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M4 Mac mini's efficiency

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#181

Post by ahartmetz »

gre wrote: post #138
rgovostes wrote: post #22

> If only they didn't put the power button on the bottom. I can't tell if anyone is being serious about the "Powergate" issue. The thing is 5" wide and weighs 1.5 lbs, it's not exactly a burden to lift it a little. And there are highly practical workarounds: https://www.reddit.com/r/macmini/comments/1gncek7/nailed_the...

power button on the bottom means kids/cats won't accidentally press it

Steering wheel in the footwell means the front passenger won't sneeze on it.

Come on, it's a dumb idea. Apple has them sometimes - really!

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#182

Post by koiueo »

talldayo wrote: post #121
edude03 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of issues are you having?

Well, missing packages for one. Nix prides itself on having one of the most compete package catalogs of any Linux package manager, and on Mac it leaves quite a bit to be desired. A lot of functionality has to be hooked in via home-manager scripts that are a lot less stable than NixOS modules, and since your system isn't built/upgraded by Nix you can't write overlays for a lot of Mac software. If you only need the ver…

Yeah, I eventually realized that nix-darwin is only good for managing the list of homebrew casks.

home-manager works better than I'd expect. At least I don't have to spend time configuring vim, git and shell prompt.

But overall, Nix on MacOS feels like a hack, behaves like a hack... because it's essentially a hack...

I'm waiting for the first reports of Lenovo's t14s gen 6 with Snapdragon X Elite.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#183

Post by GustaBOT »

mcv wrote: post #97
no_wizard wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all you need is a .edu address If I recall correctly. you can buy them on alumni addresses. That said, a far chunk of HNs never completed college, like myself and lost access to any email accounts of this sort, which only further supports your argument directly, as the EDU discount isn't universally attainable

Does that mean the discount is only for Americans? I don't see anything about it on the Dutch version of the Apple site. Still looks pretty affordable. Until you look at the upgrades. € 230,00 for +8 MB RAM?! There are places you can get that for a tenth of that price. I suppose doing your own upgrades isn't an option anymore? (My last Mac was a 2011 unibody.)

Since the first ARM systems (may be before) you can’t upgrade things on your own, i had an Air which can be SSD upgraded but not memory upgraded. Memory can only be upgraded from factory.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#184

Post by JumpCrisscross »

00deadbeef wrote: post #136
rgovostes wrote: post #22

> If only they didn't put the power button on the bottom. I can't tell if anyone is being serious about the "Powergate" issue. The thing is 5" wide and weighs 1.5 lbs, it's not exactly a burden to lift it a little. And there are highly practical workarounds: https://www.reddit.com/r/macmini/comments/1gncek7/nailed_the...

The comment in the article is in the context of rack mounting them which is a common thing to do with Mac minis. Having it on the bottom makes it hard to press as you can’t lift them up when they’re secured in a mount.

> Having it on the bottom makes it hard to press as you can’t lift them up when they’re secured in a mount

Hard rebooot is the only situation where you should be using the physical power button on a modern Mac. If you're installing Macs on a rack, presumably you can sudo shutdown -r.

The button on the bottom is trying to tell you that the system is built to be well behaved on stand by.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#185

Post by addicted »

nicce wrote: post #86
no_wizard wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all you need is a .edu address If I recall correctly. you can buy them on alumni addresses. That said, a far chunk of HNs never completed college, like myself and lost access to any email accounts of this sort, which only further supports your argument directly, as the EDU discount isn't universally attainable

Regardless, if people start to abuse this by getting discount while not actually being student or teacher, we can say goodbye to that discount and real students and teachers will suffer from it.

They almost certainly won’t get rid of it because people are abusing it. If they do it’s because they don’t want to offer it.

If they want to end the abuse they will simply toughen the verification procedure.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#186

Post by mullingitover »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #51
kranke155 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a burden. I consider it a typical Tim Cook decision, in that the man led the company that made one of the fastest CPUs in the world, makes it draw as much as a Raspberry Pi. Absolutely crazy feats of engineering, design, manufacturing… and - There is that ONE detail that would’ve made it perfected but it’s botched! I don’t mind it too much, since it’s still 99% close to perfect. But, but…

Hah, Tim Cook decision pretty much sums it up; its the kind of thing that wouldn't have lasted 5 seconds when placed in front of Jobs (although there is a strong chance Jobs would have demanded his own nonsensical addition/subtraction to the design).

