Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Mac Mini M4 thermals
- Thread starter aiyaaabatt
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
lou-jag -
Can you tell us what application you used to obtain the information you posted in reply 22 above?
ivnj -
Same question -- what app used to get that result list?
Can you tell us what application you used to obtain the information you posted in reply 22 above?
ivnj -
Same question -- what app used to get that result list?
Download Temp Monitor for Mac | MacUpdate
Download the latest version of Temp Monitor for Mac for free. Read 18 user reviews and compare with similar apps on MacUpdate.
temp-monitor.macupdate.com
think this alone is why people are waiting for a Mac Studio with m4 Max [forget the ultra]...
above issue would apply to MBP M4 Max also same situation. so the solution for M4 Max = Mac Studio. Fan will never turn on ever if at all based on the previous experiences with M2 Max and M2 Ultra stressing tests on CB
Flip the Mini over and see what it does. I already considered doing this when I receive mine. I already have sticky feet ready to go! Seems flipping it over makes a difference to thermal performance.
MBP 14" and 16" are thermal throttling before the Mini to the point the Mini M4 Pro 12/16 is faster than the 14/20 of the MBP.
I would expect the CPU to start throttling under sustained loads where the case can increase in temperature. Even my self-built high-end gaming PC will overheat if I put the case side on. This is a point that is often overlooked, and no number of fans are enough to fix this problem. A naked PC is infinitely cooler than a closed box with 300 fans.
MBP 14" and 16" are thermal throttling before the Mini to the point the Mini M4 Pro 12/16 is faster than the 14/20 of the MBP.
I would expect the CPU to start throttling under sustained loads where the case can increase in temperature. Even my self-built high-end gaming PC will overheat if I put the case side on. This is a point that is often overlooked, and no number of fans are enough to fix this problem. A naked PC is infinitely cooler than a closed box with 300 fans.
Glad I didn’t jump on the new mini. Always good to wait for user reports. Was wondering about the thermals being so small. Think Apple should have either made it a little taller to help with thermals or left the design alone. Still think Apple did this so the mini and the studio don’t look alike. My M1 is still doing fine but will wait for the next upgraded studio to come out. Got a feeling though that Apple will raise the price on it to keep things spaced on price point. Guess we will find out next year.
I have no thermal or overheating problem on my base M4 mini.
I've seen similar values for similar keys in a different stats menu app, but since an update a few days ago most of the entries have vanished.
With your screenshot I also wonder if an application last updated mid 2023 can correctly recognise and display the sensor values for the new Mac mini M4 base model, especially when seeing 5 different performance cores and only two efficiency cores - just wondering …
I'd wait for an update to correctly show 6 efficiency cores and 4 performance cores, at least then I'd trust the temperature values more as well.
ADDENDUM: anyone interested, have a look at this thread currently trying to get the correct Mac min M4 thermals …
No sensors for M4 · Issue #2249 · exelban/stats
cpu and gpu temperature sensors are not showing Device: [Macbook Pro 2024 M4] macOS: [15.1.1] Application version: [2.11.19]
github.com
Last edited:
That would surprise me. Not to suggest it couldn’t happen. I’m looking at a base Max. If it did happen the Ultras could voice some displeasure.
I’m somewhat surprised they didn’t keep the mini case, put in a Max, discontinue the Studio and make the PM a more versatile box.
I guess I don't push my M4 hard enough. I am running the same loads on it as I did with my 2018 and there is quite a bit of difference. The M4 stays nice and cool where the 1028 would definitely get warm.
I think that the previous Mini case used in M2, M1 minis used the old Intel era case heatsinks and so they could dissipate far more heat than needed. A rare overbuilt "problem" to save a bit of $ perhaps at the time reuseing the intel cooler? Apple has "fixed" this now.
The goalpost shifters are out again.
After the glowing reviews from the Apple "fans" I was unsurprised to see there was a deviation in non-biased irl testing, but I've been quite surprised by the thermals and also the power consumption when going beyond facebook idle.
I have a feeling the somewhat dire state of Sequoia has quite a bit to do with it and not just Apple's infamous overdesigned and underengineered cooling, but either way there is a single party to point the finger at. They really should abandon an annual OS cadence and actually decide to release something that doesn't make even the worst Windows service pack look positively stable.
Last edited:
edit: didn't mention resolution - my monitor is 1080p so that's what WoW was running at. No upscaling or anything involved.
I recently picked up my M4 Mac Mini and so far have only done a bit of testing with World of Warcraft. So far I am satisfied with this little thing.
****
Retail settings: all High - exceptions are liquid (Good), spell density (dynamic), and outline mode (off) - sliders (view distance, ground clutter, detail distance) at 7.
(please keep in mind these settings could be pushed higher, I just settled on these for consistent performance)
In anniversary area of Tanaris with a decent amount of player activity and NPCs let's just say the expected temperatures, leaning on the side of "too hot", are 87˚ celsius. The hottest parts of the Mac, according to the most recent version of TG Pro, are the performance cores and GPU. Not all P-cores and GPU cores were the same temp, load was on some cores more than others. Ambient temperature, according to TG Pro, was 60˚. At the busiest the framerate averaged around 83fps.
