Honey I Shrunk the Mini

Interesting. Apple have significantly shrunk the mini and chucked an M4 in there…

https://www.apple.com/uk/mac-mini/

Edit: just reading through the specs, they’ve fitted 3 x Thunderbolt 5 ports (and 2 x USBC at the front). 10 GbE is still a £100 option. Power supply is still internal. Oh and they kept the headphone jack 😂

Edited by Pheasant (Wed 30-Oct-24 08:58:54)

Moving two USB ports and the headphone socket to the front is a long-overdue improvement. Not so sure about putting the power button on the bottom That wouldn't fit in with my current setup where I have two stacked Minis and an (even smaller) HP Mini PC stacked on top of them.

Yeah. Front corner at least would have been better, so you don’t have to reach around. I’ve got into the hang of feeling for the power button on my Studio but honestly just putting it on the front would be better.

I’m hoping there will now be more forthcoming third party peripheral updates that will take advantage of Thunderbolt 5’s increased bandwidth and power handling capability over TB 3 and 4. Not that TB3 was / is particularly shabby, but TB5 finally looks like a chunky step forward by Intel that TB4 wasn’t.

Glad that Apple have supported it. Needs more vendors behind it now.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Moving two USB ports and the headphone socket to the front is a long-overdue improvement. Not so sure about putting the power button on the bottom That wouldn't fit in with my current setup where I have two stacked Minis and an (even smaller) HP Mini PC stacked on top of them.

What a strange place to put the power button, maybe they think people will not use it that much.
Saying that, my Mac mini is normally left on, it is only when I take it to my partner place that I turn it off.


A bit small that new Mac mini, I would be worried about it over heating with little room for air to move around.

If anything my experience with Apple Silicon machines both laptop and desktop is that they actually *over*engineer the cooling systems rather than under do it. My Studio is truly ridiculously over engineered in this respect. I wouldn’t be too concerned there. Apple will have done their homework.

In almost (to the millimetre) footprint of the new Mac Mini have a UM790 Pro from minisforum which runs a Ryzen 9 (7940HS). It’s a little toaster in comparison 😂

When it comes to low power consumption, Apple is still miles in front.

Edited by Pheasant (Thu 31-Oct-24 08:08:20)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

When it comes to low power consumption, Apple is still miles in front.

Anything ARM is much lower power consumption. I'm still wanting to play with a Snapdragon Elite X thing; but nobody will buy me one.

That new Mini with M4 looks nice, the cooling will be no issue as its much taller, but the power button will annoy; unless you can power on from the keyboard (wasn't it one of the Power Macs that did that?)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

If anything my experience with Apple Silicon machines both laptop and desktop is that they actually *over*engineer the cooling systems rather than under do it. My Studio is truly ridiculously over engineered in this respect. I wouldn’t be too concerned there. Apple will have done their homework.

In almost (to the millimetre) footprint of the new Mac Mini have a UM790 Pro from minisforum which runs a Ryzen 9 (7940HS). It’s a little toaster in comparison 😂

When it comes to low power consumption, Apple is still miles in front.

x86 chips are toasters
But yes, they do have them in mini computers and if they can cope in those conditions then I suppose the M4 should be ok.

One of the reason I got the Mac mini was because of power consumption, fed up with my PC hitting nearly 100 watts just on idle

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

x86 chips are toasters
But yes, they do have them in mini computers and if they can cope in those conditions then I suppose the M4 should be ok

You may not have looked at the 13th and 14th Gen intel stuff, where they are being made by TSMC fabrication plants. Things are changing fast in Intel world.

One of the reason I got the Mac mini was because of power consumption, fed up with my PC hitting nearly 100 watts just on idle

In many cases that's the assumption of many PC builders to use a huge PSU to support lots of spinning rust and an insane GPU.

The Mac Mini, even the x86 version, is essentially a laptop.

Average consumption of my (ancient) SurfaceBook (Intel CPU) is 36W - that includes the screen. Average consumption of a Mini M1 (ignoring the display) is 39W (50W for an M2 mini).

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Average consumption of my (ancient) SurfaceBook (Intel CPU) is 36W - that includes the screen. Average consumption of a Mini M1 (ignoring the display) is 39W (50W for an M2 mini).

