Many people are focusing on individual specs and missing the point on Price to Performance. First I need to mention that all the PCs in this video are base models. There are no cheaper spec versions of the mini PCs. Now let me use this analogy: Imagine you have two vacuum cleaners to choose from: one with a 12-amp motor that costs $600 and another with a 24-amp motor priced at $1,000. Despite having a smaller motor, the 12-amp model cleans twice as efficiently, consistently picking up more dirt in half the time. Which is the better value? Are you still going for the more expensive one with the bigger motor, or would you choose the model that’s proven to be faster and more effective? Does anyone even care about the motor?
You can spend $350 on a ryzen 7735hs mini pc with 32gb ram and 1tb storage. You can't even buy that on the mac mini at $1400 so the question becomes is that chip worth 4x more of a capable system? Not for anything I'm doing.
In this analogy, I need to empty the bag/dust bin for the more efficient vacuum 3 times as often, and whilst it's great at cleaning the majority of my house. There's one specific carpet (gaming) that it just doesn't like, and doesn't really work on.
Hi. The important thing is that you were the only one who noticed mini computers other than Mac mini and compared them. This already makes your video valuable for viewers.
unfortunately for those who know about it, nothing comes close to a Beelink SER8 (8845hs) and SER9 (hx370) on windows, taking a Miniforum or Geekom is a bit sad, these brands make machines that heat up and do much more noise than Beelink while they sell their products more expensive, no one should give them visibility
@@iPixelPandah Not being sarcastic. Other companies just blatantly copy Apple. When Apple introduced the Mac mini now everything looks like Mac mini. Intel even encouraged the laptop manufacturers to copy Apple. We had suddenly lots of plastic imitations of the MacBook lineup. Now it doesn’t matter because Apple uses its own silicon and others can’t match that. Times were different when Apple also used Intels processors. That backstabbing from Intel we will never forget.
Well, you can use a simple external SSD.. even the Thunderbolt 4 have higher transfer limit like most of the SSD what random user will pick.. and those what are initialy faster like the Thunderbolt 4 you never buy, because it's cost more like the mini PC..
@@randomcommenterurl wow, I completely forgot about that. That is really incredibly impressive. If I didn't have a MacBook Pro, I would have snapped it up long ago. Without thinking twice. What an offer from Apple
200 bucks for a 1/4 TB SSD upgrade is beyond ridiculous. Same with the 8GB RAM upgrade. The fact that anyone would be willing to pay this is mind blowing.
Apple sucks for making the price ladder move like that, but it doesn't change the fact that the base model is an absolutely absurd deal. Just needs an external Thunderbolt drive and it's literally perfect for 90% of Mac users
Apple has always been stingy with storage and RAM. The little secret about the MacMini is the expandable storage. You can bet third parties will eventually offer internal SSD modules for it. It's a bit odd decision, since their recent Macbooks have soldered SSDs with no upgrade path unless you're willing to risk damaging your logic board.
Another review used an external hard drive which tested faster than the mini internal... I hate macs, I hate osx but I think I may finally get one of these mini 4 due to probably the aggregate best considering sum of easiest/cheapest/fastest video and audio editing. Vs linux/windows/android I enjoy a game once in a while but don't really care that much.
Well crap! This is why I need an editor. Thanks. I'll pin this comment for the info. I did quote the correct specs later in the video. Not sure if that helped.
@@ElevatedSystems It's all good. Mistakes are always going to happen. LTT has a bunch of editors, a community fact checking program and millions of dollars, and they can't talk about something like Thunderbolt for more than 20 seconds before getting something wrong.
Non upgradable RAM or storage not only prevents you from upgrading for cheap, but also from fixing the computer if the SSD or RAM fails. They even made the SSD modular because it's better for them to switch the storage at any time based on demand, but used a special connector to fck consumers. PCs will continue using modular SSD and the Ram will also stay modular but move to CAMM, so, no, there's no reason for Apple to be this anti-consumer. It's funny how they brag about how "green" they are while doing this stuff
@@tonyburzio4107 I think you will find it isn’t “user replaceable” and by that I mean the average user ie. someone without micro soldering gear or expertise. Besides, Apple is unlikely to provide replacement parts, third party may provide a solution, but it still won’t be cheap or that easy due to economy of scale and not being designed for replacement.
The SSD NAND controller is directly built into the M-series chips just like most mobile SOC. It's not just the connector that's different but the interface is completely different. Can Apple design their chips to work with standard M.2 SSDs? Absolutely but they choose not to because that's just how their business model works. They would never sell the base model for this cheap if you can easily upgrade it yourself without giving them the money.
@AshleyAmber screen recording consumes much less resources now than it did 10 years ago. There are very few cases where it takes more than 5fps away and those cases are also ones that refuse to work on any system as it is a game side issue. It's just not build for gaming. Comparing the mac mini against anything not specifically designed ro be a single minded productivity machine will put it ahead by default. Any all purpose or gaming PC will loose against such a machine. It's like putting a triathlete against a pure marathon runner. In the marathon section the triathlete has no hope.
@@tonyburzio4107 You are for sure correct on the monopolist. I viewed the comment differently. I believe stewarts was saying there shouldn't be a battle between Apple or PC being better. I support both. People that come to me for Apple support, hardly even play games. They spend most of their time for content creation, and that is what they enjoy and make them productive. If they do play games, they will have a PC to do so. I spend most of my time in linux, but I have to use windows for specific work software and games. I use an older mac and iMovie to edit videos for work related content. The mac is the slowest hardware, but also the easiest and free way to cut videos and add text. I may be more fortunate than others, but each has its selling points and usefulness. Sure 1 piece of hardware would be great, but using each to their advantage to my preference makes it easier for me. You can have a unified system and use software with a learning curve, or have multiple systems. Use what suits your workflow. Most people don't need a work truck for drive back and forth to the mill, a small car would be best for that. However the truck may help with their wood working hobby. Poor gas mileage for work, but convenience for moving plywood. Based on financials, it may make sense to buy a car too, or give up woodworking. It comes down to what the person wants/needs. Maybe a crossover can do both, but not ideal for either.
"Apple Silicone" I know this is a nitpick on the pronunciation, but... Silicon and Silicone are different. Silicon is a naturally-occurring element. It's a metalloid and semiconductor. Silicones (polysiloxanes) are polymers, many of which are colorless oils used for lubrication and others that are rubber-like used as a sealant/insulation.
@@robmaertens oh come on. Is any IT nerd going to be confused and think the chip is made out of silicone because of a pronunciation slip? Christ, we’ll gatekeep anything in this industry.
@@alanschmitt9865 I completely understand, not trying to be snarky we all make mistakes. In my experience a lot of people don't know the difference or that the name implies something completely different. I'm sure it was just a slip of the tongue. The previous comment describing the differences between the two was excellent for the masses that don't understand the difference. Educational moment for those that want to learn.
@@ElevatedSystems It would be interesting to compare M4 Pro Mini with Regular desktop like i7-4770 with Nvidia RTX-4060 Ti (16GB). They would be in the same price category. Can you please compare either base M4 mini or your Mac Studio with any PC with an Nvidia GPU for some professional work.
@@danabc322 no, i keep everything I buy or donate it to those in my community who may be in need. I have every Mac I ever bought except the M2 Pro Mac mini which I gave to a local family.
My Mac Mini base setup (it's the only way to do it if you value your bank account): Mac Mini Base, got a $50 discount from Best Buy= $550, External Thunderbolt 4 enclosure from OWC= $100 (there are cheaper ones, I like the best and don't mind paying for it), 4TB Crucial T5 NVMe SSD, got on sale= $280. This is it, nothing else. And this is a very powerful, very future-proofed setup. This is the best deal in a desktop PC in 2024, and I'm a very dedicated PC gamer. I simply use said PC only for gaming now, nothing else. This is better everywhere else. Great comparison, you got a new sub.
Same here! PC gamer with a 13900k/4090 but wanted something quieter and portable incase I want to take it on a trip. Base Mac Mini for $499 with student discount, TB4 enclosure for $100 and a 2TB 990 Pro (had it laying around but was $189) and this thing is a properly fast spacious daily driver. The integration with my iPhone and iPad is awesome. PC only gets used for gaming now.
Exactly. Pretty much the exact setup I recommend for all my clients. Unless they don't need really fast storage, I give them the option for a $30 USB C 10 GB/s case. $70 savings.
I understand one could argue the Mac Mini delivers this benchmark-performance already with 16GB RAM - but comparing prices with 1/4 or 1/8 of the storage capacity is nonsense. The Mac Mini with 1TB SSD already is 999$ - make it 2GB, as the Geekom has - it's 1399$ - and if you even out the RAM, when your project needs more than 16GB (which most benchmark don't) - you are at 1799$ for the Mac Mini with 32GB Ram and 2TB storage. And honestly... for the kind of work you benchmarked in the PC market I would not go with a Mini-PC, but real "high end GPUs" - meaning a dedicated GPU... for a workstation I usually don't need a gimmicky small case.
I agree, his comparison is not "Apples" to apples, considering all the other systems have way more storage, and upgrades for Macs is ridiculously overpriced. I have a couple of Minisforum mini PCs in my home computer lab, each with 8 core / 16 thread AMD procs, 64 GB RAM, and 1 TB NVMeSSD... 4x the RAM and storage as the Mac Mini, for the same price. Also the Mac Mini has only 1 Gbit port, while my tiny servers each have 2 2.5 Gbit ports.
"...for a workstation I usually don't need a gimmicky small case.": You don't need a tower either. What you 'need', is which machine does it's job best.
There are Thunderbolt 5 External ssd enclosures now which claim up to 6000 read and write speeds if I’m not mistaken. I could imagine gen 5 drives coming soon for Thunderbolt 5 connections as well.
If you are buying this to use the Apple AI features, note that Apple will only run the AI features on data stored on the internal drive. This is because the are making claims to keep your AI data secure, and only they only view the internal drive as secure.
Wait what? .... the point of such a device is to have a small compact computer which does not take up much space and you want to add external clutter to make it work? O_o
The $800 version with 512GB is the M4 to buy. Remember you only have 5 USB ports, needing to use one for routine storage needs and another for Time Machine and you are down to three before you connect anything else. If you want a second monitor you are down to two. The cost of the Thunderbolt 4 hubs you need also needs to be added to the cost of the M4. The M4 is a great video processing CPU, but I don't do that, so it's not a good fit for me.
@@mikespangler98 It’s Thunderbolt 4. It only takes one single port, or two if you have a more expensive version of one of the hubs. Then all of those other devices have plenty of ports available. Most of them have extra hdmi, as well as extra Thunderbolt ports for displays and external drives. But yeah they are expensive.
I see some points that should be mentioned. Comparing these mini PCs with the same configuration would be better such as 1 TB SSD and 64 GB RAM. The Apple Mini can cost up to more than $3.000 if adding some optional extensions. For some users it might also be interesting whether they can change components such as SSDs or RAM later on. To compare Mini PCs their power consumption, the noise, the speed of the internal GPUs, NPUs are important aspects as well. It is the same as buying a new car. You almost never by the base configuration.
for lots of ram and internal storage (faster even) the mini pcs with windows or a hackintosh (fewer options) are 4 times less expensive than a comparable mac. But for 16gb ram and using external storage, the mac mini m4 is the best value.
What an incredibly well-done video my friend. Your conclusion suggesting a solution based on what an individual needs is absolutely appreciated, and I wish more people kept an open mind vs. subjecting the audience solely to their own worldview. Subscribed and will keep tabs on your channel!
well, I see expensive PC with 2tb of storage compared to the mini with 256gb, it is a bit unfair when we know the outstanding price of option of the mini and the impossibility to expand it. a 4to ssd on PC is 200/300$ it is the price of the 512 option for the m4, same for RAM 64 gb on PC cost less that the 24 gb option..... You have to take this in account
@@chidorirasenganz If you see the video of others you can see the mini using 100w of power, not really a ligh one. th-cam.com/video/TAmyfX6X7IE/w-d-xo.html, RAM speed is also high on PC where you have even choice of the model of memory, usually it is the same as the mac. And an exterdal drive with a nice dongle, no nice and clean but quite mandatory.
@@belphag0r It will be slower than a normal build in SSD. Of course, it depends on what you are doing, because in the case of coping big files most likely you don't notice that, but you will notice this in the case of a lot of small files.
@chrisdistant9040 yup, because I only had 8gb of memory and did a lot of swap and writing on my hard drive. It is not normal that it dies after 3 years of use tho
True. I have a mac for the best productivity experience... and it just works. I have a Xbox Series X for the best gaming experience that just works. It's fantastic. I built custom PCs for over a decade then got sick of all the babying and fiddling to keep the hardware and OS running smoothly. I went to mac in 2015 and will never go back to a windows based PC again.
Right. Seeing as the M2 Ultra is *still* slaying the M4 Pro/Max chips (although just barely on the highest configs), an M4 Ultra would be genuinely mind-numbing.
Years ago I was rolling out devices this size, but they were thin client devices with less than minimal specs. Now we have everything you could want in a computer in this firm factor
I hate thin clients in the enterprise world. That always means someone else is making hardware and software decisions on my behalf and very often the hardware simply can't cope with the tasks I sometimes need to perform.
@@fablewalls Well... yeah. The world has flipped I'd say to where thin-client solutions are the norm as enterprise apps are based on web browsers for delivery so the traditional thin-client is all but dead.
@@judewestburner I work in the fire service, often based at HQ and we have a police HQ next door where we sometimes have meetings. We have those awful HP ProBook thin clients and they have a slightly better Lenovo business model. We are both (forces) moving to SaaS (web browser based) but all our other IT solutions are 365 based and managed centrally. One IT guy even suggested moving to tablets on cellular SIMS for the operational workforce in some duties as they don't need laptops even. Thin client style laptops still bug the life out of me - some Apps (even PowerBi) need more powerful computers or they just fall over. Also - forget running over 2 Apps at the same time unless you are happy with a minute delay sometimes between touches. Luckily I can work from home in my job and I often send work to my personal Mac Mini M1 and do some of the work in 1/4 of the time.
It's sad that Ryzen HX 370 can't still shows its real 50 TOPS of computational power. The 40% faster NPU of the chip can't be used by any software, right now, and we have to blame Microsoft for that! They focused only on Snapdragon X Elite while the Ryzen is objectively the most promising in all AI task even upon Apple M4's 38 TOPS
@@lubossoltes321 Nvidia is. Let's be honest: if you want RAW power, a dedicated GPU with a new Intel or Ryzen CPU will still destroy all these tiny SOCs, but if you want a tiny PC... Sadly Snapdragon is hella fast, but on PC you'll see no optimized apps (and Apple Silicon broke some plug-ins, so I don't still think ARM is the solution, but it is the solution for Apple for video editors and casual musicians not into real latency specs. I still can't understand how they can buy the latest production process from TSMC without going at a loss... I also suppose subsidies from the state being a company very incentivized by the American government, as opposed to others... Let's remember that the only American factories are Intel's and in bankruptcy... ).
