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M4 Mac mini's efficiency

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#61

Post by vetinari »

nextos wrote: post #38
vetinari wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NUC 14th gen with i3 is around 400 EUR with VAT, with no RAM or storage. For the other 250 EUR, surely you can get more RAM than 16 GB and more storage than 256 GB.

I use a NUC as a daily driver. The problem with NUCs is that cooling is suboptimal, the fan is small and thus noisy. It can be fixed with a third-party case, but that's at least €60-100 more for a much slower machine. Plus, you may void the guarantee by transplanting the motherboard.

I have i7 NUC13 mounted on a back of monitor and I can barely hear it. It's not that bad, previously (NUC7-era) it was much worse.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#62

Post by no_wizard »

tredre3 wrote: post #44
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…

> With education discount I don't understand why so many people use the discounted price as reference. Surely very few of us on HN are still in college? So let's use the actual price when making comparisons.

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

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#63

Post by cguess »

echoangle wrote: post #14
riknos314 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specific feature gaps would you like to see them address?

Official Linux support would help, is anyone running MacOS on a server?

This isn't the market for MacMinis though. Why are people on this forum so bad at understanding market segmentation? Apple made an incredible desktop machine that happens to work pretty damn well as a server if you poke around.

This machine is for people at home to for editing video. It's great in the field for production where it goes from pelican case to hotel desk to folding table to pelican case to cargo hold to storage.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#64

Post by whartung »

kranke155 wrote: post #27
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...

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…

Shame they got rid of the ability to power the computer on and off from the keyboard. I know its been that way for some time, I'm sure there's good reason for it (maybe it doesn't work well over BT or something, or simply few generic keyboards offered the power button).

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#65

Post by denkmoon »

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…

Just put Asahi on there, or any linux you like. I'm sure the support will be there soon if it's not already.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#66

Post by steeleduncan »

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 works well on mac, very similar to Nix/Linux for the most part. There are some missing packages, but the common ones tend to be fine. Its worth using the Determinate Systems installer to avoid reinstalling Nix on every macOS update though.

Nix-darwin is good, and I use it, but it is nowhere close to NixOS. I think there are some options I've set through it that macOS keeps overriding, so the declarative configuration drifts from the real one eventually

I think the only real issue with Nix on macOS is that Nix can eat through storage quite quickly, and storage upgrades are pretty expensive on Macs. This might push the balance back to an fanless ryzen build

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#68

Post by stirlo »

tredre3 wrote: post #44
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…

> With education discount I don't understand why so many people use the discounted price as reference. Surely very few of us on HN are still in college? So let's use the actual price when making comparisons.

It’s trivially easy to obtain the discount. Anyone working in education, or a student at any level, k-12, higher ed, graduates with access to uni email can get it. Apple doesn’t ask any questions or for verification.

They also go on sale at a similar price to the general public relatively frequently.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#69

Post by GeekyBear »

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…

Beelink has dropped the price for a roughly comparable unit with an Intel Core Ultra from 800 US Dollars to $700.

https://www.bee-link.com/products/beelink-sei14-ultra5-125h

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#70

Post by stirlo »

denkmoon wrote: post #65
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…

Just put Asahi on there, or any linux you like. I'm sure the support will be there soon if it's not already.

Asahi Linux doesn’t currently support M4 but it’s planned for next year.
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