Some commentators suggested the new Mini is now 'catching up' with where the NUC form factor has gone; as the M1 and M2 Mac Mini chassis was mostly empty. What is surprising is no Qualcomm CPU in a NUC or similar small form factor to use as desktop.

Just comparing battery autonomy laptop to laptop (similar vintages) have here. Line ball on price, about £1,800 each.

2024 ThinkPad X13 2-in-1 Gen5. Runs an Intel Ultra 7 165U vPro Processor (E-cores up to 3.80 GHz + P-cores up to 4.90 GHz) with 32GB RAM and 2TB SSD. Battery is 4 cell Li-Polymer 54.7Wh capacity

2024 MacBook Air M3. Runs an Apple M3 8-core CPU (4 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores), 10-core GPU with 24GB RAM and 1TB SSD. Battery is Li-Polymer 52.6Wh capacity

They are both small, lightweight 13-inch machines, released this year. Both very nice in their own ways.

However for battery performance / autonomy, the MacBook absolutely smashes it. Can often get 2+ DAYS of usage between charges on the MBA. On the little ThinkPad you're doing extremely well to push it to out to last the day.

They're in a different league. Just no comparison.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

They're in a different league. Just no comparison.

On battery life the mac is insanely good, but I think there is more coming from Intel, and of course Qualcomm's stuff, available in a X1 I believe. Apple woke them up, and they're now chasing... this is fun, especially for those whom use software that just doesn't work on Mac.

I will wait with bated breath for Intel especially to get anywhere near close.

Intel are a bit like Boeing at the moment - rested far too long on their laurels and decades of coveting their incumbent 'golden eggs', whilst a series of poorly thought out strategic mis-steps, coupled with poor stewardship and governance have put them in a tight spot.

They don't quite have the fork in them yet, but they aren't miles off. I hope their latest idea of splitting the manufacturing side of the company from the design side bears them fruit, otherwise their stock price will just plummet even further into the mud.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

They don't quite have the fork in them yet, but they aren't miles off. I hope their latest idea of splitting the manufacturing side of the company from the design side bears them fruit, otherwise their stock price will just plummet even further into the mud.

Agreed, their business is now enterprise and cloud data centre; and corporate desktop PCs that can't run on ARM architecture.. but with qualcomm's legal spat with ARM Ltd, and no sign of any small Qualcomm powered desktop ... there is still a lot of need for x86, and AMD can't fill the entire hole alone.

Intel lost the performance x86 desktop and high-end server crown to AMD years ago.

Nvidia has just taken Intel's place in the Dow Jones industrial index. Nvidia dominate the AI chip market, where Intel basically have no viable product experience. Its a market that Intel *completely* missed.

In terms of leading-edge fab capability, Intel have floundered for the best part of a decade. They are hoping and praying that the 18A process will deliver them salvation. Meanwhile TSMC eats their lunch on 5nm process for years and now 3nm process.

ARM designs via Apple and Qualcomm, have completely dominated the mobile market for a decade and a half and now their superior performance to energy chip designs for desktop make Intel chips look VERY outdated.

Intel faces so many challenges from so many multi-faceted competitors, I struggle to see how they will turn things around without HUGE support from Uncle Sam. They have ridden the x86 train to the end of the line.

Edit - I completely forgot about that tiny little South Korean concern called Samsung. I suppose it's putting the boot in, but those of us that remember how successful Intel once was in memory technology, can only now wince at how Intel TOTALLY ceded their crown to Samsung.

Poor old Intel. It's not looking good. Really not.

Edited by Pheasant (Sat 02-Nov-24 21:16:06)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Intel lost the performance x86 desktop and high-end server crown to AMD years ago.

On consumer desktop, but in total PC market they only had around 10%, appealing to gamers, but not of interest to the corporate big box shifters like Dell. (e.g. call centre high volume PCs). In many cases corporate software is using one or two cores, whereas AMD went after the game market where many many more slower cores provided better performance. Intel made less cores that could run faster. Both options quite useful to have depending on the workload you want to run.