The problem with the Mac Mini is the cost of storage. If Apple didn't think people were idiots and charge a reasonable price for storage, I would buy at least one of their mini's, but charging $200 for 256GB of storage, which would buy a top tier profession 2TB NVME driver that is faster than Apple's SSDs, there is no way I'm going to reward Apple with my money. Yeah, I can just get an external drive, but I shouldn't have to and an external enclosure and drive still costs money, too. With the cost of storage being very low there is no reason for Apple to charge so much. Geekbench doesn't mean anything, its scores don't match any performance in real world applications as you can see. A 20% performance boost in Geekbench scores won't show up as a 20% performance improvement in anything else. 6:23 It's silicon not silicone. Silicone is what flexible caulk is made out of silicon is what semiconductors are made out of. I have to say performance in productivity and creative applications on a cheap tiny computer seems kind of pointless to me. A larger computer would cost less and could be more powerful. If a person is creating as their career none of these computers would be ideal for it. I would want a computer I could fix and upgrade myself if I needed my computer in order for me to pay rent. If someone isn't making money on their computer and are creating for the enjoyment of it, does shaving a few minutes or seconds off a render really matter? If the best FPS for gaming was 68 that just isn't good enough for gaming. None of these computers are good for gaming and for $1000 a person can get a much better gaming computer if they built it themselves. It's not fair to compare a $599 Mac Mini with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage against a $1000 mini x86 computer with 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. You either spec down the x86 computer or you spec up the Mac Mini with 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage which would make the Mac mini cost $1800. The Mac mini has a low price because it's so Apple can say "The new Mac Mini starting at $599" I don't know of anyone who would recommend a computer that has only 256GB of storage. If people don't buy their Mac mini and complain about the cost of storage, maybe Apple would do something about it. But as long as people give their money to Apple they will keep doing it.
Im a PC user, never had an apple device, but in this case why almost everyone is nitpicking about comparison of these mini machines, that has 1tb storage, that has 64gb of RAM ect. etc. yes apple will cost more, but the base price is unmachable! First of all, if you want gaming, you dont even look at apple in the first place. Second of all, yes upgrading mac costs enormous amounts of money, but i think you need to look at this machine from base model/price perspective that they are selling for. Its not possible to get better spec machine for 500-600 bucks. If you're needs are satisfied with base model get the mac, if you need more storage, RAM dont get the mac, thats it!
With the only important task being DaVinci Resolve video editing, how does a Mac Mini M4 Pro with maxed ram compare to a maxed Ram Beelink Gti14 with GPU Dock & RTX 4080?
I think the Mac is worth it just to have less fan noise, no crashes or viruses, and MacOS itself. It’s just a way smoother experience than Windows. Yeah on paper the Beelink with the RTX will give you “more power”, but in reality it will also waste more of your time in the long run. The Mac will give more peace of time and less stress overall.
Price to performance seems to be a bit biased, picking most base mac mini vs not so base other mini pcs. They should be compared at equivalent ram, storage options :D
@ElevatedSystems The fact that you checked for most expensive ones like 8945hs. It is more or less equivalent to something like 7840hs or 8845hs. And these I could find mini pcs again 32gb ram 1tb, for 400, 500$ respectively. Yes the value of mac mini is not bad, but accepting 256gb of storage or 16gb of ram with insane upgrade costs is a lot of copium, especially in 2024. Phones come with 256GB of storage. What apple does here is price laddering, where you think of might as well pay a bit more for teeny more ram, might as well get a bit more storage and then you're nowhere near the price to performance.
I think what’s truly amazing and usually not stressed enough in these comparisons with other mini machines, is the fact that the mac mini doesn’t require a seperate bulky power adapter under your table. So despite the PSU occupying about half of the size of the case, it still manages to beat the shit out of its competitors, and even using less energy. And all this for that price. At this point competitors might just give up and produce kitchen machines.
With Mac Mini you need bulky external SSDs, USB adapters, card readers which are not free. $600 MacMini + $200 external SSD + $50 USB adapter + $50 card reader. How much is Mac keyboard and mouse? You will end up paying at least $1000.
@@FirstLast-nr6gf So what? And this is highly manipulative. You might already have or you might not need an external SSD, USB adapter and card reader. You might or you might not already have a keyboard and mouse. You might or might not need specifically the Mac keyboard and mouse (I have Logitech MX Master 3 and MX keys)
until the PSU fails. can the Mac mini be powered via a USB 4 or Thunderbolt port ? If not you have an issue. On all the miniPCs, you just go buy a standard GaN adapter and you are good to go again.
Great video. Actually first video that says something about real experience in Davinci Resolve. And as I thought it's not fully smooth in full resolution :(. Thanks.
When I first saw the M1 come out I bought one and was blown away by it's performance and power efficiency. I'm still using an M1 Pro and it's plenty powerful. I can't even imagine how powerful a fully decked out M4 Max chip would be. That's gonna be my next purchase for sure
256GB of storage on a $600 computer is inexcusable in 2025, and charging $200 for an extra 256GB is a felony. I paid $160 for a N95 mini PC with 12GB of DDR5 memory and an upgradeable 512GB M.2 drive...
being this entitled, and deciding what other company shall deliver at what price.. is likely more a "felony".. mindboggling entitlement. I love that they made a 256GB 16GB version as that fit well with my usecase as a secondary device for certain things with our older OLED TV.. in regards to fx Apple only made a 512GB as the entry version at 799.. if Apple made a 128GB M4 version at fx 450USD I would have gotten that, I need the potency in M4.. HDD space is easy to work around for users that dont need it as their primary computer. You do understand choices, ain't a bad thing... stop being triggered on other peoples behalf and call it criminal and all that entitled bs because a company gives the consumer choices.
@@JAKOB1977 , thanks, I can think for myself. If you go shopping for an SSD, you'll see that there's a $20 difference between a 256GB and a 512GB drive. There's absolutely no good reason go cheap on storage... unless planning on charging a whooping $200 for that miserable difference or betting that idiot consumers will run to buy external storage, with all its drawbacks. We are on 2025, files are huge and storage is cheap. Apple's "choices" are worse than lame and they should be blamed for them.
Excellent review. I’ve been waiting for a reviewer to compare the M4 performance with the AMD and Intel offering and this is the first one. In summary, get a PC if you want to game, get a Mac for everything other use case.
Gaming is what will keep x86 alive for a while. In every other aspect, x86 was a living dead when the M1 came out. It just carries too much historic ballast. Similar to Windows. For Intel and Microsoft it is all about milking the cash cow as long as possible while riding on backwards compatibility and vendor lock-in.
What a ridiculous claim. You can't just "get a Mac for everything other use case". Unless you're also prepared to pay through the teeth. As soon as you need anything more than the base model, Apple's advantage quickly disappears.
@ ok I’ll correct it to “You get a Mac for nearly every use case” Let’s face it, x86 is the past, not the future. Case in point Intel just laid off a whole design team and killed another project.
@@jackchen5290 Look, don't get me wrong. I love Apple products. I have a 2012 Macbook Pro that I still use every day. But the pricing on the M series macs is insane. I regularly work on projects that require 64GB of RAM or more, and I'll be damned if I pay the Apple premium for that :). x86 might be dead, but that doesn't matter, all other OSes run on Arm as well (maybe I missed your point about this)
@@jackchen5290 I dont think x86 is being replaced in desktops or things that allow users upgradable things anytime soon. It will be preferred in mobile parts or things that require smaller space for the processors like laptops, something in your car or the airplane tv or consoles in the near future.
I can't remember the last time I used the power button on my Mac, it has been... months and months, maybe even close to a year. Just press control or some other button and it wakes up. Doesn't bother me to have the power button at the bottom. I think it is a marketing ploy. They have A LOT of eyes on them because of this decision.
I don’t doubt, that your statement is true. However it is still a bad design choice. That’s a fact, and the critics of it is earned. Just because you rarely use this button doesn’t mean it can be on the least favorable position imagine-able…
To be fair, I was investigating with an work colleague the market, and many of these MiniPCs are a better deal for 1 or 2 UPGRADES you can do on top of higher specs. So BeLink SER9 in your test is: 32 GB + 1 TB. Assumming that you want the same specs but a better CPU and MacOS, the prices go from 599 (or 499 as a student) to 1,619.00 (at least in Europe), so price to performance will switch very fast into the MiniPC side. As a side note, I just bought a MiniPC with Ryzen 8840HS (which are not top of the line) that are today discounted at around 750 EUR (with 32 GB and 1 TB) and I can upgrade them up to ... 96 GB with less than 300 EURO, or to 64 GB with less than 200 EUR. Would MacMini beat it? Sure, it will, in synthetic benchmarks. But want to do some real work, like working with large projects in video editing, RAW photo editing, and alike... a 1000-ish upgraded mini PC (with 96 GB RAM) will be untouchable at any price point of MacMini. But if you want 64 GB of RAM, you can buy a Ryzen 5800H/U (or alke) with DDR4, and with the price of MacMini you can have a mini PC that cost like: 350 USD base system + 32GB x 2 DDR4 SODIMM 110 USD =
Because of the crazy prices Apple charges for Internal storage - get enough Ram for what you need to do (Some things likely don't need as much ram on Apple Silicon as with Intel... but other things absolutely depend on the actual physical ram being enough to keep the CPU/GPU fed with data) then default storage (or one step up) - then add external storage as needed - USB-C Enclosures with NVMe work very well, and are more than fast enough for most needs. Go to Thunderbolt 3/4 Enclosure if more speed is needed (still cheaper than what Apple charges). One of the advantages Apple Silicon has is the Unified memory - data in ram used by the CPU can be accessed directly by the GPU, no copying needed - and most of the ram in the computer can be used by the GPU dynamically instead of a small set amount. Not something most home users need, but is one of the ways it gets that higher performance. Apple's stubborn refusal to keep the base models at 8GB until just recently was hurting the base model performance quite a bit, and their expensive jumps on the ram upgrades deters most people from paying for upgrades which likely also keeps most people from experiencing even better performance they could be getting (depending on the task of course, some things don't need more video memory)
About the Tomb Raider game shown - minimum requirements are literally "Pentium 4 2Ghz, 2GByte RAM, Geforce 6800" - that is hardware from 20 years ago. The Mac better be good at running THAT.
@@dominicbritt yes, from the tests it looks like they use more ram. They have fast ssds for caching when comparing 1200 Mac with 300 pc that also has 8gb ram.
I'm a Mac user - you should have used a Mac mini with 32GB of memory and a 1 or 2TB NVME. The $599 entry price is irrelevant when comparing against the PCs you've selected. That puts the Mac mini at $1800 for the base M4 or $2400 for M4Pro base with additional cores and 48GB of memory.
@@udance4ever you can't replace memory. but yes, OSX supports memory overcommit and active memory compression, like Linux and AIX do too. Since it's not a gaming machine, a mac mini is unlikely to replace a windows machine. In my case, it replaced a Raspberry Pi4 running Linux.
Good vid, Mac guy here and was sent a geekom mini pc some time ago. It’s sad Apple doesn’t use m.2 as I think most people could stomach Apple’s horrible pricing on RAM. Apple’s integrated SSD controller and NANDs do not create a performance enhancement, and seem to be just there to be DRM despite claims of “security” as if hardware encryption does not exist on PC SSDs.
Right. Apple power management is just wild compared to anything else. The Mac Mini uses 1w of power in standby. For perspective, it still uses 0.25w even when completely powered off (and plugged in, of course). The vast majority of Mac users simply never fully turn off the computer, and you can wake from keyboard, mouse, LAN, or after power failure.
@@woofkaf7724another *outrageously* overblown ado about nothing. The damn mouse lasts MONTHS on a charge. A 2 minute charge gets you a day of power if you ignore weeks of warnings about low battery. Literally a non-issue. Always has been.
Very nice review, with a lot of subjects touched. 13:40 However, talking about price/performance while ignoring specifications like RAM and storage, and not bringing them to same specs as others is not OK. Mac Mini with 32Gb and 1Tb (so specced like some of mini PC, AMD 370 I think) costs 1399USD! That is 400USD more than 999USD mini PC. You can have 64Gb/4Tb or even more for that price. And no, external storage can not be counted, because then the same can be applied to others. So, if you were using that official price for the same specs, price/performance score would be 6.49, lowest of them all. MiniPCs with 8845HS usually go for 500USD, so they would have better price/perf score too (around 12). To put things in perspective, that Baldurs Gate 3 you showed needs around 130Gb (Steam even says 150Gb ) of disk space. That is just ONE game. Storage size is important, and Apple is not being nice about it. RAM is important too. When you are running just one application, it usually does not matter. But when you keep your tabs open in browser, have two three other applications open, things change. And that is real life usage for majority. Suddenly 16Gb are filled and computer is caching on disk. Things start to be slower. I hope you understand why I mentioned this and why it is actually important.
Generally true when all things are equal. In this case, many things are not equal, though. That 16gb on the M4 is doing as much real-life work as 24 or 32 on a Win11 machine. Storage is a bummer, but external nvme storage and a TB4 enclosure is just a reality for this.
Its not lost on anyone. Basic knowledge. But *Plenty* of reviews showing how RAM works different/more efficent on macs... ever since M1 chip was announced. multiple tabs, multiple apps, etc, all running and switching smooth. My last intel mac had 128 GBs of ram... and I still got page outs and swap. And just like you state "8845 usually go for less" -- minis and mini pros do as well. base mini is $50 off everywhere, mini pro is $70 off
It's crazy how many people believe that 16 >= 32 😂. Or spout things like "RAM works different/more efficent on macs". RAM is RAM, you either have enough or you don't. And if you don't the OS will swap to disk. And people keep forgetting that the RAM on M series macs is shared with the GPU, so you get even less.
Thank you very much for the review. I have a MAC Mini M1 and overall I'm pretty satisfied, but there are 2 things I wish were better. The first is that it has become slower at startup after the latest MAC OS updates. The second is that I can't watch Netflix 4K on the M1. Do you know if you can watch Netflix in 4K on the M4? Keep up the good work.
Important for gamers and also professionals: many of minisforums offerings include an Oculink port which lets you use an external GPU, which will outclass any Mac in video editing, gaming, AI, etc.
