Anyone return the base M4 for M4 Pro?

[MrGimper]

As title.

I haven’t, the M4/32GB/1TB I bought is doing everything I wanted it for with ease.

Just curious if anyone had the base M4 and has discovered since it arrived that it doesn’t cope well with what they wanted it for and has upgraded to the Pro.

 

[yabeweb]

Same experience for me, I just got it today, and tested all day to figure out if i wanted the pro, turns out for my workflow the Mini M4 is right, no need to more, i upgraded to 512 thanks to a 100 euro discount from Amazon (can’t see myself using it with 256, even with external ssd).

Great little bomb.

 

[Miles Fu]

I returned the 24GB version and settled with a 16GB base version, good enough for my use.

I am happy with that with a 1TB hooked SSD

 

[MrGimper]

I returned the 24GB version and settled with a 16GB base version, good enough for my use.

I am happy with that with a 1TB hooked SSD

I do have a temptation to drop down from the 32GB to the 24GB and save a bit, but now I’m all set up I’m not sure I can be bothered. I’d not drop from 1TB tho

 

[pig pile]

I picked up a base mini with just the upgraded storage to 512GB. Had in mind that I would return it and get the pro eventually but am very pleasantly surprised with this thing. Not an especially heavy workload user but I am a photographer and it can handle Lightroom imports and edits with ease.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I didn’t, because I ordered the M4 Pro from the get-go. No particular reason; I just wanted an upgrade from my M1 mini.

 

[Miles Fu]

I picked up a base mini with just the upgraded storage to 512GB. Had in mind that I would return it and get the pro eventually but am very pleasantly surprised with this thing. Not an especially heavy workload user but I am a photographer and it can handle Lightroom imports and edits with ease.

I tried LR today, LR occupied a bit too much RAM, and the memory pressure suddenly changed color to yellow.

 

[pig pile]

I tried LR today, LR occupied a bit too much RAM, and the memory pressure suddenly changed color to yellow.

Wondering if you could describe what you were doing when pressure turned yellow?

 

[Miles Fu]

Wondering if you could describe what you were doing when pressure turned yellow?

Not too much operations, seems the new version of LR just eats too much ram

 

[bearcatrp]

You folks with the 256 and 512 ssd drives. How much room is left before installing apps?

 

[blufrog]

Going straight to M4 Pro here.

"Real world" tests show the M4 Pro to be nearly twice as fast as M4 at everything, and SSD is 3x faster across the board. Unless you're only doing e-mail and word processing, there is little point considering the vanilla M4.

 

[yabeweb]

Unless you're only doing e-mail and word processing, there is little point considering the vanilla M4.

That's a wrong statement....I do a lot more, and don't feel the need for a pro machine.

Affinity runs like a charm, and you can save a lot of money with the base model, it really depends what you need, but 90% of the people can easily get away with the standard m4.

 

[MrGimper]

Going straight to M4 Pro here.

"Real world" tests show the M4 Pro to be nearly twice as fast as M4 at everything, and SSD is 3x faster across the board. Unless you're only doing e-mail and word processing, there is little point considering the vanilla M4.

That’s a bit of a bold, sweeping and quite elitist statement.

 

[840quadra]

That’s a bit of a bold, sweeping and quite elitist statement.

Agreed.

I went M4 Pro for different reasons than they outlined but went with the base Pro.

I tend to keep my Apple products for a LONG time, so figured it may be a bit more future proof having a bit more GPU HP, and a couple more main cores. I still daily use a 2015 MacBook Pro, and an even older 2011 era Mac Mini.

Bone stock, the Base Mini 100% will do what I need for now (well with a RAM upgrade).

 

[subjonas]

I tried LR today, LR occupied a bit too much RAM, and the memory pressure suddenly changed color to yellow.

I’ve seen mentioned a few times around these forums that Macs will use RAM just because it’s available, not necessarily because it’s needed, so the yellow pressure doesn’t always indicate a lack of RAM. No idea if that’s true, but of course the real evidence of RAM shortage is when it actually affects usage.