Nvidia has just taken Intel's place in the Dow Jones industrial index. Nvidia dominate the AI chip market, where Intel basically have no viable product experience. Its a market that Intel *completely* missed.

In terms of leading-edge fab capability, Intel have floundered for the best part of a decade. They are hoping and praying that the 18A process will deliver them salvation. Meanwhile TSMC eats their lunch on 5nm process for years and now 3nm process.

Agreed, Intel's fabrication division missed the future. As IBM's did 20 years ago, and IBM offloaded fabrication to Global Foundries. Maybe Intel will split. Intel didn't see AI coming, but have an NPU that competes with Apple's M3/M4 and Qualcomm's Snapdragon Elite. The rest of the microprocessor industry missed what NVidia achieved; including AMD whom decades ago were able to compete.

ARM designs via Apple and Qualcomm, have completely dominated the mobile market for a decade and a half and now their superior performance to energy chip designs for desktop make Intel chips look VERY outdated.

ARM Holding's lawsuit of Qualcomm just launched may torpedo the industry love of ARM... this will ricochet, and the implications of this could hurt the likes of Apple, and even Mediatek etc.
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/arm-...

Intel faces so many challenges from so many multi-faceted competitors, I struggle to see how they will turn things around without HUGE support from Uncle Sam. They have ridden the x86 train to the end of the line.

Almost no corporate data centre yet has ARM technology, and in AWS and Azure whilst there are ARM EC2/VMs available, the cloud operators report less than 10% of workloads on them (even with lower price). Corporates are seriously conservative, it will be interesting to see if there is any shift in corporate and cloud chips. Who makes ARM chips for enterprise use other than AWS's own Annapurna labs? Very low volume.

ARM's lawsuit of Qualcomm may have just energised interest in RISCV.

Edit - I completely forgot about that tiny little South Korean concern called Samsung. I suppose it's putting the boot in, but those of us that remember how successful Intel once was in memory technology, can only now wince at how Intel TOTALLY ceded their crown to Samsung.

and SKhynix..

Poor old Intel. It's not looking good. eally not.

Agree, Pat Gelsinger was too little too late as CEO. There is some useful and interesting technology, maybe it will end up in AMD's or someone elses hands.

Intel have some good people whom can make some fascinating products, using TSMC to fabricate, they may beat Qualcomm Nuvia's ARM architecture. That doesn't mean the existing business isn't broken.
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/inte...

Its at this point I miss Anandtech, and Anand Shimapi.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

On consumer desktop, but in total PC market they only had around 10%, appealing to gamers, but not of interest to the corporate big box shifters like Dell. (e.g. call centre high volume PCs). In many cases corporate software is using one or two cores, whereas AMD went after the game market where many many more slower cores provided better performance. Intel made less cores that could run faster. Both options quite useful to have depending on the workload you want to run.

AMD and Intel just announced a few weeks ago that they would be collaborating on the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group. Basically they will in lockstep develop and foster together the architecture and standards interfaces for x86...

"The advisory group aims to unite industry leaders to shape the future of x86 and foster developer innovation through a more unified set of instructions and architectural interfaces. This initiative will enhance compatibility, predictability and consistency across x86 product offerings. To achieve this, the group will solicit technical input from the x86 hardware and software communities on essential functions and features. Collaboration will facilitate the creation of consistent and compatible implementations of key x86 architectural features and programming models, extending across all sectors – including data centers, cloud, client, edge and embedded devices – ultimately delivering downstream benefits to customers..."

So looks like on one level at least AMD and Intel will be collaborating ever-closer than at any time in their tumultuous history. I guess when your new, real enemies are banging at the gates (ARM, Nvidia and Risc-V et al) your old x86 enemy / foe become your new best mate!

One school of thought is, that Intel could go into so called "run-off" mode - to quote a recent article in the FT;

"It could slash most of its operating cost base, concede AI and other innovation to others and simply harvest and return the cash it would get from selling tens of billions in dollars of outdated but necessary semiconductors — though a little bit less every year."