What about the noise of the fans and the temperature? Those are the only 2 reasons I use a Mac Mini, all the Windows mini pc's are loud as a fighter jet and get very hot, but I still prefer Windows.
there are fanless mini pcs with ryzen 5800u (or 7730u) and with intel i7-1355u. That is as good as it gets with mini pcs, otherwise you need to limit the fan or mod the case to allow bigger coolers or install a passive heatsink. Those are good options if one needs lots of ram for cheap. Otherwise the mac mini m4 is better option for its cpu.
Base Mac mini M4 I was not able to hear the fan even after running various tasks that had it pretty warm to the touch - I think they are a bit too far on the keeping fan speed low side at the expense of the system running warm. The M4 Pro Mac mini especially if set to "High Performance" (something not available on the base M4 models) - the Fan can get loud enough to hear for sure - not as loud as the 2018 6-core i7 Mac mini fan got, but still loud. I should get out the dB meter to measure actual volume levels. In both cases average use doesn't get them warm, with idle power draw of only 3 to 3.5 watts, and typical usage power draw at 4-9 watts for the M4, and 4-13 watts for the M4 Pro. For the M4 if you run intensive 3D renders or 3D Games, or very large CPU multi-threaded tasks, the power draw for the M4 rises into the 26-36 Watt range and it will get warm. For the M4 Pro the peaks get higher into the 60-70 Watt range.
@@BrianMWPG amazingly low power draw for idle and regular use. And for heavy use, I think they are also very low compared to desktops (specially intel).
Exactly. I don't understand why these reviews are trying to praise the Mac mini. Yes I get it it's an amazing little machine for a very low price but that shit is literally useless. And they compare it to a windows system with far more ram and storage which obviously costs more but then they ignore the ram/storage on the Mac. The HX370 with 32gigs and 1TB costs $999 whilst a same capacity Mac mini costs $1400. Of course I expect Mac mini to be better at computing than the HX370 given the $400 price difference
If you ever wanted to jump into a the Apple Ecosystem? This is one heck of a great way to do it. If you have kids? It is a NO BRAINER for a desktop computer for anyone who has kids will understand how fast they seem to break portable devices.
Apple ecosystem is too expensive. My friend and his wife, over 10 years have spent $15 000 on Apple laptops, tablets, and phones. That is a little crazy.
He didn’t do that or more extensive gaming experience because the M4 would get horrible results. AMD’s HX 370 is a fabulous chip and runs everything! W11 is getting so good these days, that it’s coming very close to macOS in design but has much less shortcomings. In 2/3 years I may change definitely. The same happens with iOS, I’m getting tired of so many shortcomings…
@@ricarmig W11 is gettign good, are you drunk? Windows became shit and I curse at this OS anytime I have to use it in my company. Windows was good until 7 and then went downhill.
@ your personal problems with W11 are none of my concern. W11 is visually and functionally very good, ATM no issues and FAR BETTER than W10. The ARM version is even more optimized. I have W11 on my 6 year old 8th gen Intel laptop (512 GB SSD, 8 GB of ram) and on my father’s laptop (similar hardware), automatic updates and work great; my Lenovo Legion Go has W11 and works great. My Mac Mini M4 runs macOS 15.1 and using the migration assistant (with my M1) it freezed and came a screen with user/pass that accepts no user/pass. I tried to reinstall the OS or use the terminal and NO LUCK! I had to search forums that advised to use the Disk Utility to erase everything but the macOS install partition and THEN it worked. I also need to use several apps to circumvent macOS limitations. So…ATM I had more issues with macOS than with W11 (never had such issues or search forums due to these things)
The two value standouts in desktop personal computers these days are the base model Mac mini and the various mini-PCs with the Intel N100 processor that can be had for under $150. Get the Mac if you can afford it. Get an N100 if your needs are basic and your budget is small.
I'm an exclusively Linux user and really don't like macOS (I consider it the main weakness of the Mac desktop/laptop ecosystem). Sadly, Asahi Linux isn't available for M4 Macs yet and when it does eventually become available, it would be interesting to see this mini PC benchmark video repeated, but with Asahi Linux on the M4 Mac Mini vs Fedora Linux on the other mini PCs - a true apples to apples comparison if you pardon the pun. I think a Mac Mini M4 with Asahi Linux (plus Fex and Proton) might actually be able to play games better than the macOS equivalent, but time will tell. There's a big GPU diff between M1/M2's and M3/M4's and with the Asahi team having to reverse engineer everything, it could be a few years before M4 support gets into decent shape. Apart from the OS, the Mac Mini M4's other big disadvantage is the lack of internal upgradability (and the insane price jumps if you order more RAM or storage at initial purchase time). As you pointed out, you can work around the storage issue with an external drive, but the RAM situation is an unmitigated disaster. To go up by only 8GB RAM, you're also forced to double your storage to 512GB and the total cost of this being an extra $400 is a total disgrace (it's about $30 of extra hardware if you bought the equivalent for a non-Mac PC). For me, the conclusion is that the Mac Mini M4 has a weak OS, has no internal upgradeability and scandalous pricing for higher RAM/storage options. A real shame because the price/performance of the base model is imprsssive, but I need more than 16GB RAM so I can run an ARM Linux VM full screen to avoid macOS wherever possible and its price/performance figures die big time when it suddenly becomes $999 for the 24GB RAM model.
OSX has become really bad. I recently bought an M4 pro and I'm thinking of switching it to Linux in the long term. There were issues with the filesystem already, I can't easily disable the notifications (I put the daemon in a pkill loop until I find a more permanent solution) and it lacks UI scaling like Linux Desktops and Windows desktops have. That makes menus really hard to read.
You gotta be new to Apple, if their limitations can rock your boat.? Give it time. they just added a pushable button to Iphone, so things are moving along.
It is always disappointing that Apple will make such wonderful entry level machines and ruin that advantage with ridiculous upgrade prices. They could be killing it across the board. But as soon as you need to upgrade to a 1TB hard drive (which if you are storing a lot of photos and doing any editing, you need), it just changes they value quickly.
This is deliberate choice from the Apple. Apple never prices their products the cheapest way. They go in the middle. They leave space under and over their price line. That is to make their partners lives easier. As a customer if I need something that works right now then I go and buy Apple. Otherwise I buy accessories from the other vendors. Also Apple always keeps the price points steady and in that way makes the second hand market for Macs work perfectly. You want more power? Then you go and buy the power and sell the old Mac in the second hand market. There are plenty of people who are happy to get those in their hands. (Think students.)
@@verttikoo2052 They do not go for the middle. Their upgrade pricing is predatory and ridiculous. I'm glad they have top of the line components and machines last a long time, but making RAM and SSD upgrades so expensive hurts both their brand and their sales and might actually be illegal in many countries soon. It wasn't always this way either.
256 GB is perfect for an OS drive. The rest is up to the user with external storage. Just one example. I store my Windows Wine Bottle on an external SSD, and unplug it when I am not gaming. The Mac mini stays nice and tidy.
@@adaml.5355 I'm glad it is working for you. You run into walls quickly as a user though, especially if you aren't technical. 1) It is much slower than the internal drive so even moving my Photos DB to an external shows a difference 2) I've had problems with some apps and Spotlight indexing going nuts with documents and apps on external drives 3) SSDs are cheap, 256GB is just insulting given their upgrade prices.
If you would like to run virtual machines on this mini PCs, you will definitely need more than 16G memory. All the x86 mini pcs have 32G while Mac mini only has 16. Upgrading mac mini to 32G would cost you $400, or $999 in total. Additionally, since many Linux distributions do not support ARM64 yet, your choice of OS will be limited.
VMs run just fine on my M1 w 16GB. OrbStack is even more efficient. and Asahi Linux is a godsend - ive been able to cross compile an x86 Linux distro from source no problem. and its been on my bucket list to try Ubuntu using the same kernel. the future is bright!
@@udance4ever Pay attention to your "Swap Used" in Activity Monitor. You may feel no slow down but macos may have already used your SSD as swap space which may wear down your SSD faster. Since the SSD is not replaceable, if it's life cycle is reached, your mac is dead as well. Asahi may use much less memory than macos and thus leave much more space for VMs, so I do want to try it some time.
@@rodgerwang7017 ah good point. I just remember next to no swap used for all other apps but now that you mention it, swap does go up w VMs. I guess I'm not too worried about it because I purposely got 1TB to help level the wear (& don't use VMs often)
It's easy to make sense of the power button position. It runs UNIX. You don't shut it down, you let it manage its own power. I can't remember the last time any of my apple machines were powered off.
I have a MBP with M1Pro, from time to time the mouse becomes 'sluggish', this seems to coincide with the internal memory pressure being high. A quick restart sorts this out.
Running UNIX and somehow it “managing its own power” (whatever that means) has nothing to do with the need to restart. All computers need to be regularly restarted…
@@spacetoast7783 yeah. The premise of the original comment makes no sense, but you will eventually have a power outage, move, clean, etc and have to use that button. It makes no sense for it to be in such an inconvenient spot. Everyone has their own flavor of cope to remain an Apple fan here though.
I'm tired of people complaining about the power button being on the bottom. The machine is small, it helps to not press it by accident. It's so light that having it on a side would wove the thing when pressing anyway. Last option would be on the top, which is the worst aesthetic. They chose the best option. No SD reader is a much bigger problem.
Yeah complaining about the power button became old hat like 5 minutes after the Mini was announced. Obviously no actual user cares because you'll likely push it one time when you first plug it in and perhaps never again.
are you implying that apple is so bad at designing their products that they couldn't design a power button that you can press without pushing the whole device from its resting place, but doesn't get pressed by accident... somehow... and that's why they hid it?
All these other mini pc manufacturers put the power button on the front and is much more user friendly. Yes I turn my computer off every day when I’m done using it and it boggles my mind a company as big as Apple makes decisions like this. Just put it on the back for goodness sake if they don’t want it up front.
It seems that the reason why the power button is on the bottom is that apparently new macs don't really sleep ever. No matter if you press the button, or choose "sleep" option from the menu, the power light is always lit. I haven't measure it yet, but it seems to me that new macs are a bit like smartphones which means some parts of the processor are always on. So once you make a "hot corner" that turns your display off - it basically is the same as putting your computer into low power mode. Maybe I am wrong, so it would be nice to actually measure mac's power consumption when the screen is off, or when the power button is pressed. But if I am right then it won't actually matter much where exactly the power button is, because you won't use it almost ever.
The $600 price is a mirage. Let's compare to the mini PC I bought in August: $580 got me an Aoostar Gem12 (8 core, 16 thread 8845hs clocked at 5.1gHz) with 32 gigs of DDR5 (5600), a nice fast gen4 1tb ssd, two 2.5 gbit ethernet ports, a very competent 780m iGPU, and an honest to god oculink port for 64gbit direct pcie4 x4 connection (I retrofitted an old thunderbolt 3 eGPU enclosure into an oculink box, and it screams through 4K gaming with an rx 7800xt). To upgrade the mac to similar specs (forget the eGPU), let's see.... 1TB ssd: +$400 (even though that caliber of drive can be had for under $80). 32GB memory: +$400 (again, should be like $100, but Apple needs to do the extortion game). Any network port faster than 1gbit: +$100. Now you're at $1500. Price to performance king, my sweet ass. No thanks.
I mean the upgrade prices are a problem but I just buy the base model and use it for what it is and do gaming on an actual gaming desktop. So yeah it's pretty good at $500 but at $1000 I would buy something else unless they are an artist and use a lot of apple programs
@@MrLuffy9131 for less than 999usd with the student discount, a mac mini m4 with 32gb and 10gbit ethernet seems the best deal. with only 256gb but then you add a thunderbolt external drive and leave the internal as empty as possible.
@@MrLuffy9131The M2 Pro Mini has been extremely good for basically everything. Totally silent, games well enough, especially retro, and for editing videos and making music, and some light Stable Diffusion and llm chat models it’s been amazing. They really do well for ai applications with the Npu cores.
the ssd's for Mac mini will have an easier upgrade path in the future, as a supplier works to make replacement drives. Meaning ram deserves most attention upon starting upgrades
Power button on the bottom, "I can't make that make sense". It makes sense if you consider the fact that the power button on a Mac is almost never used. I've never voluntarily turned off any of my Macs since 2002. So the only time they're off is during software install (which doesn't require use of the power button) or in cases of non-laptop Macs if I was moving it from one location to another. In the old days you occasionally had to reboot once or twice a year due to OS crashes. Something that has become so rare that I have no idea how long it has been since I had one. Other than that, never use the power button. And notice that Apple keyboards have a power button on them, so the computer boxes power button is redundant if you're using Apple's keyboards. So you're talking about a button that you will likely use a few times / year or maybe never.
OMG like seriously dude... the power button is a non-issue.. it’s place there so you DON’T have to use often... Windows users might feel compelled to use it because of all the BSOD Windows used to have. for Mac, a power button is almost unnecessary...
You won't get bsod on a good windows computer. I used some shitty ones which always had bsod but my midrange gaming pc and laptop runs perfectly and they can play games at 1080p ultra with high framerate, and the desktop can play in 4k ultra at above 60 fps. They never lagged at video editing too.
@@di4mondpl4ys45 it's not "running" it's in sleep mode.. if you're concerned about the power consumption put a Kill-a-watt and check how much power it's drawing from the wall... it's negligible, as in, barely any power is being drawn from the outlet. Is that your complain? I'd argue that booting up the machine might draw more energy than leaving it in sleep state.
Power button position makes perfect sense when you consider the ultra low power cores that keep the mini in standby - just don’t turn it off. It’s more akin to the power button on a phone. You never really need it.
@@adaml.5355 you have to lift the Mac to push the button…is just ridiculous imo. Don’t get me wrong, I love my M2 Mac mini but this design decisions that Apple made…😒
I have 16GB RAM on my M1 MacBook Pro at work and it’s always popping up a window asking me to close apps because it’s out of memory. Granted I am a developer but still. Not interested in a Mac with only 16. Would be a fairer test with the 32GB RAM in the Mac like the other machines had when you calc value.
@@ElevatedSystems dont compare 32gb and 2tb ram with its price to 256gb and 16gb ram, your opinion is skewed towards Apple, and you forgot to add another 600-1200$ to the base price if you like 2tb and 32gb with M4. So you should compare 999$ from Mini Pc, to 1400-1600$ for M4 with the same RAM/SSD amounts!!!!!!!!!!!!
To match the configurations of the other devices would bring the M4 mini cost to $1399. To move to 2 TB storage on the M4 I could put 2x 4TB Gen4 SSD's in the others. If you move outside of synthetics and optimized software that completely leans into the M4 mini then I think the picture changes. The base model is excellent and provides superior utility within a tiny scope but it's a loss leader meant to trap the purchaser into a upsell mentality, buyer beware.