Going into Orgrimmar I'd be conservative and just say the M4 was pushing 160fps. It touched the 240hz limit of my display in the portal room for a couple of seconds but with my graphics settings I cannot expect 240fps from the Mini. I am okay with that though. Of course Orgrimmar is not the most happening place in the middle of an expansion so I headed to Dornogal. Standing in the town square fps went down to like 65fps at the lowest and was struggling to go above 80 in the busier areas. Of course once you step away from the busy sections frame rates climb again. It is worth noting(!) that my tower desktop also struggles with Dornogal in the busy areas and the desktop has a lot more wattage to throw around with a dedicated GPU and CPU with a higher thread count simply looking at the on paper specs. For it struggling is going down to like 80 fps but, again, it has much more power.
Temps in Dornogal did touch the 100˚ mark when sitting in the town square for about 10 minutes. Even when touching 100˚ the fan did not budge from the 1000rpm it had been going at the entire time. Right now I cannot speak to how loud the Mac is at that baseline rpm because my desktop is louder beside it with the hum of fans while churning through Handbrake. And speaking of Handbrake I threw in a 4K version of Revenge of the Sith and with H265, 1080p, framerate same as source, slowest preset, and RF of 23 I watched the temperature of the SOC creep up to 100˚ and exceed it. Only once the P-cores went to 101˚ and 102˚ did the fan slightly spin up faster than 1000rpm. It went to 1260rpm. The ambient temperature started going above 70˚ and the ETA on the job's completion was over 8 hours but let's just say 9, probably 10, to be pessimistic.
Now in both cases of these high temps I did set the fan to max speed with TG Pro. Yes the fan does sound like the Mac is about to take off, and yes the sound itself isn't pleasant. It had a bit of a piercing ring to it. If you plan on really pushing this thing you may be disappointed and/or want some ear plugs. However, in both of these cases the fan did exactly what you expect it to do. For comparisons sake even when my M1 MBP has its fan maxed out the SOC will still be in the 95-101˚ range in Handbrake. With the M4 the fan almost instantly lowered the peak temperatures to a much more respectable 83˚ and held it there. This tells me that the cooling solution Apple has for this new Mini does do the job, however unpleasant that fan noise is.
I didn't try different orientations of the Mini during all this. I can't say if cooling is better on it's side, lifted up, or upside down. The whole time my Mini was sitting on my desk in the normal orientation between my DAC/Amp and right bookshelf speaker. I have to say that I am quite satisfied with this. My first impressions with the hardware now in my hands is basically what I was expecting. In my day to day stuff like opening applications, navigating the OS, using Spotlight, surfing the web, etc etc I do not see a noticeable increase to performance compared to my M1. However, I do notice how much faster the M4 is both in the gaming test I ran with WoW and when using brew. Brew packages and Xcode installed noticeably, significantly, faster than on the M1. Spotlight indexing was done so quickly I initially thought it didn't run at all. My one, depending on your perspective, slightly negative thing I could say about the hardware is just how light it is. Neat how little it weighs but when I first picked it up out of the box I said that it felt a bit like a toy. I have a 2011 Mac Mini I picked up for $25 this past summer that needs a new motherboard and comparing the two I don't find the M4 all that lighter relative to the old design. But I think the older design being physically larger makes it feel a bit more substantial in the hand.
I recently picked up my M4 Mac Mini and so far have only done a bit of testing with World of Warcraft. So far I am satisfied with this little thing.
****
Retail settings: all High - exceptions are liquid (Good), spell density (dynamic), and outline mode (off) - sliders (view distance, ground clutter, detail distance) at 7.
(please keep in mind these settings could be pushed higher, I just settled on these for consistent performance)
In anniversary area of Tanaris with a decent amount of player activity and NPCs let's just say the expected temperatures, leaning on the side of "too hot", are 87˚ celsius. The hottest parts of the Mac, according to the most recent version of TG Pro, are the performance cores and GPU. Not all P-cores and GPU cores were the same temp, load was on some cores more than others. Ambient temperature, according to TG Pro, was 60˚. At the busiest the framerate averaged around 83fps.
Going into Orgrimmar I'd be conservative and just say the M4 was pushing 160fps. It touched the 240hz limit of my display in the portal room for a couple of seconds but with my graphics settings I cannot expect 240fps from the Mini. I am okay with that though. Of course Orgrimmar is not the most happening place in the middle of an expansion so I headed to Dornogal. Standing in the town square fps went down to like 65fps at the lowest and was struggling to go above 80 in the busier areas. Of course once you step away from the busy sections frame rates climb again. It is worth noting(!) that my tower desktop also struggles with Dornogal in the busy areas and the desktop has a lot more wattage to throw around with a dedicated GPU and CPU with a higher thread count simply looking at the on paper specs. For it struggling is going down to like 80 fps but, again, it has much more power.
