Here’s what the super-vitamin Mac mini (M4 Pro) and MacBook Pro (M4 Pro and M4 Max) look like.

The new Mac mini, whose size shrinks inversely with the power it gets with the new M4 Pro chip, and the new MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro, which is breaking records in the first published tests, and the M4 Ultra, which is likely to be much larger. about to go out. Apple’s catalog is also expanding with new iMacs with M4 to take full advantage of Apple Intelligence, Apple’s artificial intelligence system, which will gradually reach Apple devices and somewhat slower in Europe.

This week, Apple announced a new Mac Mini that has kept essentially the same shape for 12 years, and redesigned it to pack into a ridiculously small space a computer that does the same thing with extreme ease for those who use it for home purposes ( M4) than those who need one more addition (M4 Pro) such as video control or programming. For the former, a model with an M4 chip, the same as in the iPad Pro, introduced in June last year, is ideal. As for the latter, the M4 Pro will give you enough power to handle the vast majority of professional tasks.

Mac mini is very small. It weighs about 700 grams (670 grams with the M4 and 730 grams with the M4 Pro) and has two USB-C connectors, three Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C) connectors, an audio jack, HDMI, and Gigabit Ethernet. Its dimensions seem incredible for the power it hides: 12.7 cm on the side (with typical Apple rounded corners) and 5 cm in height. The power button is tucked away at the bottom, and while some have found this to be an issue since you have to lift it slightly to press it, it doesn’t seem to be a major issue.

The key to making the Mac mini smaller lies partly in the M4 chips, which are manufactured using 3nm technology. The smaller the transistors, the lower the power consumption, the less heat generated due to less resistance to the flow of electricity, and the easier it is to cool – although this is not the case with the iPad Pro and MacBook Air with M4. I don’t even need a fan.

Apple says the new Mac mini is the first zero-carbon Mac, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing, materials, transportation and customer use by more than 80%. The price of the base model remained at 719 euros. Along with this computer, Apple has finally included USB-C connectors on the Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Mouse.

Elsewhere in the lineup, the MacBook Pro laptops have also been updated to take them to the limit. It’s the same design as the previous generation, with some improvements beyond the chip. The M4 has a 14-core central processing unit (CPU) (10 performance and 4 efficiency), a 20-core graphics processing unit (GPU), and memory bandwidth that is twice the bandwidth of any PC AI chip. First performance tests performed. The publication of the M4 Pro chip indicates a new leap for Apple with its Apple Silicon processors.

The M4 Max chip includes a 16-core processor, up to 40-core GPU, and more than half a terabyte per second of unified memory bandwidth. The results of the first test applications on these two chips are impressive. In short, you can rest assured that the most affordable M4 Pro PCs will offer performance equal to or better than the previous generation of high-end PCs. Example: One of the new 14-core M4 Mac minis, starting at €1,899, equals or beats the Mac Studio with M2 Ultra, which costs €4,848.85.

Results

The 14-core M4 Pro achieved an average multi-core score of 22,094 across 11 different Geekbench 6 results, beating the M2 Ultra’s average score of 21,351 across more than 600 results. The difference is small, but we must take into account that the M2 Ultra has 10 more cores. The 16-core M4 Max is even more impressive. It reaches 4060 points in single-core and 26675 in multi-core mode. 25% faster than M2 Ultra. This chip also excels in graphics performance. The 40-core M4 Max received a Metal score of 192,532 points between the M3 Max (154,860) and the 76-core M2 Ultra (221,646).

What happened here? The evolution of Apple Silicon chips since the launch of the first M1, released just four years ago. At three of its chip development centers – Munich (Germany), Cupertino (California) and Israel – Apple develops this important component of its devices with the intention of making them the most advanced in terms of performance per watt. That is, they do a lot and consume little. To do this, the chips, in addition to extreme miniaturization, combine the processor, graphics processor and neural engine into a single whole.

What Apple has done to achieve the high performance of the M4 Pro, which is found on the Mac mini and MacBook Pro, and the M4 Max, which is only available on the latter, is more unusual considering that it hasn’t achieved a significant increase in performance. number of cores compared to the previous generation, which means they have a better architecture and an even more efficient design.

Along with these, Apple’s Mac lineup update so far has included the announcement of the new M4-powered iMacs introduced in June. Its performance, according to the company, is up to 4.5 times faster than the most popular 24-inch all-in-one PC with the latest Intel Core 7 processor on the market.

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