The less synthetic the benchmark is the more powerful the mac gets. The average user doesnt need more than 16gb of ram and the storage is upgradeable externally with excellent speeds. The only real downside is game compatiblity put if you want a machine to get work done the mac is the best plus apple provide a 100 discount if you are a student
@@walidoutaleb7121 The average user doesn't need to spend $599 to get their work done either. And yes you can add external storage to your mini but then it starts not being the tight little form factor anymore. Apple offers larger storage options for a reason? Where do you think the student discount comes from?
@@maxwellsmart3156 who cares about the space it will take since its a pc you will at minimum have a mouse keyboard and screen connected. We are not talking about a laptop. someone might go cheaper but will it actually be cheaper in the long run? This mac mini will outlast any machine cheaper than it.
@@walidoutaleb7121 Not really. If your workload consists of sshing into a terminal, even a $200 android phone will do. Browse the web? Chromebooks come in at around $300 these days, with about the same baseline of m2 drives and soldered ram
This is the first review I have seen that did an apples to apples comparison of the Mac Mini to pre-built Windows mini-pcs. What most other reviewers seem to overlook ( I am looking at you LTT) or just flat out don't care is that the Venn diagram of Mac Mini target customers and people who built their own custom PC's has no overlap. Nice review even if you forget to mention that the original Mac Mini came out in 2005, long before the Intel NUC.
@@MJHiteshew I think there was sort of an implication (00:48) that Apple is newer to this form factor. In the video, Intel's NUC was offered as an early example of the mini PC form factor, dating to 2012. The first Mac mini predates the NUC by several years, however. Note that I could be misunderstanding both the video and the OP of this comment.
Outside of limited games to play and mediocre SSD write speeds, the base M4 destroys the competition. You can even boost up the RAM to 24GB, and still have a great price to performance. $800 without the student discount. $700 with it. Add a $20 dongle for any missing ports, and a light user has all they need.
@ It’s as easy as downloading Steam. Crossover is $79 for a year of updates. You can still use it afterwards and it often goes on sale particularly around Black Friday. I scored it for 20 bucks. Besides it’s not as if maintaining a Windows PC is hassle free
The M4 is a great performer, and your claims are valid BUT, the price to performance conclusion is VERY MISLEADING. To spec the M4 Mac Mini the same as the others, 32GB of RAM and 1TB Storage it will costs $1400. You calculated (avg of scores/cost) so multiply the result by the cost will give us the avg of scores. This becomes 9102. So now we can then calculate the price to performance more appropriately to other devices. 9102/1400 = *6.5* This turns out to be WORSE overall, BUT giving the benefit of the doubt, Apple's storage pricing is a SCAM so we'll leave out the storage upgrade and since you can't upgrade RAM we'll go with this config: 32GB RAM + 256GB Storage = $1000. If we do the calculation again we get a BETTER score of 9.1 WITHOUT the same storage. Let's say, adding a 1TB external SSD that is a fast and reliable brandcost ~$75, that will bring the price to performance at around ~8.5. Now the conclusion isn't an outlying 2x price to performance of the competitors, at best 1.3x or 30%. My statement also doesn't include the fact that other than the new AMD machine and oldest Intel, the other mini PCs have 2TB of storage. Oh, and of course student discounts, which varies to the audience/buyers that is a fair point to make for anyone buying the M4 Mac Mini, but I simply left out due to comparison sake. with my calculations you can easily decide if it is worth it or not.
Wasn't misleading at all. I clearly covered the specs of each system and I even mentioned how any of Apple's ridiculously priced upgrades will kill the price to performance ratio. Unfortunately your calculations assume upgrading the Mac will not effect it's performance.
@@ElevatedSystems, besides the Apple OS doesn’t need a huge level of RAM to achieve the same performance of a Windows PC. Same goes for on board storage.
@@ElevatedSystems I agree with @NootNoot you did a horrible job reviewing this. It would be nice to have a never show me again feature on youtube, so I could click on makers that purposefully lie in their videos like you have done here. You could have easily done PCs with the same RAM and SSD size or had the RAM SSD size of the Mac be the same. You decided though to artificially tilt the price to performance ratio and then say it was the most important thing. Even your game review part didn't have the same graphics. No mention of a list of games that worked on Mac or a showing of how and where the single core performance actually helps. Such a bad review.
@ those are the base specs of each model. Thats what they come with. Its base model vs base model. The PCs with the current flagship CPUs don’t have cheaper options.
@@chidorirasenganz Well, for Blender tasks it's not even up to 4050 Laptop GPU... And with full Pro CPU, 48GB RAM, 1TB storage it is much more expensive than ASUS Strix laptop with 4070, 1TB and 64GB RAM and 4070 Laptop is on par with M3 Max/M2 Ultra in GPU performance. I would love to get Mac, but can't justify it in comparison for same price Windows machine, especially a portable one as with MBP you need to spend double or more for same results...
@ Except the that strix laptop would have a slower CPU, less VRAM, less battery life, worse inputs and build quality etc. Also according to the Blender benchmark they score the same as they both get 2500. And new M series chips always get better with newer updates to Blender. The M3 Max started at 3400 and now scores 4200 on 4.2. So performance most likely will improve a bit
M4 Mini cannot run Windows software properly, and that's a big disadvantage. Intel based Mini could run almost 100 percent of Windows software perfectly using Boot Camp, Parallels, etc. Intel based Mini could use a very powerful AMD video card in an external box, attached via Thunderbolt. M2/M3/M4 Minis cannot use external GPUs. Such a drawback.
@@sobieckil07 ARM Macs have been out for years, and still external GPU boxes *do* *not* *work* . The problem goes much deeper than simple 'drivers' . And the GPU integrated into M3 or M4 chips is very weak and unimpressive, compared to NVidia graphics. It's like comparing a bicycle to a BMW.
@@sobieckil07 Unfortunately no. Apple does not implement the full pcie spec that would be needed for external GPU support. Specifically the way it handles external memory addressing modes. Apple themselves would have to patch the microcode of the chips to make external gpus possible and they've made it clear they have no interest after the mac pro.
As a power user with an M1 Pro macbook, I disagree - for my personal usecase. I use both crossover and Parallels to run Windows (software) on my macbook, and it works flawlessly. Yes, in theory the emulation comes with a performance hit, but in practice I don't notice this at all. And think about it: the other way around, running macOS on Windows, is much more complicated/nigh on impossible.
A computer with less than 4TB internal storage is a no-go for me. Built my system two years ago and its current 2TBs are almost full. (Upgrading to 4TB this Holiday season.)
The classic Mac argument is to pretend that everyone uses Photoshop and does video editing on a regular basis. This drags the prices of the Mini PCs higher to match the needs of this customer. My problem is that most customers do not use Photoshop or do video editing. Just as most people with Smartphones are not videographers. And so when you remove this customer from the mix -- -- you discover you can get a hell of a Mini PC from basically ANYONE for half the price and sometimes less. So if you have 3 kids and you want to give each of them a desktop PC? $900 for all 3. Or less. But it gets worse. Because, you see, Apple always tries to make you pay $200 or more to get more RAM or storage than their PC cousins. Most $300 Mini PCs include 16GBs of RAM and 512 SSD storage. The Mac Mini charges you $200 more to double the storage to 512. So to get those 3 kids those Macs with similar storage and RAM is $1400 more. And did I mention extended warranty? The good news is that greedy Apple just surprised me by dropping their 3 year price to only $99. The bad news is you can get your $300 Mini PC similarly covered for $40. So $1525 more for 3 Mac Minis with warranty for kids. Imagine if this was a business and it needed 20 workstations? A savings of over 10K. What if it was a school system that needed 2000 minis? Savings of $1,000,000.
Just buy a used office PC for 100 dollars if it's the same thing. Maybe it will be more powerful than a new cheap mini PC, and the GPU can be upgraded. Mac mini is a different category, it's a top of the line CPU in a small/silent package.
Many people are focusing on individual specs and missing the point on Price to Performance. First I need to mention that all the PCs in this video are base models. There are no cheaper spec versions of the mini PCs. Now let me use this analogy: Imagine you have two vacuum cleaners to choose from: one with a 12-amp motor that costs $600 and another with a 24-amp motor priced at $1,000. Despite having a smaller motor, the 12-amp model cleans twice as efficiently, consistently picking up more dirt in half the time. Which is the better value? Are you still going for the more expensive one with the bigger motor, or would you choose the model that’s proven to be faster and more effective? Does anyone even care about the motor?
BiGeR iS bEtTEr!!! 😂
You can spend $350 on a ryzen 7735hs mini pc with 32gb ram and 1tb storage. You can't even buy that on the mac mini at $1400 so the question becomes is that chip worth 4x more of a capable system? Not for anything I'm doing.
In this analogy, I need to empty the bag/dust bin for the more efficient vacuum 3 times as often, and whilst it's great at cleaning the majority of my house. There's one specific carpet (gaming) that it just doesn't like, and doesn't really work on.
@ none of the vacuums were made for that carpet. You should look at shop vacs for that one.
mac mini 4 sucks. i just using it today. my intel it 32mb memory latop blew mac mini 4. This is not even typing letters fast
Hi. The important thing is that you were the only one who noticed mini computers other than Mac mini and compared them. This already makes your video valuable for viewers.
Yeah, sure. He's the only one.
unfortunately for those who know about it, nothing comes close to a Beelink SER8 (8845hs) and SER9 (hx370) on windows, taking a Miniforum or Geekom is a bit sad, these brands make machines that heat up and do much more noise than Beelink while they sell their products more expensive, no one should give them visibility
Amazing how other companies just blatantly copies Apple 🙄
@@verttikoo2052not sure if youre being sarcastic or..
@@iPixelPandah Not being sarcastic. Other companies just blatantly copy Apple. When Apple introduced the Mac mini now everything looks like Mac mini. Intel even encouraged the laptop manufacturers to copy Apple. We had suddenly lots of plastic imitations of the MacBook lineup.
Now it doesn’t matter because Apple uses its own silicon and others can’t match that. Times were different when Apple also used Intels processors. That backstabbing from Intel we will never forget.
Dont worry about not being able to play modern games, you wouldnt have harddrive space to install them anyway.
hah, true. there are some games that literally don't fit in that entire ssd
Like someone already said, with the money you save you can just buy a ps5. I’d rather have a Mac mini and a ps5 than a mini pc with more storage lol
Well, you can use a simple external SSD.. even the Thunderbolt 4 have higher transfer limit like most of the SSD what random user will pick.. and those what are initialy faster like the Thunderbolt 4 you never buy, because it's cost more like the mini PC..
@@jonbig04 beelink amd flagship goes for 750bucks on amazon....
External Hard Drive is always best option.
It’s actually insane how tiny mac mini is, especially considering the power supply is integrated
That’s a good point I forgot. Do all the other computers have power bricks hanging off the back of them?
@@tomcollins6989 yeah, he shows them at 2:00
@@randomcommenterurl wow, I completely forgot about that. That is really incredibly impressive. If I didn't have a MacBook Pro, I would have snapped it up long ago. Without thinking twice. What an offer from Apple
well you see.... apple didn't do much actually the old mac mini had a ton off unused space so they just removed the air
The integrated PSU takes up nearly half the space in the Mac mini. So overall, the mini may be one of the smallest.
200 bucks for a 1/4 TB SSD upgrade is beyond ridiculous. Same with the 8GB RAM upgrade. The fact that anyone would be willing to pay this is mind blowing.
Apple sucks for making the price ladder move like that, but it doesn't change the fact that the base model is an absolutely absurd deal. Just needs an external Thunderbolt drive and it's literally perfect for 90% of Mac users
@gdludus not an Apple fan, honestly. However, I agree.
Apple has always been stingy with storage and RAM. The little secret about the MacMini is the expandable storage. You can bet third parties will eventually offer internal SSD modules for it. It's a bit odd decision, since their recent Macbooks have soldered SSDs with no upgrade path unless you're willing to risk damaging your logic board.
they dont know any better or are apple fanboi's
Another review used an external hard drive which tested faster than the mini internal...
I hate macs, I hate osx but I think I may finally get one of these mini 4 due to probably the aggregate best considering sum of easiest/cheapest/fastest video and audio editing.
Vs linux/windows/android
I enjoy a game once in a while but don't really care that much.
Your table has M4 Mac Mini as having Wifi7. It actually has 6e.
Well crap! This is why I need an editor. Thanks. I'll pin this comment for the info. I did quote the correct specs later in the video. Not sure if that helped.
@@ElevatedSystems It's all good. Mistakes are always going to happen. LTT has a bunch of editors, a community fact checking program and millions of dollars, and they can't talk about something like Thunderbolt for more than 20 seconds before getting something wrong.
literally unwatchable
@@ElevatedSystems Also, BT 5.3, not 5.4
@@BowlineDandy 3kliksphilip did not foresee this becoming a widespread meme
Non upgradable RAM or storage not only prevents you from upgrading for cheap, but also from fixing the computer if the SSD or RAM fails. They even made the SSD modular because it's better for them to switch the storage at any time based on demand, but used a special connector to fck consumers. PCs will continue using modular SSD and the Ram will also stay modular but move to CAMM, so, no, there's no reason for Apple to be this anti-consumer. It's funny how they brag about how "green" they are while doing this stuff
False, the SSD hard drive in the mini is replaceable.
@@tonyburzio4107 I think you will find it isn’t “user replaceable” and by that I mean the average user ie. someone without micro soldering gear or expertise.
Besides, Apple is unlikely to provide replacement parts, third party may provide a solution, but it still won’t be cheap or that easy due to economy of scale and not being designed for replacement.
The SSD NAND controller is directly built into the M-series chips just like most mobile SOC. It's not just the connector that's different but the interface is completely different. Can Apple design their chips to work with standard M.2 SSDs? Absolutely but they choose not to because that's just how their business model works. They would never sell the base model for this cheap if you can easily upgrade it yourself without giving them the money.
Only by Apple, proprietary connection@@tonyburzio4107
@@tonyburzio4107 It is not user replicable. IT is a special module that doesn't have a Controller as that is on the chip itself.
"Still have me very smooth gameplay" proceeds to show instantaneous skipping and lag. Beautiful.
I think thats due to screen recording
@AshleyAmber screen recording consumes much less resources now than it did 10 years ago.
There are very few cases where it takes more than 5fps away and those cases are also ones that refuse to work on any system as it is a game side issue.
It's just not build for gaming.
Comparing the mac mini against anything not specifically designed ro be a single minded productivity machine will put it ahead by default.
Any all purpose or gaming PC will loose against such a machine.