Temps in Dornogal did touch the 100˚ mark when sitting in the town square for about 10 minutes. Even when touching 100˚ the fan did not budge from the 1000rpm it had been going at the entire time. Right now I cannot speak to how loud the Mac is at that baseline rpm because my desktop is louder beside it with the hum of fans while churning through Handbrake. And speaking of Handbrake I threw in a 4K version of Revenge of the Sith and with H265, 1080p, framerate same as source, slowest preset, and RF of 23 I watched the temperature of the SOC creep up to 100˚ and exceed it. Only once the P-cores went to 101˚ and 102˚ did the fan slightly spin up faster than 1000rpm. It went to 1260rpm. The ambient temperature started going above 70˚ and the ETA on the job's completion was over 8 hours but let's just say 9, probably 10, to be pessimistic.
Now in both cases of these high temps I did set the fan to max speed with TG Pro. Yes the fan does sound like the Mac is about to take off, and yes the sound itself isn't pleasant. It had a bit of a piercing ring to it. If you plan on really pushing this thing you may be disappointed and/or want some ear plugs. However, in both of these cases the fan did exactly what you expect it to do. For comparisons sake even when my M1 MBP has its fan maxed out the SOC will still be in the 95-101˚ range in Handbrake. With the M4 the fan almost instantly lowered the peak temperatures to a much more respectable 83˚ and held it there. This tells me that the cooling solution Apple has for this new Mini does do the job, however unpleasant that fan noise is.
I didn't try different orientations of the Mini during all this. I can't say if cooling is better on it's side, lifted up, or upside down. The whole time my Mini was sitting on my desk in the normal orientation between my DAC/Amp and right bookshelf speaker. I have to say that I am quite satisfied with this. My first impressions with the hardware now in my hands is basically what I was expecting. In my day to day stuff like opening applications, navigating the OS, using Spotlight, surfing the web, etc etc I do not see a noticeable increase to performance compared to my M1. However, I do notice how much faster the M4 is both in the gaming test I ran with WoW and when using brew. Brew packages and Xcode installed noticeably, significantly, faster than on the M1. Spotlight indexing was done so quickly I initially thought it didn't run at all. My one, depending on your perspective, slightly negative thing I could say about the hardware is just how light it is. Neat how little it weighs but when I first picked it up out of the box I said that it felt a bit like a toy. I have a 2011 Mac Mini I picked up for $25 this past summer that needs a new motherboard and comparing the two I don't find the M4 all that lighter relative to the old design. But I think the older design being physically larger makes it feel a bit more substantial in the hand.
I looked at the website. Do not have a mac to try it on. Apple seems to have forgotten my order!
I have non-Pro m4 and used iStat menu to increase fan speed significantly when CPU temp reaches above 90C. My m4 cranks through H.264->H.265 (also using CPU not VideoToolbox) perfectly fine for 12 hours or more (lots of conversions...). Temp holds 89 - 91C, noise is relatively low (for a tiny box dissipating 40W) and P-cores are holding at steady at 3.8GHz. Room temp is 19-21 C. I have seen higher frequencies for P-cores (4.4GHz) only in bursts for very short time.
It should be said, that without bumping the fan speed up, the temp reached over 100C - but even then the frequencies seemed the same, at least for some time. I just did not like that high temperatures so I created fan profile in iStat Menu and dropped temp to ~90C.
I am not sure what more one can expect from such tiny box, there are laws of physics which are really tough to break.
Great to know. Thanks! I think all M4 mini models I've seen tested throttle somewhat.
I haven't used iStat. I only have experience with Mac Fan Control and TG Pro. I think TG Pro is better but it does require a paid license to really take advantage of its features.
Apple has designed their M-series chips to hit their peak temps and throttle down. If you go back and watch the LTT review of the M1 MacBook Air you will see that the M1 SOC throttles but performance in their tests was not significantly impacted, if I remember correctly. What made the M1 and M2 Mini different was the relatively overkill cooling those units had. I remember people made videos basically converting the M1 Mini into an even smaller computer with a custom chassis and the like. Depending on what you do with your Mac the M4 throttling won't be a problem. If you absolutely need peak performance at all times period then the Mini isn't for you.
Also with this thread being about the thermal performance of the M4/M4 Pro Mini I think the stat that is important to look at is that ambient temperature sensor I mentioned. When an app is reporting the temperature of the individual Performance and GPU cores then yes it's going to be high when you are stressing the system. This is normal for pretty well every CPU and GPU though. You have localized areas with high heat and the job of your cooling solution is to pull as much heat as possible away from these areas to prevent chips from throttling down entirely or shutting off the PC. But so long as the surrounding components are not also hitting those high 100˚ temperatures the rest of the machine should be just fine with zero impact on hardware longevity.
That is not old school, but physics.
Apple and every computer manufactures design computers to handle the thermal load, but high temperatures makes any computer chip throttle down. The cooler the internal components operate, the greater the chance for the computer to last, so you are correct. This is also true with mechanical devices such as engines, electrical motors, ball bearing-sets, and on and on.
Last edited: