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M4 Mac mini's efficiency

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#211

Post by MBCook »

nextos wrote: post #9

I use Linux, but I think the cheapest M4 Mini offers an incredible value and efficiency per €. With education discount, it's around €650, including VAT. It's pretty hard to find such a silent and powerful machine for that little. Any comparable options? A good fanless build with a i3-14100T is more expensive and 40-50% slower on Geekbench. An i5 is a bit closer. Some 2024 Ryzen CPUs can match or exceed its multicore…

There was a comparison mentioned on last week’s episode of the Accidental Tech Podcast, I don’t remember if it was pointed out to them or they noticed it themselves.

Base Mac mini: $599, 16/256 GB

Double storage and ram: $600 upgrade.

Price of 32/512 config: $1199

Two 16/256 machines: $1198.

The ram is (Apple) reasonable at $200, but $400 for the storage doubling is insane.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#212

Post by JumpCrisscross »

johnklos wrote: post #209
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...

I can't imagine it's anything but a silly comment. Macs have the equivalent of wake-on-LAN, plus you can configure them trivially to restart after power loss. The idea that you'd have to press the button often is just silly.

> can't imagine it's anything but a silly comment

Given my cat, after learning to press a button on his automated feeder, now presses anything that looks like a button with the curious expectation of food, I can only presume he got out while I was in Cupertino.

Button on the bottom isn't a design mistake. It's an opinionated choice.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#213

Post by znpy »

leptons wrote: post #126
userbinator wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or rotate it 180 degrees. There's nothing on the top (now bottom) anyway that can't stand being covered up.

Sounds vaguely like "you're holding it wrong". Maybe it was always supposed to be placed on its side? Apple should clarify why the button is on the bottom.

this sounds like a "big-endian vs little-endian" kind of quarrel, to be honest

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#214

Post by arianvanp »

nextos wrote: post #9

I use Linux, but I think the cheapest M4 Mini offers an incredible value and efficiency per €. With education discount, it's around €650, including VAT. It's pretty hard to find such a silent and powerful machine for that little. Any comparable options? A good fanless build with a i3-14100T is more expensive and 40-50% slower on Geekbench. An i5 is a bit closer. Some 2024 Ryzen CPUs can match or exceed its multicore…

Nix support on Darwin is really good in my experience. Though it does happen that some packages are not supported.

Next to that I run a NixOS VM on https://getutm.app/ using Virtualization Framework. Performance is great.

You're one setting away `virtualisation.rosetta.enable = true;` to also use that VM for x86_64 packages and builds.

I have a WIP PR for Rosetta AOT caching on NixOS as well: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/330829

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#215

Post by guhidalg »

yzydserd wrote: post #171
mrtksn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people have a relative or something still in education, just buy it through them. It's not like this is government subsidy, just a promotion to increase sales and maybe hope to have long term customer by hooking them at younger age. Probably much less immoral than blocking ads on YouTube.

It seems viable that doing so increases the price for those of us who don't.

You are free to purchase as many Apple products as you want to offset any perceived revenue losses from promotional discounts. I'm not so sure why you would want to do this but I keep hearing that behavioral economics is a thing, maybe paying more is your definition of rationality.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#216

Post by kopirgan »

imiric wrote: post #188
muti wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

They've managed to get people to accept things they'll never accept in Intel or Android ecosystem. Like no SD card, no memory expansion, no dual SIM etc. That gives the confidence.

I guess once system shuts down you can switch off the power at the mains or adapter socket.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#217

Post by jeffbee »

jchw wrote: post #190
jeffbee wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 usi…

Nah that's all pointless trivia. It is dark inside the box. Nobody gives a rip whether the mini is faster because it's got better ram or if it's faster because it's got better arithmetic logic. So you do not have to control things like memory because you don't have a choice anyway.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#218

Post by Arcuru »

mrtksn wrote: post #178
yzydserd wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems viable that doing so increases the price for those of us who don't.

Why would that be?

Companies tend to focus on the overall % profit margin for a product. If a higher percentage of sales are for a discounted (edu) SKU with lower margins, they will tend to raise the price of the product to hit their desired profit margin.

e.g. If a company was selling a product at $1000, and wanted to offer a 20% discount for EDU that would be bought by 50% of the market, they would need to raise the price by about 10% to keep the same margin. If only 20% of the market bought the discounted SKU, they could keep the same margins with only a 5% (?) increase in price to the rest of the SKUs.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#219

Post by GeekyBear »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #176
GeekyBear wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The M4 Pro Minis support higher capacity modules, so it's not too shocking that they are not identical. We've already seen videos from the usual suspects showing that people who are sufficiently skilled with a soldering iron can replace the flash chips in the modules with higher capacity chips, in addition to replacing the whole module.

> We've already seen videos from the usual suspects showing that people who are sufficiently skilled with a soldering iron can replace the flash chips Sure, but I don't think soldering skills is exactly what I'd have in mind when I think "upgradeable".

As noted above, you can simply replace that module with a higher capacity module with just a screwdriver, as iFixIt did.

However, there is a real opportunity for those who do have soldering skills to make a quick buck here.

You could pretty easily buy the cheap base model M4 and resell it as a custom upgrade build, as long as you were clear that the SSD was no longer stock.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#220

Post by znpy »

va1a wrote: post #142
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.

Yeah it seems like this would also increase airflow. Is there any possible issue with just having it upside down all the time?

> Is there any possible issue with just having it upside down all the time?

You might scratch the top, maybe? Nothing that a small piece of cloth wouldn't prevent, anyway.

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