It's like putting a triathlete against a pure marathon runner. In the marathon section the triathlete has no hope.
i noticed the same thing lol
Haha this show's how to talk great for apple Mac mini for games and not the real data..
@@AshleyAmber So the Mac Mini and its hyperpowerful M4 cannot handle screen recording?
I always believe you should buy the computer, PC or Mac, that makes you the most comfortable and productive
Wrong, when your choice is limited because the PC maker also makes the games you need, that means the PC maker is a monopolist.
@@tonyburzio4107 You are for sure correct on the monopolist. I viewed the comment differently. I believe stewarts was saying there shouldn't be a battle between Apple or PC being better. I support both. People that come to me for Apple support, hardly even play games. They spend most of their time for content creation, and that is what they enjoy and make them productive. If they do play games, they will have a PC to do so. I spend most of my time in linux, but I have to use windows for specific work software and games. I use an older mac and iMovie to edit videos for work related content. The mac is the slowest hardware, but also the easiest and free way to cut videos and add text. I may be more fortunate than others, but each has its selling points and usefulness. Sure 1 piece of hardware would be great, but using each to their advantage to my preference makes it easier for me. You can have a unified system and use software with a learning curve, or have multiple systems. Use what suits your workflow. Most people don't need a work truck for drive back and forth to the mill, a small car would be best for that. However the truck may help with their wood working hobby. Poor gas mileage for work, but convenience for moving plywood. Based on financials, it may make sense to buy a car too, or give up woodworking. It comes down to what the person wants/needs. Maybe a crossover can do both, but not ideal for either.
@@tonyburzio4107 I'm referring to a work environment where computers are used for actual work.
I have a dual boot PC with CachyOS and Win11 and a Macbook Pro. They all have their uses.
Much better is mini itx platform that able to carry with ease. But of course the achilles heels of mini itx is the price tag
"Apple Silicone"
I know this is a nitpick on the pronunciation, but...
Silicon and Silicone are different.
Silicon is a naturally-occurring element. It's a metalloid and semiconductor.
Silicones (polysiloxanes) are polymers, many of which are colorless oils used for lubrication and others that are rubber-like used as a sealant/insulation.
Thank you, came here to say this. Any respectable IT "nerd" should know the difference.
noticed that too. I was about to comment about it and then I saw your comment. 😅
@@robmaertens oh come on. Is any IT nerd going to be confused and think the chip is made out of silicone because of a pronunciation slip?
Christ, we’ll gatekeep anything in this industry.
@@alanschmitt9865 I completely understand, not trying to be snarky we all make mistakes. In my experience a lot of people don't know the difference or that the name implies something completely different. I'm sure it was just a slip of the tongue. The previous comment describing the differences between the two was excellent for the masses that don't understand the difference. Educational moment for those that want to learn.
"Joined 18 years ago" Damn, and you're still active, unless this account was bought
I'd love to see the M4 Pro version in these tests.
Sorry, I can only afford the base model.
@@ElevatedSystems real
@@ElevatedSystems It would be interesting to compare M4 Pro Mini with Regular desktop like i7-4770 with Nvidia RTX-4060 Ti (16GB). They would be in the same price category. Can you please compare either base M4 mini or your Mac Studio with any PC with an Nvidia GPU for some professional work.
@@ElevatedSystems I just assumed all TH-cam reviewers just bought them, ran the benchmarks and then sent them back during the return window!
@@danabc322 no, i keep everything I buy or donate it to those in my community who may be in need. I have every Mac I ever bought except the M2 Pro Mac mini which I gave to a local family.
My Mac Mini base setup (it's the only way to do it if you value your bank account):
Mac Mini Base, got a $50 discount from Best Buy= $550, External Thunderbolt 4 enclosure from OWC= $100 (there are cheaper ones, I like the best and don't mind paying for it), 4TB Crucial T5 NVMe SSD, got on sale= $280. This is it, nothing else. And this is a very powerful, very future-proofed setup. This is the best deal in a desktop PC in 2024, and I'm a very dedicated PC gamer. I simply use said PC only for gaming now, nothing else. This is better everywhere else. Great comparison, you got a new sub.
Will the Crucial SSD be plug and play for the base model Mac mini?
Yes but for gaming not sure if anyone uses a mini pc like this. Minimum is Mini Itx which is way bigger than it sounds.
Same here! PC gamer with a 13900k/4090 but wanted something quieter and portable incase I want to take it on a trip. Base Mac Mini for $499 with student discount, TB4 enclosure for $100 and a 2TB 990 Pro (had it laying around but was $189) and this thing is a properly fast spacious daily driver. The integration with my iPhone and iPad is awesome. PC only gets used for gaming now.
Exactly. Pretty much the exact setup I recommend for all my clients. Unless they don't need really fast storage, I give them the option for a $30 USB C 10 GB/s case. $70 savings.
@@ajd1439 plug where? No internal NVMe slots. Externally, ANY drive works.
I recently had my birthday and I got the base M4 Mac Mini. I haven't used it fully, but I freaking love it!
Your boyfriend sounds like a great guy! 👍
@@tumslucks9781did you just assume her their gender…
@@ameerhamza4046 its a pretty good guess
Me to
@@tumslucks9781bizarre
I understand one could argue the Mac Mini delivers this benchmark-performance already with 16GB RAM - but comparing prices with 1/4 or 1/8 of the storage capacity is nonsense. The Mac Mini with 1TB SSD already is 999$ - make it 2GB, as the Geekom has - it's 1399$ - and if you even out the RAM, when your project needs more than 16GB (which most benchmark don't) - you are at 1799$ for the Mac Mini with 32GB Ram and 2TB storage.
And honestly... for the kind of work you benchmarked in the PC market I would not go with a Mini-PC, but real "high end GPUs" - meaning a dedicated GPU... for a workstation I usually don't need a gimmicky small case.
I agree, his comparison is not "Apples" to apples, considering all the other systems have way more storage, and upgrades for Macs is ridiculously overpriced. I have a couple of Minisforum mini PCs in my home computer lab, each with 8 core / 16 thread AMD procs, 64 GB RAM, and 1 TB NVMeSSD... 4x the RAM and storage as the Mac Mini, for the same price. Also the Mac Mini has only 1 Gbit port, while my tiny servers each have 2 2.5 Gbit ports.
"...for a workstation I usually don't need a gimmicky small case.": You don't need a tower either. What you 'need', is which machine does it's job best.
Just buy the 256gb storage model and use thunderbolt/usb 4 nvme adapters for extra storage.
There are Thunderbolt 5 External ssd enclosures now which claim up to 6000 read and write speeds if I’m not mistaken.
I could imagine gen 5 drives coming soon for Thunderbolt 5 connections as well.
If you are buying this to use the Apple AI features, note that Apple will only run the AI features on data stored on the internal drive. This is because the are making claims to keep your AI data secure, and only they only view the internal drive as secure.
@@GlobalWave1 there is no Thunderbolt 5 external units what so ever at this point.
@ just type in Thunderbolt external ssd in the TH-cam search above.
Wait what? .... the point of such a device is to have a small compact computer which does not take up much space and you want to add external clutter to make it work? O_o
So, the base model Mac Mini.... does great on benchmarks, but didn't have enough storage to do any REAL work. Gotcha.
lol that’s what the expensive upgrades are for. Or use external storage lol
If you don’t have a NAS or DAS then a 2 TB Thunderbolt enclosure is the way around all of that.
The $800 version with 512GB is the M4 to buy. Remember you only have 5 USB ports, needing to use one for routine storage needs and another for Time Machine and you are down to three before you connect anything else. If you want a second monitor you are down to two.
The cost of the Thunderbolt 4 hubs you need also needs to be added to the cost of the M4.
The M4 is a great video processing CPU, but I don't do that, so it's not a good fit for me.
@@mikespangler98 It’s Thunderbolt 4. It only takes one single port, or two if you have a more expensive version of one of the hubs. Then all of those other devices have plenty of ports available. Most of them have extra hdmi, as well as extra Thunderbolt ports for displays and external drives. But yeah they are expensive.
@@mikespangler98 Or... Get the 10Gb network option and connect to your file server for oodles of storage.
I see some points that should be mentioned. Comparing these mini PCs with the same configuration would be better such as 1 TB SSD and 64 GB RAM. The Apple Mini can cost up to more than $3.000 if adding some optional extensions. For some users it might also be interesting whether they can change components such as SSDs or RAM later on. To compare Mini PCs their power consumption, the noise, the speed of the internal GPUs, NPUs are important aspects as well. It is the same as buying a new car. You almost never by the base configuration.
for lots of ram and internal storage (faster even) the mini pcs with windows or a hackintosh (fewer options) are 4 times less expensive than a comparable mac. But for 16gb ram and using external storage, the mac mini m4 is the best value.
What an incredibly well-done video my friend. Your conclusion suggesting a solution based on what an individual needs is absolutely appreciated, and I wish more people kept an open mind vs. subjecting the audience solely to their own worldview. Subscribed and will keep tabs on your channel!
well, I see expensive PC with 2tb of storage compared to the mini with 256gb, it is a bit unfair when we know the outstanding price of option of the mini and the impossibility to expand it.
a 4to ssd on PC is 200/300$ it is the price of the 512 option for the m4, same for RAM 64 gb on PC cost less that the 24 gb option..... You have to take this in account
But are you accounting for RAM speed and power draw? Also theres nothing stopping you from using external storage for a comparable price
You can add any PC SSD to the Mac Mini by using a Thunderbolt adapter. Easy and pretty cheap.
@@chidorirasenganz If you see the video of others you can see the mini using 100w of power, not really a ligh one. th-cam.com/video/TAmyfX6X7IE/w-d-xo.html, RAM speed is also high on PC where you have even choice of the model of memory, usually it is the same as the mac.
And an exterdal drive with a nice dongle, no nice and clean but quite mandatory.
@@inwedavid6919
Nice dongle no nice and clean if pc users ever did care about a nice and clean setup
@@belphag0r It will be slower than a normal build in SSD. Of course, it depends on what you are doing, because in the case of coping big files most likely you don't notice that, but you will notice this in the case of a lot of small files.
Helpful video. By the way, silicone is the thing phone cases are made of, silicon is the chemical element used in the production of semiconductors.
Just because of this non upgradable ssd i would choose any other mini pc.
My mac M1 ssd already died and apple ask me 700$ to replace it...
Oof really?
@chrisdistant9040 yup, because I only had 8gb of memory and did a lot of swap and writing on my hard drive. It is not normal that it dies after 3 years of use tho
Τhe mac mini does have upgradeble ssd
Is it that dead that you can't even start the mini to boot from an external SSD?
@@svenlakemeier exactly, can't even boot
You can get an entire ps5 for gaming with the price difference.
True. I have a mac for the best productivity experience... and it just works. I have a Xbox Series X for the best gaming experience that just works. It's fantastic. I built custom PCs for over a decade then got sick of all the babying and fiddling to keep the hardware and OS running smoothly. I went to mac in 2015 and will never go back to a windows based PC again.
I’m the opposite. I have been mac based since 2005 but maintain one 4090 RYx beast game rig with joystick and throttle etc for my gaming needs.
Exactly
@@77dris Sure you did
Why should I get a subpar machine though ? Consoles suck.
It’s genuinely a little beast. The m4 chips in the studios are going to be insane.
Right. Seeing as the M2 Ultra is *still* slaying the M4 Pro/Max chips (although just barely on the highest configs), an M4 Ultra would be genuinely mind-numbing.
Finally someone compares the other small pc’s, everyone freaking out about the size but powerful mini pc’s have been around for a while now.
Mac Mini 2005
Intel Nuc 2012
Years ago I was rolling out devices this size, but they were thin client devices with less than minimal specs. Now we have everything you could want in a computer in this firm factor
I hate thin clients in the enterprise world. That always means someone else is making hardware and software decisions on my behalf and very often the hardware simply can't cope with the tasks I sometimes need to perform.
@@fablewalls Well... yeah.
The world has flipped I'd say to where thin-client solutions are the norm as enterprise apps are based on web browsers for delivery so the traditional thin-client is all but dead.
@@judewestburner I work in the fire service, often based at HQ and we have a police HQ next door where we sometimes have meetings. We have those awful HP ProBook thin clients and they have a slightly better Lenovo business model. We are both (forces) moving to SaaS (web browser based) but all our other IT solutions are 365 based and managed centrally.
One IT guy even suggested moving to tablets on cellular SIMS for the operational workforce in some duties as they don't need laptops even.
Thin client style laptops still bug the life out of me - some Apps (even PowerBi) need more powerful computers or they just fall over. Also - forget running over 2 Apps at the same time unless you are happy with a minute delay sometimes between touches.
Luckily I can work from home in my job and I often send work to my personal Mac Mini M1 and do some of the work in 1/4 of the time.
I remember the old 2005 Mac Mini. Game changer. Especially with the G6 around…
It's sad that Ryzen HX 370 can't still shows its real 50 TOPS of computational power. The 40% faster NPU of the chip can't be used by any software, right now, and we have to blame Microsoft for that! They focused only on Snapdragon X Elite while the Ryzen is objectively the most promising in all AI task even upon Apple M4's 38 TOPS
TBH there's no real killer AI application on any of the platforms. So nobody has an advantage here except marketing numbers.
@lubossoltes321 yeah, totally agree. Ai can go away itself
@@lubossoltes321 Nvidia is.
Let's be honest: if you want RAW power, a dedicated GPU with a new Intel or Ryzen CPU will still destroy all these tiny SOCs, but if you want a tiny PC...
Sadly Snapdragon is hella fast, but on PC you'll see no optimized apps (and Apple Silicon broke some plug-ins, so I don't still think ARM is the solution, but it is the solution for Apple for video editors and casual musicians not into real latency specs. I still can't understand how they can buy the latest production process from TSMC without going at a loss... I also suppose subsidies from the state being a company very incentivized by the American government, as opposed to others... Let's remember that the only American factories are Intel's and in bankruptcy... ).
@@juls_99_ M4 Max beats RTX 4090 in AI tasks
@@akshat8586 apple fanboy
The problem with the Mac Mini is the cost of storage. If Apple didn't think people were idiots and charge a reasonable price for storage, I would buy at least one of their mini's, but charging $200 for 256GB of storage, which would buy a top tier profession 2TB NVME driver that is faster than Apple's SSDs, there is no way I'm going to reward Apple with my money. Yeah, I can just get an external drive, but I shouldn't have to and an external enclosure and drive still costs money, too.
With the cost of storage being very low there is no reason for Apple to charge so much.
Geekbench doesn't mean anything, its scores don't match any performance in real world applications as you can see. A 20% performance boost in Geekbench scores won't show up as a 20% performance improvement in anything else.
