The new Mac mini is here and with it comes one of the most affordable AI powerhouses you can buy.
Apple is positioning the Mac mini for only $100 more than its original price. And even at $600, the M4 Mac mini may just be the most powerful desktop you can buy.
We haven't tested it just yet, so we can't be certain, but let's take a look at what Apple has shared so far about the new M4 Mac mini, which is set to launch on November 8.
How the Mac mini champions the affordable desktop market
In just a 5 x 5-inch chassis, the Mac mini delivers Apple's latest M4 chipset, which the company states is 1.8x faster in CPU performance and 2.2x faster in GPU performance compared with the M1 model. What does that look like in theory?
Well, the M1 Mac mini scored 8,446 on the Geekbench 6 overall performance test, which means that the Mac mini should deliver a rough score of 15,202.8. For context, that beats the M3 MacBook Pro (11,870) and the M3 Pro MacBook Pro (14,357), laptops that cost over $1K more than the Mac mini.
On the Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm benchmark, the M1 Mac mini scored 31.5 frames per second, which is just playable. The M4 Mac mini could score 69.3 fps, which surpasses the 60-fps golden standard in gaming. Again, that surpasses the M3 MacBook Pro (51 fps) and the M3 Pro MacBook Pro (53.7 fps).
For just $600, the M4 Mac mini is a wild deal when it comes to performance. But it offers something more than just its power: Apple Intelligence. AI is all the craze these days, and if you are looking for a quality AI solution for the tasks ahead, you likely won't find anything more affordable than the Mac mini.
Apple Intelligence includes features like Writing Tools. This will let you rewrite, proofread, and summarize text virtually everywhere you can write. Siri is redesigned for a more seamless experience, navigating between spoken and typed requests more swiftly. ChatGPT will also be coming to Writing Tools and Siri.
Image Playground lets you create images generated from photos and artwork crawled from across the web. Genmoji will similarly let you create custom emojis quickly.
Apple is pushing the idea that its generative models will feature industry-first privacy protections. The M4 Mac mini will support on-device processing, but not for everything. For larger tasks, Apple offers Private Cloud Compute, which gives you access to larger, server-based models. With it, you can access ChatGPT for free, and your IP addresses are obscured — OpenAI won't store requests.
I understand that AI tasks can't all be handled on-device, but anything that connects to the cloud, especially personal information, should always be subject to scrutiny. Nothing is unbreakable, no matter how much Apple tells you it is. And with companies like Meta out there, it's tough to put my faith in any company with access to personal information.
Outlook
I'm excited to see what the M4 Mac mini can do when we get our hands on it. The prospect of powerful performance and a low price always deserves praise. I'm indifferent about the AI capabilities, but some people may find them useful.
For more news, rumors, and updates on everything M4 Mac mini-related keep an eye on our M4 Mac week liveblog.
