a built-in HDMI port with support for one display with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz or 4K resolution at 240Hz (M4 and M4 Pro)
Wi-Fi 6 is still there like on the previous model (sorry, no Wi-Fi 6E), but Bluetooth has been upgraded from version 5.0 to 5.3.
Pricing and availability
The new Mac mini is available to pre-order today via apple.com/store and the official Apple Store app in the United States and 28 countries and regions. The system will start shipping on Friday, November 8, the same day availability will expand to Apple’s brick-and-mortar stores, its authored resellers and third-party sellers.
The base Mac mini with M4 (10-core CPU, 10-core GPU), 16GB of unified memory and 256GB of flash storage starts at $600. For an extra $200, the $800 Mac mini will double the storage. The third M4 model also boosts the RAM to 24GB in exchange for $1000. The M4 Pro-enabled Mac mini is priced at $1400, which buys you 12 CPU cores, 16 GPU cores, 24GB of unified memory and 512GB of flash storage.
The M4 models can be configured with 24GB or 32GB of unified memory, and 512GB, 1TB or 2TB of flash storage. The flagship M4 Pro model can be expanded to 48GB or 64GB of unified memory and equipped with 1TB, 2TB, 4TB or 8TB of flash storage. This is also the only Mac mini configuration that can be upgraded to an M4 Pro chip with 14 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores.
Don’t forget to BYODKM
The new Mac mini is still a BYODKM or Bring Your Own Display Keyboard and Mouse system. To that end, Apple has conveniently refreshed its Magic Keyboard, Mouse and Trackpad with USB-C charging and announced new M4-powered iMacs.
The new Mac mini ships in fiber-based packaging and files as Apple’s first carbon-neutral Mac. For further information, visit apple.com/mac-mini.
Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/10/29/apple-unveils-smaller-mac-mini-m4-m4-pro-chips/
Leave a Reply