New Mac Mini with M4 • Hacker News Board

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#321

Post by 93po » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 4:45 PM UTC

crest wrote: post #201

jsheard wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kind of undermines the sleek form factor if you need to have a clunky NVMe enclosure dangling off the back though. Even with this tiny new design I bet they could fit a hatch on the bottom with space for a 2230 M.2 drive, but they don't want to because that would let you upgrade to 2TB of fast internal storage for $200 instead of $800.

Until someone brings out little two or four drive NVMe enclosures that fits exactly under the Mac Mini with a Thunderbolt bridge/plug that doesn't snag cables, because we all know Apple can't resist gauging buyers by refusing to include two easy to access M.2 bays on the underside. I can't imagine anyone but Apple shareholders drooling at the taught of overpriced soldered memory would prefer a smaller Mac Mini case i…

these exist on amazon

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#322

Post by tacoooooooo » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 4:45 PM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #275

leetharris wrote: post #24

Love to see that it still starts at $599. My M2 Mac Mini that I got for $499 is my favorite gaming computer I've had in a long time. Runs many games like WoW, Dota, League of Legends, etc great. Anything that it doesn't run due to MacOS I use GeForce Now over ethernet. And this was with 8gb unified memory, now with 16gb it'll be even better value. Very excited to see how the GPU has improved in the M4, especially the…

> Anything that it doesn't run due to MacOS I use GeForce Now over ethernet. Can you elaborate? Thinking of setting up a MacMini for my kids but worried about lack of gaming options for them (I haven't gamed on a Mac in a dozen years and the state of gaming on MacOS was sad back then).

GeForce Now https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/

nvidias cloud gaming offering. it works pretty well

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#323

Post by ojhughes » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 4:45 PM UTC

burnerthrow008 wrote: post #213

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is huge for AI / ML at least for inference. Apple chips are among the most efficient out there for that sort of thing, the only downside is the lack of cuda

Lack of Cuda is not a problem if for most ML frameworks. For example, in PyTorch you just tell it to use the “mps” (metal performance shaders) device instead of the “cuda” device.

I tried training some models using tensorflow-metal a year ago and I was quite disappointed. Using a relu activation function led to very poor accuracy [0] and training time was an order of magnitude slower than just using the free tier of Google Colab

[0] https://github.com/keras-team/tf-keras/issues/140

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#324

Post by pdimitar » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 4:46 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #259

diggan wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is now in decline I've been saying this since the butterfly-keyboard fiasco. At that point it was clear that professional users weren't the focus anymore, and I promptly left the ecosystem. I still have a iPhone (12 mini) that I only keep because it still works, but every time CarPlay tries to murder me in traffic, I get one step closer to just yeeting that phone into the sea.

>> Apple is now in decline >I've been saying this since the butterfly-keyboard fiasco. It doesn't look like it: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=aapl&ie...

There is a long tail of consequences for short-sighted policies and people monitoring stock prices always seem to be taken by surprise by them when they occur.

You should include additional factors in your analysis.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#325

Post by palijer » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 4:46 PM UTC

Only USB-C in the back front and back? I suppose this is a "BYOKVM" machine that is going to need a dongle to connect the keyboard and mouse...

Even the iKeyboard I bought from them last year was lightning to USB-A and needed a dongle to connect to my Apple laptop.

At least it has an HDMI port.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#326

Post by bee_rider » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 4:46 PM UTC

Etheryte wrote: post #161

JKCalhoun wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point it feels like (correct me if I'm am wrong) that Apple's AI is often performed "in the cloud". I suspect though that if Apple moves increasingly to on-device AI (as I suspect they will — if not for bandwidth and backend resource reasons then for privacy ones) Apple's Silicon will have adopted more and more specialized AI components — perhaps diminishing the need for use of off-board memory.

Last I checked, Apple was pretty much the only major player who does everything that they can do on device on device, that is their whole ethos behind it, no?

It is possible that they do everything they can on the decide, but still have to do lots in the cloud, right? For some definition of lots, at least…

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#327

Post by kylehotchkiss » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 4:46 PM UTC

This seems like such a cool home server... BUT with all the disk encryption stuff, you'd need to be logged in to run things, right? If the power goes out, your server does too?

Does anybody have a guide or tips on how to make one of these better for hosting a website with cloudflare tunnel and being resilient to power outages?

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#328

Post by dagmx » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 4:49 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #289

mathnmusic wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, Apple took away those slots when Mac minis transitioned to Apple silicon. Attempts to replace SSD with re-soldering have not been successful.

So not even milling off the ssd works now? Fortunately I don't really see the point of using a mac mini, so this doesn't bother me too much, but... it's poor taste. You're holding it wrong was not cool the first time.

You can mill them off and replace them with supported nands. People have videos on YouTube but it’s not very accessible to do.

The issue is that Apple moved the storage controllers into their SOC. So they use raw nand chips, and you need to use ones that the SOC supports.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#329

Post by bee_rider » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 4:49 PM UTC

talldayo wrote: post #96

leetharris wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally, M2 Mac Mini, M1 Pro laptop, M2 Max laptop (work). All of this runs on either an LG C3 42" OLED or a 34" 1440p ultrawide. Linux GeForce Now can only do 720p or 1080p, can't remember which. Also, it's just kind of laggy in desktop mode. The Macs run so much smoother. My current "main" desktop is actually my Asus ROG Ally. I use one USB C hub that is capable of 4k120hz, and I can move…

Get rid of Windows on it! Digital Foundry put out a great video on this exact process the other day, weighing the pros and cons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwWRCrGoXV0 Neither MacOS nor Windows are very good console OSes - you're really better off using Linux where anticheat isn't concerned. Even on the Ally.

They listed WoW, DotA and League of Legends—I’m guessing, but the last two seem likely to have anti-cheat issues, right?

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#330

Post by e63f67dd-065b » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 4:49 PM UTC

With educational pricing this thing starts as $500, and at 16GB of RAM (finally) I think this easily beats any sort of desktop PC you can buy at that price (let's exclude custom builds, they're not the same market).

I think this just became the go-to recommendation I'll give to anybody wanting an entry-level desktop computer of any kind. In fact I might buy one for my parents right now to replace the old mac mini they have. I really can't think of any reasonable competition for it at that price.