In other words Intel could just trim up, milk its existing x86 business for all its worth, and just keep turning the handle and passing go until it the revenue eventually fades into oblivion....i

ARM Holding's lawsuit of Qualcomm just launched may torpedo the industry love of ARM... this will ricochet, and the implications of this could hurt the likes of Apple, and even Mediatek etc.
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/arm-...

I'm not sure that much will come of it. Bit of a storm in a teacup. Very likely they will put their guns down in the final run up to trial and simply settle like most multi-billion corporates with high stakes end up doing. Much as what happened between Apple and Qualcomm a few years ago and loads of other disputes of similar ilk over the years in this industry. At the end of day it's another spin of how much of the revenue pie will you take / I give. The chances of Qualcomm chucking it all in and shifting en masse to Risc-V are pretty remote in my view.

Agree, Pat Gelsinger was too little too late as CEO. There is some useful and interesting technology, maybe it will end up in AMD's or someone elses hands.

Intel have some good people whom can make some fascinating products, using TSMC to fabricate, they may beat Qualcomm Nuvia's ARM architecture. That doesn't mean the existing business isn't broken.
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/inte...

Doubtless there is still good talent at Intel (though they leaked plenty in recent years as things have gone pear shaped for them). Uncle Sam wants to keep strategic semiconductor fab capability within the realms of the continental USA and Intel remains the standard bearer of the US semiconductor industry. Even though TSMC and Samsung, SK Hynix etc are setting up shop on US soil, Trump is making (ridiculous as usual) claims "You know, Taiwan, they stole our chip business, okay?" and not paying the US protection money!! - the geopolitics are all pretty crazy.

Either way its going to be an interesting few years....

Interesting, and one to watch. I think we should probaby take this to another fora too.

YouTube: M4 Mac Mini vs Intel and AMD Flagships

Not sure the base model Mini was the fairest comparison with the AMD and Intel boxes in the video above. For reference here is the Pro version.

M4 Mac Mini vs Pro: MOTHER OF ALL STRESS TESTS!

Interesting M4 Pro performance especially compared to earlier M-series generations.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Intel lost the performance x86 desktop and high-end server crown to AMD years ago.

On consumer desktop, but in total PC market they only had around 10%, appealing to gamers, but not of interest to the corporate big box shifters like Dell. (e.g. call centre high volume PCs). In many cases corporate software is using one or two cores, whereas AMD went after the game market where many many more slower cores provided better performance. Intel made less cores that could run faster. Both options quite useful to have depending on the workload you want to run.

This article made me think of this thread. Check this out...

This is the Microsoft Azure HBv5 and AMD MI300C

AMD aiming (fairly precisely right there) at the Hyperscale cloud market-place. As we know the migration of big corporate into the cloud has been underway for many years already. AMD look to be have their laser sights set on that here with Microsoft.

(Sorry way off topic for an Apple Mac Mini thread)

Cool. And HPC is another world !

Indeed. Which was basically my original point, that Intel had lost the high-end server and workstation crown to AMD.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Which was basically my original point, that Intel had lost the high-end server and workstation crown to AMD.

I won't disagree.

Just confirmed this week, current supercomputing crown is HPE and AMDs….

HPE’s El Capitan Named World’s Fastest Supercomputer

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Agree, Pat Gelsinger was too little too late as CEO.

Just reading about Pat Gelisinger's extremely recent (announced today) and sudden departure from Intel. That was left of field!

https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/deta...

Hope he doesn't have any sudden health/family issues.

I think it’s a shame. He was turning things around but the board lost confidence. Lead story on the Register and a detailed write up at Ars. Wonder who they will get long term after these interims.

If that's the case, then good luck to them. Feels like a bit like a re-run of Digital -> Compaq - HP saga. Can't see past the next quarter and 'oooh what will Wall Street say'. Rubbish way to re-inigorate and turn around a (once?) behemoth, titan and powerhouse of the chip industry. Sad.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

That new Mini with M4 looks nice ... but the power button will annoy

Someone else thought the same- https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/satec...

In reply to a post by billford:

Someone else thought the same- https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/satec...

Innovative!

For anyone thinking about upgrading - Apple are offering better trade-in deals until Apr 2025.

My M1 base level Mac mini = £195 against a new £600 M4 mini