Jobs would've thrown it out the window, and verbally abused the intern who brought it in, because it has ports in the front.

He would've kept the power button on the bottom, though.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#187

Post by naoru »

nextos wrote: post #131
naoru wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A comparable option in my opinion would be Minisforum 790S7. They also have a separate mini-ITX motherboard from that one if you want to DIY. The CPU in it is faster in raw multi-thread performance, single-threaded it's a bit slower, but still quite impressive. The only problem I had with Minisforum is that they couldn't supply the exact hardware I ordered and their suggested solution was either to wait for 1+ month…

That's a good suggestion. How are the cooling systems supplied with Minisforum in terms of noise and efficiency?

I can only speak of experience with their UN100D mini PC which I use as a home server in a fairly constrained closet. Not a hot machine by any means, far from that, but the cooling seems pretty decent even for this low power CPU.

BD790i that I just received (didn't even install anywhere) has a rather substantial heatsink over the CPU similar to high wattage GPUs. The chip itself is rated at 55W TDP so it shouldn't be that much of a problem cooling it. The motherboard doesn't come with a fan and I'm definitely not going to spend extra on high-end ones at least just yet.

I don't know anything about the thermals of 790S7's case though. It looks like they gave it at least some thought judging by the duct over the CPU, but how it actually performs I have no idea.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#188

Post by imiric »

muti wrote: post #115
bookofjoe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple Says There’s a Simple Reason for the Mac Mini’s Odd Power Button Location https://gizmodo.com/apple-mac-minis-odd-power-button-locatio...

> Apple VPs Greg Jozwiak and John Ternus explained in an interview to a Chinese content creator on Billibilli (spotted and machine-translated by ITHome) that the main reason the power button is on the bottom of the 2024 Mac Mini is because of the computer’s size. Since it was nearly half the size of the previous generation, the underside was “kind of the optimal stop” for a power button. They also say most users “nev…

That explanation makes no sense. There are many mini PCs of the same size that have their power button in an accessible location.

The excuse that most users never use the power button is the "you're holding it wrong" of 2024. Stop telling me how to use your devices, Apple.

The explanation mentioned on several forums that it's a cost cutting measure to avoid extruding yet another hole in the aluminum case, or routing the power cable, makes no sense either. This is a state-of-the-art machine, yet they're cutting costs on such trivialities? Give me a break.

This is unequivocally poor design. Yet Apple will never publicly admit that, and will gaslight everyone to think it's actually good, as they usually do.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#189

Post by Retr0id »

nielsbot wrote: post #130
baq wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The power button placement is an annoyance for me, though. Keep the thing upside down. Not joking.

Feel like that risks overheating...

Not really. Unlike previous mac mini models, the grille on the underside is both the air intake and exhaust. If anything it ought to be better upside-down, since convection now helps the heated air rise out.

Edit: any downvoters care to elaborate?

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#190

Post by jchw »

jeffbee wrote: post #94
jchw wrote: post #74

While it may not be the literal fastest CPU ever, it still seems very, very fast, and the efficiency is pretty compelling. I'm not sure how much of those efficiency gains are a product of the design constraints that Apple is not beholden to (external memory, x86 backwards compatibility, other aspects of the AMD64 architecture, etc.), the slightly better process nodes, or superior design. I'm honestly dying to know, b…

What's a CPU that is faster in some given 1T workload? I am fairly sure this thing is the fastest out there.

I don't think there's enough high quality benchmark information to really make a statement like that, but most importantly, I care about both single-core and multi-thread performance. I don't really have any workloads that only use one thread.

Comparing the M4 with PC CPUs will be hard. Typically when comparing two PC CPUs, to make the comparison more realistic, you'd set some reasonable similar constraints, like using the same memory kits and so on. However, even without considering overclocking, the actual performance of a given CPU can vary massively depending on the thermals, power delivery, memory and so forth. (It can vary by over 50%. I didn't check but you should be able to see this on benchmark charts that allow user submission.)

(However, for what it's worth, I always do at least a bit of mild overclocking personally. Nothing extreme, but what does fit within the power and thermal budget is basically just free performance at the cost of some efficiency, a trade-off I'm happy to make for my main desktop machine.)

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