6:23 It's silicon not silicone. Silicone is what flexible caulk is made out of silicon is what semiconductors are made out of.
I have to say performance in productivity and creative applications on a cheap tiny computer seems kind of pointless to me. A larger computer would cost less and could be more powerful. If a person is creating as their career none of these computers would be ideal for it. I would want a computer I could fix and upgrade myself if I needed my computer in order for me to pay rent. If someone isn't making money on their computer and are creating for the enjoyment of it, does shaving a few minutes or seconds off a render really matter?
If the best FPS for gaming was 68 that just isn't good enough for gaming. None of these computers are good for gaming and for $1000 a person can get a much better gaming computer if they built it themselves.
It's not fair to compare a $599 Mac Mini with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage against a $1000 mini x86 computer with 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. You either spec down the x86 computer or you spec up the Mac Mini with 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage which would make the Mac mini cost $1800. The Mac mini has a low price because it's so Apple can say "The new Mac Mini starting at $599" I don't know of anyone who would recommend a computer that has only 256GB of storage.
If people don't buy their Mac mini and complain about the cost of storage, maybe Apple would do something about it. But as long as people give their money to Apple they will keep doing it.
A Yugo is cheaper than a Ferrari.
@@tonyburzio4107 unfortunately, the Mac Mini is the Yugo.
Im a PC user, never had an apple device, but in this case why almost everyone is nitpicking about comparison of these mini machines, that has 1tb storage, that has 64gb of RAM ect. etc. yes apple will cost more, but the base price is unmachable! First of all, if you want gaming, you dont even look at apple in the first place. Second of all, yes upgrading mac costs enormous amounts of money, but i think you need to look at this machine from base model/price perspective that they are selling for. Its not possible to get better spec machine for 500-600 bucks.
If you're needs are satisfied with base model get the mac, if you need more storage, RAM dont get the mac, thats it!
Such a great, balanced review. I own a GMKTek K8 and the M4 Mac Mini. My experience is the same as yours. Well done.
With the only important task being DaVinci Resolve video editing, how does a Mac Mini M4 Pro with maxed ram compare to a maxed Ram Beelink Gti14 with GPU Dock & RTX 4080?
I think the Mac is worth it just to have less fan noise, no crashes or viruses, and MacOS itself. It’s just a way smoother experience than Windows. Yeah on paper the Beelink with the RTX will give you “more power”, but in reality it will also waste more of your time in the long run. The Mac will give more peace of time and less stress overall.
Price to performance seems to be a bit biased, picking most base mac mini vs not so base other mini pcs. They should be compared at equivalent ram, storage options :D
They are all base models. The PCs don’t have cheaper versions.
@ElevatedSystems The fact that you checked for most expensive ones like 8945hs. It is more or less equivalent to something like 7840hs or 8845hs. And these I could find mini pcs again 32gb ram 1tb, for 400, 500$ respectively. Yes the value of mac mini is not bad, but accepting 256gb of storage or 16gb of ram with insane upgrade costs is a lot of copium, especially in 2024. Phones come with 256GB of storage. What apple does here is price laddering, where you think of might as well pay a bit more for teeny more ram, might as well get a bit more storage and then you're nowhere near the price to performance.
@@MultiDeivasjust but external sad like everybody is doing brother it’s not that hard
I think what’s truly amazing and usually not stressed enough in these comparisons with other mini machines, is the fact that the mac mini doesn’t require a seperate bulky power adapter under your table. So despite the PSU occupying about half of the size of the case, it still manages to beat the shit out of its competitors, and even using less energy. And all this for that price. At this point competitors might just give up and produce kitchen machines.
I was looking for this comment. A fair comparison would be to show the mini PCs WITH their power supplies.
With Mac Mini you need bulky external SSDs, USB adapters, card readers which are not free. $600 MacMini + $200 external SSD + $50 USB adapter + $50 card reader. How much is Mac keyboard and mouse? You will end up paying at least $1000.
Your response is spot on!
@@FirstLast-nr6gf So what? And this is highly manipulative. You might already have or you might not need an external SSD, USB adapter and card reader. You might or you might not already have a keyboard and mouse. You might or might not need specifically the Mac keyboard and mouse (I have Logitech MX Master 3 and MX keys)
until the PSU fails. can the Mac mini be powered via a USB 4 or Thunderbolt port ? If not you have an issue. On all the miniPCs, you just go buy a standard GaN adapter and you are good to go again.
Great video.
Actually first video that says something about real experience in Davinci Resolve. And as I thought it's not fully smooth in full resolution :(.
Thanks.
When I first saw the M1 come out I bought one and was blown away by it's performance and power efficiency. I'm still using an M1 Pro and it's plenty powerful. I can't even imagine how powerful a fully decked out M4 Max chip would be. That's gonna be my next purchase for sure
256GB of storage on a $600 computer is inexcusable in 2025, and charging $200 for an extra 256GB is a felony.
I paid $160 for a N95 mini PC with 12GB of DDR5 memory and an upgradeable 512GB M.2 drive...
My 6 year old phone has more than that. Pathetic.
being this entitled, and deciding what other company shall deliver at what price.. is likely more a "felony".. mindboggling entitlement.
I love that they made a 256GB 16GB version as that fit well with my usecase as a secondary device for certain things with our older OLED TV.. in regards to fx Apple only made a 512GB as the entry version at 799.. if Apple made a 128GB M4 version at fx 450USD I would have gotten that, I need the potency in M4.. HDD space is easy to work around for users that dont need it as their primary computer.
You do understand choices, ain't a bad thing... stop being triggered on other peoples behalf and call it criminal and all that entitled bs because a company gives the consumer choices.
@@JAKOB1977 , thanks, I can think for myself.
If you go shopping for an SSD, you'll see that there's a $20 difference between a 256GB and a 512GB drive. There's absolutely no good reason go cheap on storage... unless planning on charging a whooping $200 for that miserable difference or betting that idiot consumers will run to buy external storage, with all its drawbacks. We are on 2025, files are huge and storage is cheap.
Apple's "choices" are worse than lame and they should be blamed for them.
Excellent review. I’ve been waiting for a reviewer to compare the M4 performance with the AMD and Intel offering and this is the first one.
In summary, get a PC if you want to game, get a Mac for everything other use case.
Gaming is what will keep x86 alive for a while. In every other aspect, x86 was a living dead when the M1 came out. It just carries too much historic ballast. Similar to Windows. For Intel and Microsoft it is all about milking the cash cow as long as possible while riding on backwards compatibility and vendor lock-in.
What a ridiculous claim. You can't just "get a Mac for everything other use case". Unless you're also prepared to pay through the teeth. As soon as you need anything more than the base model, Apple's advantage quickly disappears.
@ ok I’ll correct it to “You get a Mac for nearly every use case”
Let’s face it, x86 is the past, not the future. Case in point Intel just laid off a whole design team and killed another project.
@@jackchen5290 Look, don't get me wrong. I love Apple products. I have a 2012 Macbook Pro that I still use every day. But the pricing on the M series macs is insane. I regularly work on projects that require 64GB of RAM or more, and I'll be damned if I pay the Apple premium for that :). x86 might be dead, but that doesn't matter, all other OSes run on Arm as well (maybe I missed your point about this)
@@jackchen5290 I dont think x86 is being replaced in desktops or things that allow users upgradable things anytime soon. It will be preferred in mobile parts or things that require smaller space for the processors like laptops, something in your car or the airplane tv or consoles in the near future.
Really appreciate the time and effort you put into this comparison video. I am glad this was suggested in my feed. Well done !
16:29 That was so cool that you had the video playing in sync on your monitor.!
Power button on the bottom is insane!
I can't remember the last time I used the power button on my Mac, it has been... months and months, maybe even close to a year.
Just press control or some other button and it wakes up. Doesn't bother me to have the power button at the bottom. I think it is a marketing ploy. They have A LOT of eyes on them because of this decision.
I don’t doubt, that your statement is true. However it is still a bad design choice. That’s a fact, and the critics of it is earned.
Just because you rarely use this button doesn’t mean it can be on the least favorable position imagine-able…
3:53 With the base price, I ain’t complaining. There are many usb c hubs under $50, so it’s not a big issue
Agreed. This would be an issue on a laptop, but is not an issue for desktop machines. Dongles on the go are annoying. Hubs sitting on a desk are fine.
To be fair, I was investigating with an work colleague the market, and many of these MiniPCs are a better deal for 1 or 2 UPGRADES you can do on top of higher specs. So BeLink SER9 in your test is: 32 GB + 1 TB.
Assumming that you want the same specs but a better CPU and MacOS, the prices go from 599 (or 499 as a student) to 1,619.00 (at least in Europe), so price to performance will switch very fast into the MiniPC side.
As a side note, I just bought a MiniPC with Ryzen 8840HS (which are not top of the line) that are today discounted at around 750 EUR (with 32 GB and 1 TB) and I can upgrade them up to ... 96 GB with less than 300 EURO, or to 64 GB with less than 200 EUR. Would MacMini beat it? Sure, it will, in synthetic benchmarks. But want to do some real work, like working with large projects in video editing, RAW photo editing, and alike... a 1000-ish upgraded mini PC (with 96 GB RAM) will be untouchable at any price point of MacMini.
But if you want 64 GB of RAM, you can buy a Ryzen 5800H/U (or alke) with DDR4, and with the price of MacMini you can have a mini PC that cost like: 350 USD base system + 32GB x 2 DDR4 SODIMM 110 USD =
Because of the crazy prices Apple charges for Internal storage - get enough Ram for what you need to do (Some things likely don't need as much ram on Apple Silicon as with Intel... but other things absolutely depend on the actual physical ram being enough to keep the CPU/GPU fed with data) then default storage (or one step up) - then add external storage as needed - USB-C Enclosures with NVMe work very well, and are more than fast enough for most needs. Go to Thunderbolt 3/4 Enclosure if more speed is needed (still cheaper than what Apple charges).
One of the advantages Apple Silicon has is the Unified memory - data in ram used by the CPU can be accessed directly by the GPU, no copying needed - and most of the ram in the computer can be used by the GPU dynamically instead of a small set amount. Not something most home users need, but is one of the ways it gets that higher performance. Apple's stubborn refusal to keep the base models at 8GB until just recently was hurting the base model performance quite a bit, and their expensive jumps on the ram upgrades deters most people from paying for upgrades which likely also keeps most people from experiencing even better performance they could be getting (depending on the task of course, some things don't need more video memory)
About the Tomb Raider game shown - minimum requirements are literally "Pentium 4 2Ghz, 2GByte RAM, Geforce 6800" - that is hardware from 20 years ago. The Mac better be good at running THAT.
Это 2016 года игра..
Great channel, man. I'm updating my office mini machines, very helpful.
If someone needs 32 GB of ram, they’ll need it on Mac as well. And 2tb ssd. That’s almost 2k then for Mac. Still good value?
Macs use ram differently so you don’t need that much…
@@dominicbritt suuure, you can run the same program with less ram on mac lmao. Keep dreaming
I think poor Dominic doesn't really understand architecture.
@@dominicbritt yes, from the tests it looks like they use more ram.
They have fast ssds for caching when comparing 1200 Mac with 300 pc that also has 8gb ram.
Apple silicon doesn’t use RAM, it uses unified memory, it’s different and you don’t need like for like numbers.
I'm a Mac user - you should have used a Mac mini with 32GB of memory and a 1 or 2TB NVME. The $599 entry price is irrelevant when comparing against the PCs you've selected. That puts the Mac mini at $1800 for the base M4 or $2400 for M4Pro base with additional cores and 48GB of memory.
my understanding is macOS is efficient with its memory & 16GB "feels" like 32GB in Windows.
@@udance4ever in no world this is true
@@udance4ever its been proven that 8gb on macOS doesnt equal 16GB on windows. Therefore 16gb wont equal 32GB either
@@udance4ever you can't replace memory.
but yes, OSX supports memory overcommit and active memory compression, like Linux and AIX do too.
Since it's not a gaming machine, a mac mini is unlikely to replace a windows machine. In my case, it replaced a Raspberry Pi4 running Linux.
I'm relatively ok with the power button being on the bottom. How often do you even need to press the power button on your mac?
Excellent comparison review. A ton of effort wrapped into a comprehensive yet concise presentation. Awesome job and super helpful.
Good vid, Mac guy here and was sent a geekom mini pc some time ago. It’s sad Apple doesn’t use m.2 as I think most people could stomach Apple’s horrible pricing on RAM. Apple’s integrated SSD controller and NANDs do not create a performance enhancement, and seem to be just there to be DRM despite claims of “security” as if hardware encryption does not exist on PC SSDs.
The power button on the Mac is underneath because, in normal circumstances, you don;'t ever turn it off. Simples.
Right. Apple power management is just wild compared to anything else. The Mac Mini uses 1w of power in standby. For perspective, it still uses 0.25w even when completely powered off (and plugged in, of course). The vast majority of Mac users simply never fully turn off the computer, and you can wake from keyboard, mouse, LAN, or after power failure.
Agree, in the old ages of torrents download we used to leave on power hungry pcs for months just for download.
Like charging port on apple mouse? Do not defend stupid decisions.
@@woofkaf7724another *outrageously* overblown ado about nothing. The damn mouse lasts MONTHS on a charge. A 2 minute charge gets you a day of power if you ignore weeks of warnings about low battery.
Literally a non-issue. Always has been.
Very nice review, with a lot of subjects touched.
13:40 However, talking about price/performance while ignoring specifications like RAM and storage, and not bringing them to same specs as others is not OK.
Mac Mini with 32Gb and 1Tb (so specced like some of mini PC, AMD 370 I think) costs 1399USD! That is 400USD more than 999USD mini PC. You can have 64Gb/4Tb or even more for that price.
And no, external storage can not be counted, because then the same can be applied to others.
So, if you were using that official price for the same specs, price/performance score would be 6.49, lowest of them all.
MiniPCs with 8845HS usually go for 500USD, so they would have better price/perf score too (around 12).
To put things in perspective, that Baldurs Gate 3 you showed needs around 130Gb (Steam even says 150Gb ) of disk space. That is just ONE game. Storage size is important, and Apple is not being nice about it.
RAM is important too. When you are running just one application, it usually does not matter. But when you keep your tabs open in browser, have two three other applications open, things change. And that is real life usage for majority. Suddenly 16Gb are filled and computer is caching on disk. Things start to be slower.
I hope you understand why I mentioned this and why it is actually important.
true!
Generally true when all things are equal. In this case, many things are not equal, though. That 16gb on the M4 is doing as much real-life work as 24 or 32 on a Win11 machine. Storage is a bummer, but external nvme storage and a TB4 enclosure is just a reality for this.