 

[pig pile]

Everyone's use case is different, but I've been testing memory pressure since first day as I'm very curious. Internally got just the base 16GB. Haven't seen the machine go over 14GB. To give an example, tonight I had the following apps open and processes running:
13 safari tabs open (13 different websites), Apple Maps, Calendar, Microsoft Excel, iMsgs, Music, TV+, YouTube playing a video, Apple News, LR Classic, Disk Utility, Airport Utility, Calculator, Email, and whatever Mac/OS runs in the background.
Max memory pressure was ~13.5GB, always in the green. No slowdowns noticed anywhere on the machine. In addition I had my Time Capsule backup disk in the midst of a big data exchange with my external disk. Also running dual screen; ASD as Main, old Apple Thunderbolt Display as extended.

The machine that I upgraded from is a 2017 iMac i7 with 32 GB RAM and a 3TB Fusion Drive. The M4 base blows that out of the water. Mac O/S is a master at memory Mgmt with their M SoC. In my workflow I rarely have all those processes open all at once. Don't do video, most intense thing I do is large amounts of Lightroom edits. So still a lot to test but initial reaction is one of amazement. I figured I would return this within days. Now thinking very seriously about keeping it.

 

[picpicmac]

Unless you're only doing e-mail and word processing, there is little point considering the vanilla M4.

Um, no.

As for speed comparisons, I follow the better YouTube testers like ArtIsRight and Alex Ziskind and their results so far don't support your claims. The differences between the stock M4 and M4 Pro models is more to do with RAM and SSD speeds, but bumping up the M4 memory and SSD collapses the gap. The M4 Pro Mini remains a bit faster in SSD for the same size, and the memory bandwidth also makes some tests faster on the M4 Pro.

There are many example on YouTube now of people using the M4 Mini for music and images and videos and they are doing fine. I have no reason to not believe them.

 

[pig pile]

You folks with the 256 and 512 ssd drives. How much room is left before installing apps?

Hesitant to respond because my individual case might not be useful to you. I ordered the 512 GB storage. I did a clean install and moved photos and movies over to an external SSD, so only system, docs, and apps resident on internal. I'm still grappling with which apps to continue but right now I have about 75% of the internal drive free. I think the 256 GB is a little tight. I estimate 4-6 yr use cycle. I don't think there is any question I will be ok with storage. RAM will be interesting. With only 16 GB RAM, I anticipate being pretty damn ready to upgrade in 4 yrs time. I hope to migrate off of Lightroom soon though, so perhaps I will have a chance with another photo app that is better at managing RAM. Would be fantastic if Apple could optimize Pixelmator Pro purchase with MSoC. Anyway, sorry I'm rambling. Bottomline, for me 512 GB more than enough for next 5-6 years.

 

[Davefevs]

You folks with the 256 and 512 ssd drives. How much room is left before installing apps?

I didn’t check specifically, but I have the 256gb version and having installed a small number of apps like Microsoft 365, Tableau, some Video apps like Sky Go, VPN, etc…plus my files, photos, etc, I have 165gb left.

My apps folder says it’s 18.5gb size-wise.

On my previous MBPs I always went 512gb, but when I bought these several years ago I didn’t know you could move home drive to external SS and stuff like that.

But I just wanted something cheap, so it suited me to go for the £599 model.

This forum is great, but I think it also has a good number of people who will convince you that you need bigger, better, faster than you do.

I just hit my 5 year cycle of “next device” and the MM base version suited me.

 

[MrGimper]

Everyone's use case is different, but I've been testing memory pressure since first day as I'm very curious. Internally got just the base 16GB. Haven't seen the machine go over 14GB. To give an example, tonight I had the following apps open and processes running:
13 safari tabs open (13 different websites), Apple Maps, Calendar, Microsoft Excel, iMsgs, Music, TV+, YouTube playing a video, Apple News, LR Classic, Disk Utility, Airport Utility, Calculator, Email, and whatever Mac/OS runs in the background.
Max memory pressure was ~13.5GB, always in the green. No slowdowns noticed anywhere on the machine. In addition I had my Time Capsule backup disk in the midst of a big data exchange with my external disk. Also running dual screen; ASD as Main, old Apple Thunderbolt Display as extended.

The machine that I upgraded from is a 2017 iMac i7 with 32 GB RAM and a 3TB Fusion Drive. The M4 base blows that out of the water. Mac O/S is a master at memory Mgmt with their M SoC. In my workflow I rarely have all those processes open all at once. Don't do video, most intense thing I do is large amounts of Lightroom edits. So still a lot to test but initial reaction is one of amazement. I figured I would return this within days. Now thinking very seriously about keeping it.

