Apple shrunk the Mac Mini and made it more powerful with M4 Pro

Apple’s big week of Mac announcements continued overnight, revealing the even more miniature Mac Mini built with the company’s M4 chip.

Previously rumoured to be similar to the Apple TV streaming device in size, the new Mac Mini is indeed tiny. With a bit of dramatic flair, Apple showed just how much smaller its pint-sized desktop computer is in the product reveal video.

At just 5 x 5 inches (12.7 x 12.7cm), it’s a substantial downsize from last year’s Mini, which measured at 7.75 x 7.75 inches. It’s noticeably lighter too, weighing roughly 0.7kg compared to the older model’s approximately 1.2kg heft.

Like the 2024 iMac revealed yesterday, the latest Mac Mini uses the M4 system-on-a-chip, skipping directly from the M2 platform. According to Apple, this year’s model delivers 1.6 times faster CPU performance on Affinity Photo, and 1.4 times faster GPU performance when playing World of Warcraft. They’re very specific examples, demonstrating a reasonable leap between Minis.

Of course, that’s only relevant if you upgrade your computer every year, which would be uncommon. Apple likes comparing its silicon to older Macs running on Intel chips prior to 2020, touting up to 13 times faster performance.

The M2 Mac Mini (left) compared to the M4 Mac Mini (right). Image: Apple.

Apple also debuted the M4 Pro version of its chip, a more powerful version that includes a 12-core CPU and 16-core GPU, up from the base M4’s 10-core CPU and GPU configuration. Mac Mini’s with the M4 Pro get Thunderbolt 5 connectivity for the first time, providing data transfer speeds reaching 120Gb/s.

For a more current comparison, Apple claims that the M4 Pro boasts 2.4 times better GPU performance than the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 chip. Keep in mind that this is not Intel’s most powerful processor; that crown goes to the Core Ultra 9 model.

Available to pre-order now, the M4 Mac Mini starts at $999 in Australia, while the M4 Pro model starts at $2,199. Both variants arrive locally on 8 November 2024.

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