Its not lost on anyone. Basic knowledge. But *Plenty* of reviews showing how RAM works different/more efficent on macs... ever since M1 chip was announced. multiple tabs, multiple apps, etc, all running and switching smooth. My last intel mac had 128 GBs of ram... and I still got page outs and swap. And just like you state "8845 usually go for less" -- minis and mini pros do as well. base mini is $50 off everywhere, mini pro is $70 off
It's crazy how many people believe that 16 >= 32 😂. Or spout things like "RAM works different/more efficent on macs". RAM is RAM, you either have enough or you don't. And if you don't the OS will swap to disk. And people keep forgetting that the RAM on M series macs is shared with the GPU, so you get even less.
@@user-gn1fe8yv6x They love quoting the Apple marketing spiel; that's all they know. Cult marketing at work
finally someone actually does the comparison that _matters_.
Thank you very much for the review.
I have a MAC Mini M1 and overall I'm pretty satisfied, but there are 2 things I wish were better.
The first is that it has become slower at startup after the latest MAC OS updates.
The second is that I can't watch Netflix 4K on the M1.
Do you know if you can watch Netflix in 4K on the M4?
Keep up the good work.
Important for gamers and also professionals: many of minisforums offerings include an Oculink port which lets you use an external GPU, which will outclass any Mac in video editing, gaming, AI, etc.
What about the noise of the fans and the temperature? Those are the only 2 reasons I use a Mac Mini, all the Windows mini pc's are loud as a fighter jet and get very hot, but I still prefer Windows.
Very quite fans on the base m4, the m4 pro gets a bit louder though
there are fanless mini pcs with ryzen 5800u (or 7730u) and with intel i7-1355u. That is as good as it gets with mini pcs, otherwise you need to limit the fan or mod the case to allow bigger coolers or install a passive heatsink. Those are good options if one needs lots of ram for cheap. Otherwise the mac mini m4 is better option for its cpu.
Base Mac mini M4 I was not able to hear the fan even after running various tasks that had it pretty warm to the touch - I think they are a bit too far on the keeping fan speed low side at the expense of the system running warm. The M4 Pro Mac mini especially if set to "High Performance" (something not available on the base M4 models) - the Fan can get loud enough to hear for sure - not as loud as the 2018 6-core i7 Mac mini fan got, but still loud. I should get out the dB meter to measure actual volume levels.
In both cases average use doesn't get them warm, with idle power draw of only 3 to 3.5 watts, and typical usage power draw at 4-9 watts for the M4, and 4-13 watts for the M4 Pro. For the M4 if you run intensive 3D renders or 3D Games, or very large CPU multi-threaded tasks, the power draw for the M4 rises into the 26-36 Watt range and it will get warm. For the M4 Pro the peaks get higher into the 60-70 Watt range.
@@BrianMWPG amazingly low power draw for idle and regular use. And for heavy use, I think they are also very low compared to desktops (specially intel).
@@999cantfindausername I know, I'm asking about the Windows mini pc's, as I said, I already own a Mac Mini but want a Windows machine.
comparing prices: Mac Mini 256GB 16GB RAM vs 2TB + 32GB RAM speaks for itself...
Exactly. I don't understand why these reviews are trying to praise the Mac mini. Yes I get it it's an amazing little machine for a very low price but that shit is literally useless. And they compare it to a windows system with far more ram and storage which obviously costs more but then they ignore the ram/storage on the Mac. The HX370 with 32gigs and 1TB costs $999 whilst a same capacity Mac mini costs $1400. Of course I expect Mac mini to be better at computing than the HX370 given the $400 price difference
If you ever wanted to jump into a the Apple Ecosystem? This is one heck of a great way to do it.
If you have kids? It is a NO BRAINER for a desktop computer for anyone who has kids will understand how fast they seem to break portable devices.
Apple ecosystem is too expensive. My friend and his wife, over 10 years have spent $15 000 on Apple laptops, tablets, and phones. That is a little crazy.
I would love a noise comparison followup but otherwise a fantastic video
Very nice evaluation. What are some popular applications that run on Windows only?
FYI at 6:22, "silicone" is LA, "silicon" is SF (or Cupertino)
You should've tested some real job scenarios like Autocad, lumion, vray, or twinmotion instead of video editing and gaming.
I can tell you when trying that out on a Mac, it all turns to s#!t
He didn’t do that or more extensive gaming experience because the M4 would get horrible results. AMD’s HX 370 is a fabulous chip and runs everything!
W11 is getting so good these days, that it’s coming very close to macOS in design but has much less shortcomings. In 2/3 years I may change definitely. The same happens with iOS, I’m getting tired of so many shortcomings…
@@ricarmig W11 is gettign good, are you drunk? Windows became shit and I curse at this OS anytime I have to use it in my company. Windows was good until 7 and then went downhill.
@ your personal problems with W11 are none of my concern. W11 is visually and functionally very good, ATM no issues and FAR BETTER than W10. The ARM version is even more optimized. I have W11 on my 6 year old 8th gen Intel laptop (512 GB SSD, 8 GB of ram) and on my father’s laptop (similar hardware), automatic updates and work great; my Lenovo Legion Go has W11 and works great. My Mac Mini M4 runs macOS 15.1 and using the migration assistant (with my M1) it freezed and came a screen with user/pass that accepts no user/pass. I tried to reinstall the OS or use the terminal and NO LUCK! I had to search forums that advised to use the Disk Utility to erase everything but the macOS install partition and THEN it worked. I also need to use several apps to circumvent macOS limitations. So…ATM I had more issues with macOS than with W11 (never had such issues or search forums due to these things)
The two value standouts in desktop personal computers these days are the base model Mac mini and the various mini-PCs with the Intel N100 processor that can be had for under $150. Get the Mac if you can afford it. Get an N100 if your needs are basic and your budget is small.
Don’t forget to compare the power dissipation at full CPU/GPU load, and how loud the fan gets.
I'm an exclusively Linux user and really don't like macOS (I consider it the main weakness of the Mac desktop/laptop ecosystem). Sadly, Asahi Linux isn't available for M4 Macs yet and when it does eventually become available, it would be interesting to see this mini PC benchmark video repeated, but with Asahi Linux on the M4 Mac Mini vs Fedora Linux on the other mini PCs - a true apples to apples comparison if you pardon the pun.
I think a Mac Mini M4 with Asahi Linux (plus Fex and Proton) might actually be able to play games better than the macOS equivalent, but time will tell. There's a big GPU diff between M1/M2's and M3/M4's and with the Asahi team having to reverse engineer everything, it could be a few years before M4 support gets into decent shape.
Apart from the OS, the Mac Mini M4's other big disadvantage is the lack of internal upgradability (and the insane price jumps if you order more RAM or storage at initial purchase time). As you pointed out, you can work around the storage issue with an external drive, but the RAM situation is an unmitigated disaster. To go up by only 8GB RAM, you're also forced to double your storage to 512GB and the total cost of this being an extra $400 is a total disgrace (it's about $30 of extra hardware if you bought the equivalent for a non-Mac PC).
For me, the conclusion is that the Mac Mini M4 has a weak OS, has no internal upgradeability and scandalous pricing for higher RAM/storage options. A real shame because the price/performance of the base model is imprsssive, but I need more than 16GB RAM so I can run an ARM Linux VM full screen to avoid macOS wherever possible and its price/performance figures die big time when it suddenly becomes $999 for the 24GB RAM model.
OSX has become really bad.
I recently bought an M4 pro and I'm thinking of switching it to Linux in the long term.
There were issues with the filesystem already, I can't easily disable the notifications (I put the daemon in a pkill loop until I find a more permanent solution) and it lacks UI scaling like Linux Desktops and Windows desktops have. That makes menus really hard to read.
1:30 Apple Storage and RAM... You're kidding me Apple? XXI century and no NVMe M.2 slot 🤬🤬
Well thats apple for ya
You gotta be new to Apple, if their limitations can rock your boat.?
Give it time. they just added a pushable button to Iphone, so things are moving along.
It is always disappointing that Apple will make such wonderful entry level machines and ruin that advantage with ridiculous upgrade prices. They could be killing it across the board. But as soon as you need to upgrade to a 1TB hard drive (which if you are storing a lot of photos and doing any editing, you need), it just changes they value quickly.
This is deliberate choice from the Apple. Apple never prices their products the cheapest way. They go in the middle. They leave space under and over their price line. That is to make their partners lives easier. As a customer if I need something that works right now then I go and buy Apple. Otherwise I buy accessories from the other vendors.
Also Apple always keeps the price points steady and in that way makes the second hand market for Macs work perfectly. You want more power? Then you go and buy the power and sell the old Mac in the second hand market. There are plenty of people who are happy to get those in their hands. (Think students.)
@@verttikoo2052 They do not go for the middle. Their upgrade pricing is predatory and ridiculous. I'm glad they have top of the line components and machines last a long time, but making RAM and SSD upgrades so expensive hurts both their brand and their sales and might actually be illegal in many countries soon. It wasn't always this way either.
256 GB is perfect for an OS drive. The rest is up to the user with external storage. Just one example. I store my Windows Wine Bottle on an external SSD, and unplug it when I am not gaming. The Mac mini stays nice and tidy.
@ Apple has iCloud and to the certain point it is just perfect. You tell the computer what you want to off load in to the iCloud.
@@adaml.5355 I'm glad it is working for you. You run into walls quickly as a user though, especially if you aren't technical. 1) It is much slower than the internal drive so even moving my Photos DB to an external shows a difference 2) I've had problems with some apps and Spotlight indexing going nuts with documents and apps on external drives 3) SSDs are cheap, 256GB is just insulting given their upgrade prices.
If you would like to run virtual machines on this mini PCs, you will definitely need more than 16G memory. All the x86 mini pcs have 32G while Mac mini only has 16. Upgrading mac mini to 32G would cost you $400, or $999 in total.
Additionally, since many Linux distributions do not support ARM64 yet, your choice of OS will be limited.
VMs run just fine on my M1 w 16GB. OrbStack is even more efficient.
and Asahi Linux is a godsend - ive been able to cross compile an x86 Linux distro from source no problem. and its been on my bucket list to try Ubuntu using the same kernel. the future is bright!
@@udance4ever Pay attention to your "Swap Used" in Activity Monitor. You may feel no slow down but macos may have already used your SSD as swap space which may wear down your SSD faster. Since the SSD is not replaceable, if it's life cycle is reached, your mac is dead as well.
Asahi may use much less memory than macos and thus leave much more space for VMs, so I do want to try it some time.
@@rodgerwang7017 ah good point. I just remember next to no swap used for all other apps but now that you mention it, swap does go up w VMs. I guess I'm not too worried about it because I purposely got 1TB to help level the wear (& don't use VMs often)
Would it not be a fairer test to go for the Mac M4 Pro for similar price?
Interesting comparison.
And I love that "First Contact" warp core behind you!
Perfect presentation and comparison. Thank you.
It's easy to make sense of the power button position. It runs UNIX. You don't shut it down, you let it manage its own power. I can't remember the last time any of my apple machines were powered off.
I have a MBP with M1Pro, from time to time the mouse becomes 'sluggish', this seems to coincide with the internal memory pressure being high. A quick restart sorts this out.
Running UNIX and somehow it “managing its own power” (whatever that means) has nothing to do with the need to restart. All computers need to be regularly restarted…
You guys know you can restart without pushing the power button, right??
@@spacetoast7783 yeah. The premise of the original comment makes no sense, but you will eventually have a power outage, move, clean, etc and have to use that button. It makes no sense for it to be in such an inconvenient spot. Everyone has their own flavor of cope to remain an Apple fan here though.
Have fun with problems because you leave it on forever. If it had error correcting memory, it might be somewhat OK.
I'm tired of people complaining about the power button being on the bottom. The machine is small, it helps to not press it by accident. It's so light that having it on a side would wove the thing when pressing anyway. Last option would be on the top, which is the worst aesthetic. They chose the best option. No SD reader is a much bigger problem.
Yeah complaining about the power button became old hat like 5 minutes after the Mini was announced. Obviously no actual user cares because you'll likely push it one time when you first plug it in and perhaps never again.
are you implying that apple is so bad at designing their products that they couldn't design a power button that you can press without pushing the whole device from its resting place, but doesn't get pressed by accident... somehow... and that's why they hid it?
All these other mini pc manufacturers put the power button on the front and is much more user friendly. Yes I turn my computer off every day when I’m done using it and it boggles my mind a company as big as Apple makes decisions like this. Just put it on the back for goodness sake if they don’t want it up front.
It seems that the reason why the power button is on the bottom is that apparently new macs don't really sleep ever. No matter if you press the button, or choose "sleep" option from the menu, the power light is always lit. I haven't measure it yet, but it seems to me that new macs are a bit like smartphones which means some parts of the processor are always on. So once you make a "hot corner" that turns your display off - it basically is the same as putting your computer into low power mode. Maybe I am wrong, so it would be nice to actually measure mac's power consumption when the screen is off, or when the power button is pressed. But if I am right then it won't actually matter much where exactly the power button is, because you won't use it almost ever.
What dock did you use?
The $600 price is a mirage. Let's compare to the mini PC I bought in August: $580 got me an Aoostar Gem12 (8 core, 16 thread 8845hs clocked at 5.1gHz) with 32 gigs of DDR5 (5600), a nice fast gen4 1tb ssd, two 2.5 gbit ethernet ports, a very competent 780m iGPU, and an honest to god oculink port for 64gbit direct pcie4 x4 connection (I retrofitted an old thunderbolt 3 eGPU enclosure into an oculink box, and it screams through 4K gaming with an rx 7800xt). To upgrade the mac to similar specs (forget the eGPU), let's see.... 1TB ssd: +$400 (even though that caliber of drive can be had for under $80). 32GB memory: +$400 (again, should be like $100, but Apple needs to do the extortion game). Any network port faster than 1gbit: +$100. Now you're at $1500. Price to performance king, my sweet ass. No thanks.
For the price of doubling some mini specs, you could buy a whole other mini. So, what to do with 2 macs at once?
I mean the upgrade prices are a problem but I just buy the base model and use it for what it is and do gaming on an actual gaming desktop. So yeah it's pretty good at $500 but at $1000 I would buy something else unless they are an artist and use a lot of apple programs
@@MrLuffy9131 for less than 999usd with the student discount, a mac mini m4 with 32gb and 10gbit ethernet seems the best deal. with only 256gb but then you add a thunderbolt external drive and leave the internal as empty as possible.
@@Demopans5990 Make them have sex with each other, duh!
