Apple releases new Mac mini with M4 chip

Apple officially released the new Mac mini equipped with M4 and M4 Pro chips through online updates. At the same time, Apple also announced that Mac mini became Apple’s first carbon-neutral Mac device.

Apple has redesigned the new Mac mini, which is half the size of its predecessor, with the overall dimensions of 4.97cm×12.7cm×12.7cm. It uses an innovative heat dissipation architecture that can draw air into different layers within the device and finally exhaust it all from the bottom.

Compared with the M1 model, the new Mac mini equipped with the M4 chip has a CPU speed-up of up to 1.8 times and a GPU speed-up of up to 2.2 times; the model equipped with the M4 Pro chip inherits and upgrades the technology of the M4 chip and is capable of handling more difficult tasks.

The new Mac mini equipped with the M4 chip is equipped with a 10-core central processing unit and a 10-core graphics processor, and the unified memory capacity starts at 16GB.

Compared to a Mac mini with an Intel Core i7 chip, a Mac mini with an M4 chip: the number of sound plug-ins supported in Logic Pro projects increases by up to 2.8 times; gaming performance when playing World of Warcraft: War to the Core is up to 13.3 times faster; and image optimization and enlargement performance using Photomator is up to 33 times faster.

The new Mac mini with M4 Pro is equipped with an industry-leading CPU core speed, integrating up to 14 cores, including 10 performance cores and 4 energy efficiency cores.

The GPU of the M4 Pro chip integrates up to 20 cores, and its performance can be up to twice that of the M4 chip graphics processor.

The two chips are the first to introduce hardware-accelerated ray tracing technology to Mac mini devices. The neural network engine integrated in the M4 Pro chip is also more than 3 times faster than that of a Mac equipped with an M1 chip. The M4 Pro chip supports up to 64GB of unified memory and a memory bandwidth of 273GB/s, which is twice the bandwidth of any AI PC chip.

In terms of interfaces, the new Mac mini M4 Pro model is equipped with a Thunderbolt 5 port for the first time, with a data transmission speed of up to 120 Gb/s, and a throughput capacity more than twice that of the Thunderbolt 4 port.

Ports on the front include 2 USB-C ports with USB 3 support and 1 audio jack that supports high-impedance headphones.

There are three Thunderbolt ports on the back, of which the Mac mini equipped with the M4 chip has a Thunderbolt 4 port, and the Mac mini equipped with the M4 Pro chip has a Thunderbolt 5 port. Both models come standard with a Gigabit Ethernet port, with an optional 10Gb Ethernet port, and an HDMI port.

The Mac mini equipped with the M4 chip can drive up to two 6K displays plus one 5K display at the same time; the model equipped with the M4 Pro chip can drive up to three 6K displays at the same time at a 60Hz refresh rate, outputting a total of more than 60 million pixels.

The new Mac mini will also introduce Apple Intelligence, leveraging the power of Apple's M series chips and neural network engine to provide convenience for users to work and entertain on Mac.

In terms of price, the new Mac mini with M4 chip version starts at 4,499 yuan, and the new Mac mini with M4 Pro chip version starts at 10,999 yuan.