Great post

I upgraded from a 2014 iMac i7 with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

This thing is doing everything I want it to do as a replacement for that in my home office. I do also have a 16" MBP M3 16/40 Max with 64GB and 2TB and I'm starting to realise that was way overkill, but it was an Apple Refurb with an £800 discount.

 

[MrGimper]

I’ve seen mentioned a few times around these forums that Macs will use RAM just because it’s available, not necessarily because it’s needed, so the yellow pressure doesn’t always indicate a lack of RAM. No idea if that’s true, but of course the real evidence of RAM shortage is when it actually affects usage.

Unused RAM is wasted RAM. If it's not being used for apps then it's used for cache. If apps need the RAM then the cache is reduced or even binned. I suspect yellow is a genuine signal of memory pressure as I would have thought it would take into account ditching any RAM used as cache in favour of apps using it. I think App Memory and Wired Memory are the ones to keep an eye on.

 

[blufrog]

Um, no.

As for speed comparisons, I follow the better YouTube testers like ArtIsRight and Alex Ziskind and their results so far don't support your claims. The differences between the stock M4 and M4 Pro models is more to do with RAM and SSD speeds, but bumping up the M4 memory and SSD collapses the gap. The M4 Pro Mini remains a bit faster in SSD for the same size, and the memory bandwidth also makes some tests faster on the M4 Pro.

There are many example on YouTube now of people using the M4 Mini for music and images and videos and they are doing fine. I have no reason to not believe them.

It was the ArtIsRight videos that show the clear difference.

More memory did not equate to more performance, either.

I'm sorry I sound "elitist". If I was sat here saying Ultra with 128 GB, yes, I'd argue elitism. Not because I said Pro was worth the upgrade. Even the base Pro is killer. Memory is 2.7x faster, and SSD at least 2x faster JUST BECAUSE Pro. Well worth the price difference, considering base memory bump to 24 GB and 512 GB SSD.

 

[yabeweb]

It was the ArtIsRight videos that show the clear difference.

More memory did not equate to more performance, either.

I'm sorry I sound "elitist". If I was sat here saying Ultra with 128 GB, yes, I'd argue elitism. Not because I said Pro was worth the upgrade. Even the base Pro is killer. Memory is 2.7x faster, and SSD at least 2x faster JUST BECAUSE Pro. Well worth the price difference, considering base memory bump to 24 GB and 512 GB SSD.

Worth the update is a thing (and debatable depending on user scenario), you said unless you do Word and Safari get the Pro.

”Unless you're only doing e-mail and word processing, there is little point considering the vanilla M4.”

2 different statements, one is possibly true, the other is false 100%

I use Affinity, i do graphic design for work, some video editing (non pro level) some 3d with Blender (again not pro level) and record music (guitar and voices) and I can get all done with no sweat on the base (sad upgraded to 512) model.

For me the almost 2x price (where i live) is not worth the upgrade (yes the difference IS there, no need to see an internet video to figure that out….nss), I prefer é to save the money and may be in 34 years upgrade the machine, i find i’d get more bang for my money.
That sai, thing personal against you.

 

[MrGimper]

Worth the update is a thing (and debatable depending on user scenario), you said unless you do Word and Safari get the Pro.

”Unless you're only doing e-mail and word processing, there is little point considering the vanilla M4.”

2 different statements, one is possibly true, the other is false 100%

I use Affinity, i do graphic design for work, some video editing (non pro level) some 3d with Blender (again not pro level) and record music (guitar and voices) and I can get all done with no sweat on the base (sad upgraded to 512) model.

For me the almost 2x price (where i live) is not worth the upgrade (yes the difference IS there, no need to see an internet video to figure that out….nss), I prefer é to save the money and may be in 34 years upgrade the machine, i find i’d get more bang for my money.
That sai, thing personal against you.

Exactly ... it was the ”Unless you're only doing e-mail and word processing, there is little point considering the vanilla M4.” comment.

I just loaded up Logic 11 and played the Beck/Colours demo while doing a shedload of other stuff on my M4 mini and it didn't skip a beat.

Yes, the Pro is clearly better, but lets not pretend the non-pro is a typewriter.

 

[blufrog]

Exactly ... it was the ”Unless you're only doing e-mail and word processing, there is little point considering the vanilla M4.” comment.

I just loaded up Logic 11 and played the Beck/Colours demo while doing a shedload of other stuff on my M4 mini and it didn't skip a beat.

Yes, the Pro is clearly better, but lets not pretend the non-pro is a typewriter.

Well...that is very good to know.