@@MrLuffy9131The M2 Pro Mini has been extremely good for basically everything. Totally silent, games well enough, especially retro, and for editing videos and making music, and some light Stable Diffusion and llm chat models it’s been amazing. They really do well for ai applications with the Npu cores.
So if we want to make the same storage and ram on Mac Mini I need to spend $400 more ? no thanks
That's false, it's $800 more
the ssd's for Mac mini will have an easier upgrade path in the future, as a supplier works to make replacement drives. Meaning ram deserves most attention upon starting upgrades
Not true, mac studio also has removable storage since the M1 yet there isn’t any drive modules available to buy
@@JuanFmTech
There's probably some manufacturers based out of China
Power button on the bottom, "I can't make that make sense". It makes sense if you consider the fact that the power button on a Mac is almost never used. I've never voluntarily turned off any of my Macs since 2002. So the only time they're off is during software install (which doesn't require use of the power button) or in cases of non-laptop Macs if I was moving it from one location to another. In the old days you occasionally had to reboot once or twice a year due to OS crashes. Something that has become so rare that I have no idea how long it has been since I had one. Other than that, never use the power button. And notice that Apple keyboards have a power button on them, so the computer boxes power button is redundant if you're using Apple's keyboards. So you're talking about a button that you will likely use a few times / year or maybe never.
In my country more like 729 USD for cheapest one and for preorders only, not available yet.
OMG like seriously dude... the power button is a non-issue.. it’s place there so you DON’T have to use often... Windows users might feel compelled to use it because of all the BSOD Windows used to have. for Mac, a power button is almost unnecessary...
I'm okay with that, I'll just turn off my power socket, when not using it. Should be fine right?
@@di4mondpl4ys45 what for? save on electricity?
You won't get bsod on a good windows computer. I used some shitty ones which always had bsod but my midrange gaming pc and laptop runs perfectly and they can play games at 1080p ultra with high framerate, and the desktop can play in 4k ultra at above 60 fps. They never lagged at video editing too.
@@deathcoder Why should it run 24/7 if I don´t use it 24/7? I power down all devices and cut them from power if they are not in use.
@@di4mondpl4ys45 it's not "running" it's in sleep mode.. if you're concerned about the power consumption put a Kill-a-watt and check how much power it's drawing from the wall... it's negligible, as in, barely any power is being drawn from the outlet. Is that your complain? I'd argue that booting up the machine might draw more energy than leaving it in sleep state.
I didn’t even know those other mini pc exist…
They have had those style computers for like 25 years now. Just depends what you want to buy.
because nobody cares how big the computer is under the desk. It has to be efficient and cheap. If we were to consider laptops - a different matter.
@@blankname8553
Okay give me a Mac mini style pc from 1999 25 years ago
Power button position makes perfect sense when you consider the ultra low power cores that keep the mini in standby - just don’t turn it off. It’s more akin to the power button on a phone. You never really need it.
No…no excuses…that button position is just dumb…
@@danilaros I turn mine on and off every day and I have no problems with the power button.
@@adaml.5355 you have to lift the Mac to push the button…is just ridiculous imo. Don’t get me wrong, I love my M2 Mac mini but this design decisions that Apple made…😒
I have 16GB RAM on my M1 MacBook Pro at work and it’s always popping up a window asking me to close apps because it’s out of memory. Granted I am a developer but still. Not interested in a Mac with only 16. Would be a fairer test with the 32GB RAM in the Mac like the other machines had when you calc value.
You can add thermal performance section.
You've got to be kidding me. Base M4 Mini is like 1400 here.
Where is here? I assume it's somewhere with high tax, terrifs, or import duties.
In the USA 🇺🇸, it is selling for $600. With a student discount on Apple's website, it can sell as low as $500.
@@ElevatedSystems may be he's talking about m4 pro
@@ElevatedSystems dont compare 32gb and 2tb ram with its price to 256gb and 16gb ram, your opinion is skewed towards Apple, and you forgot to add another 600-1200$ to the base price if you like 2tb and 32gb with M4. So you should compare 999$ from Mini Pc, to 1400-1600$ for M4 with the same RAM/SSD amounts!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@GyoooppMac mini is way more expensive in europe
01:09 Reputabbubble manufacturers?
I think he's worked on it and edited it slightly.
To match the configurations of the other devices would bring the M4 mini cost to $1399. To move to 2 TB storage on the M4 I could put 2x 4TB Gen4 SSD's in the others. If you move outside of synthetics and optimized software that completely leans into the M4 mini then I think the picture changes. The base model is excellent and provides superior utility within a tiny scope but it's a loss leader meant to trap the purchaser into a upsell mentality, buyer beware.
Yeas. Good point. He mentions this towards the end of the video. 200 dollars for 8 GB of ram in 2024 is insane.
The less synthetic the benchmark is the more powerful the mac gets. The average user doesnt need more than 16gb of ram and the storage is upgradeable externally with excellent speeds. The only real downside is game compatiblity put if you want a machine to get work done the mac is the best plus apple provide a 100 discount if you are a student
@@walidoutaleb7121 The average user doesn't need to spend $599 to get their work done either. And yes you can add external storage to your mini but then it starts not being the tight little form factor anymore. Apple offers larger storage options for a reason? Where do you think the student discount comes from?
@@maxwellsmart3156 who cares about the space it will take since its a pc you will at minimum have a mouse keyboard and screen connected. We are not talking about a laptop. someone might go cheaper but will it actually be cheaper in the long run? This mac mini will outlast any machine cheaper than it.
@@walidoutaleb7121
Not really. If your workload consists of sshing into a terminal, even a $200 android phone will do. Browse the web? Chromebooks come in at around $300 these days, with about the same baseline of m2 drives and soldered ram
This is the first review I have seen that did an apples to apples comparison of the Mac Mini to pre-built Windows mini-pcs. What most other reviewers seem to overlook ( I am looking at you LTT) or just flat out don't care is that the Venn diagram of Mac Mini target customers and people who built their own custom PC's has no overlap.
Nice review even if you forget to mention that the original Mac Mini came out in 2005, long before the Intel NUC.
Does the Beelink have 4 GB RAM for the GPU?
You can assign up to half the available ram to vram.
to be fair the Mac mini has been around since 2005
Eh?
what do you mean by "to be fair"? Are you trying to say that all of these other boxes are "new" and therefore are at a disadvantage?
@@MJHiteshew I think there was sort of an implication (00:48) that Apple is newer to this form factor. In the video, Intel's NUC was offered as an early example of the mini PC form factor, dating to 2012. The first Mac mini predates the NUC by several years, however.
Note that I could be misunderstanding both the video and the OP of this comment.
yup that PPC mini was my very first mac in 2005 & didnt feel like i was breaking the bank! Web 2.0 was a godsend in making the transition!
Outside of limited games to play and mediocre SSD write speeds, the base M4 destroys the competition. You can even boost up the RAM to 24GB, and still have a great price to performance.
$800 without the student discount. $700 with it. Add a $20 dongle for any missing ports, and a light user has all they need.
actually you can play just about anything with crossover
@@chidorirasenganzBut most people don't want to do that, especially kids. They just want to download and play. Plus, Crossover costs $74 annually.
@ It’s as easy as downloading Steam. Crossover is $79 for a year of updates. You can still use it afterwards and it often goes on sale particularly around Black Friday. I scored it for 20 bucks. Besides it’s not as if maintaining a Windows PC is hassle free
It would be nice if the veterans and active duty military got the same level of discount as the students do
Software integration is an issue if you need plenty of open source software.
I have a monitor with Display Port interface. Can Mac Mini work with it?
You can get an adapter. The Mac Mini also has an HDMI port and there are HDMI to Display Port adapters.
@@dan_hitchman007 Thank you very much. I guess HDMI-to-DP is better than USB-to-DP, right?
PC behind you sums up the video for me.
The M4 is a great performer, and your claims are valid BUT, the price to performance conclusion is VERY MISLEADING. To spec the M4 Mac Mini the same as the others, 32GB of RAM and 1TB Storage it will costs $1400. You calculated (avg of scores/cost) so multiply the result by the cost will give us the avg of scores. This becomes 9102. So now we can then calculate the price to performance more appropriately to other devices. 9102/1400 = *6.5*
This turns out to be WORSE overall, BUT giving the benefit of the doubt, Apple's storage pricing is a SCAM so we'll leave out the storage upgrade and since you can't upgrade RAM we'll go with this config: 32GB RAM + 256GB Storage = $1000. If we do the calculation again we get a BETTER score of 9.1 WITHOUT the same storage. Let's say, adding a 1TB external SSD that is a fast and reliable brandcost ~$75, that will bring the price to performance at around ~8.5.
Now the conclusion isn't an outlying 2x price to performance of the competitors, at best 1.3x or 30%. My statement also doesn't include the fact that other than the new AMD machine and oldest Intel, the other mini PCs have 2TB of storage. Oh, and of course student discounts, which varies to the audience/buyers that is a fair point to make for anyone buying the M4 Mac Mini, but I simply left out due to comparison sake. with my calculations you can easily decide if it is worth it or not.
Wasn't misleading at all. I clearly covered the specs of each system and I even mentioned how any of Apple's ridiculously priced upgrades will kill the price to performance ratio. Unfortunately your calculations assume upgrading the Mac will not effect it's performance.
@@ElevatedSystems, besides the Apple OS doesn’t need a huge level of RAM to achieve the same performance of a Windows PC. Same goes for on board storage.
@@johnkellett7797 RAM is RAM and storage is storage. If you run out, you're going to have a bad time. MacOS isn't magic.
@@ElevatedSystems I agree with @NootNoot you did a horrible job reviewing this. It would be nice to have a never show me again feature on youtube, so I could click on makers that purposefully lie in their videos like you have done here. You could have easily done PCs with the same RAM and SSD size or had the RAM SSD size of the Mac be the same. You decided though to artificially tilt the price to performance ratio and then say it was the most important thing. Even your game review part didn't have the same graphics. No mention of a list of games that worked on Mac or a showing of how and where the single core performance actually helps. Such a bad review.
@ those are the base specs of each model. Thats what they come with. Its base model vs base model. The PCs with the current flagship CPUs don’t have cheaper options.
Now test the M4 Pro against this same crop of machines. Yes, a bit more expensive, but you're competing higher core counts against higher core counts.
M4 Pro obliterates them all. We’re talking about raw GPU performance between a 4060 and 4060ti
There's no point. The M4 is destroying them itself and the M4 Pro is way faster than that
@@chidorirasenganz Well, for Blender tasks it's not even up to 4050 Laptop GPU... And with full Pro CPU, 48GB RAM, 1TB storage it is much more expensive than ASUS Strix laptop with 4070, 1TB and 64GB RAM and 4070 Laptop is on par with M3 Max/M2 Ultra in GPU performance.
I would love to get Mac, but can't justify it in comparison for same price Windows machine, especially a portable one as with MBP you need to spend double or more for same results...
@ Except the that strix laptop would have a slower CPU, less VRAM, less battery life, worse inputs and build quality etc. Also according to the Blender benchmark they score the same as they both get 2500. And new M series chips always get better with newer updates to Blender. The M3 Max started at 3400 and now scores 4200 on 4.2. So performance most likely will improve a bit
M4 Mini cannot run Windows software properly, and that's a big disadvantage.
Intel based Mini could run almost 100 percent of Windows software perfectly using Boot Camp, Parallels, etc.
Intel based Mini could use a very powerful AMD video card in an external box, attached via Thunderbolt. M2/M3/M4 Minis cannot use external GPUs. Such a drawback.
I think technically ARM Macs could run external GPU via Thunderbolt, the issue is lack of drivers, I think...
An AMD Intel machine runs an emulator for Windows too.
@@sobieckil07 ARM Macs have been out for years, and still external GPU boxes *do* *not* *work* . The problem goes much deeper than simple 'drivers' .
And the GPU integrated into M3 or M4 chips is very weak and unimpressive, compared to NVidia graphics. It's like comparing a bicycle to a BMW.
@@sobieckil07 Unfortunately no. Apple does not implement the full pcie spec that would be needed for external GPU support. Specifically the way it handles external memory addressing modes. Apple themselves would have to patch the microcode of the chips to make external gpus possible and they've made it clear they have no interest after the mac pro.
As a power user with an M1 Pro macbook, I disagree - for my personal usecase. I use both crossover and Parallels to run Windows (software) on my macbook, and it works flawlessly. Yes, in theory the emulation comes with a performance hit, but in practice I don't notice this at all. And think about it: the other way around, running macOS on Windows, is much more complicated/nigh on impossible.
A computer with less than 4TB internal storage is a no-go for me. Built my system two years ago and its current 2TBs are almost full. (Upgrading to 4TB this Holiday season.)
Remember that some mini pc's have pcie extension that alows you to use an actual dgpu, and other ones can use egpu through thunderbolt or oculink.
Yet the Mac, even the lowest level, beats the standard eGPU from NVIDIA.
256gb in 2024 is joke 😂. Even chinese smartphone has more storage 😂
The classic Mac argument is to pretend that everyone uses Photoshop and does video editing on a regular basis. This drags the prices of the Mini PCs higher to match the needs of this customer.
My problem is that most customers do not use Photoshop or do video editing. Just as most people with Smartphones are not videographers. And so when you remove this customer from the mix --
-- you discover you can get a hell of a Mini PC from basically ANYONE for half the price and sometimes less. So if you have 3 kids and you want to give each of them a desktop PC? $900 for all 3. Or less.
But it gets worse. Because, you see, Apple always tries to make you pay $200 or more to get more RAM or storage than their PC cousins. Most $300 Mini PCs include 16GBs of RAM and 512 SSD storage. The Mac Mini charges you $200 more to double the storage to 512.
So to get those 3 kids those Macs with similar storage and RAM is $1400 more.
And did I mention extended warranty? The good news is that greedy Apple just surprised me by dropping their 3 year price to only $99. The bad news is you can get your $300 Mini PC similarly covered for $40.
So $1525 more for 3 Mac Minis with warranty for kids. Imagine if this was a business and it needed 20 workstations? A savings of over 10K. What if it was a school system that needed 2000 minis? Savings of $1,000,000.
So what you're saying is this:
th-cam.com/video/Yp-AnPFpa7U/w-d-xo.html
make you pay… sure, blame the company and not the consumer
@@ElevatedSystems Yeah, but I'd bump up to AMDs SER5 ish models.
@@jjpp3301 Yes. I blame Apple for gauging on (in this case) storage. There's making a buck and there's being greedy little holes.
Just buy a used office PC for 100 dollars if it's the same thing. Maybe it will be more powerful than a new cheap mini PC, and the GPU can be upgraded.
Mac mini is a different category, it's a top of the line CPU in a small/silent package.