Need a Mac Mini expert!

[djkilla]

Looking to switch from Windows to Mac. I'm totally lost on how many P-cores and E-cores I need. I'm deciding between Mac Mini M4 with 24gig memory and 512gig hard drive or Mac Mini M4 Pro with 24gig memory and 512 hard drive.

Use case:
Pixelmator Pro
Affinity Photo
Gimp
SMB sharing (streaming H.264 1080P movies/streaming H.265 4K movies)
running a VM (1-3 various OS's at a time)

Worse case scenario:
Running Pixelmator Pro or 1-3 VMs, downloading 60gig files, web browser (Firefox) with 1-20 tabs open, email app (Thunderbird) open, streaming to 2 TVs and maybe a document open.

Which would you recommend? Base or Pro M4 Mini with the options I noted above?

BIG THANK YOU to any and all replies! Looking to pull the trigger and make a purchase in just a few days.

 

[Donka]

Not an expert but looking at your requirements, the base mini M4 will handle them all fine with the exception of the VMs. It will still run them but you would benefit from more cores and RAM so if it is between the two 24GB models, I would go with the Pro purely for the additional cores. I personally would be looking at more RAM as well though if you have a need for so many browser tabs open concurrently with 3 VMs.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Base will handle it fine, but you will likely want more RAM due to all the VMs running concurrently.

 

[ericwn]

Keep in mind Apple gives you an extended return period now over Christmas so I recommend to get the base and give it a shot, it’s pretty powerful! If you run into issues return and get the upgrade.

 

[djkilla]

First, I want to thank everyone for replying. I'm looking to make a good choice that fits me without getting more than I need. So it looks like the VM is the bottleneck. Could I run everything in my worse case scenario above at the same time but with 1 VM with the same 24gig ram on the base model? What if I leave out the the VM running and have only 5 tabs open in the browser and stream to only 1 TV using the SMB sharing of a 8gig H.265 file with everything else running in my worse case scenario above? Would I still need more than 24gig ram then?

This should be the last of my questions and give me a good idea at what I need to buy. Thank you all again for taking the time to reply and help!

 

[Donka]

The streaming will have minimal impact on the performance. Running 1 VM and your 5 tabs open would work absolutely fine with 24GB I would imagine but as has been suggested, this is something you can try out during the return period.

 

[polyphenol]

I have an M4 mini 24/512 and am currently running just one Vmware Fusion Windows 11 VM. It seems to sit stubbornly around the 8GB level - but I'm not pushing memory usage. It might change if there were any memory pressure.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

So it looks like the VM is the bottleneck.

VM is definitely going to be your biggest RAM user. Keep in mind you can "fix" storage issues later by adding Thunderbolt storage, at fast-enough-for-government-work speeds. There's no fix for not having enough RAM.

If you want to run multiple VMs, I'd go 32/256 instead of 24/512 on the M4 mini.

 

[chrfr]

First, I want to thank everyone for replying. I'm looking to make a good choice that fits me without getting more than I need. So it looks like the VM is the bottleneck. Could I run everything in my worse case scenario above at the same time but with 1 VM with the same 24gig ram on the base model? What if I leave out the the VM running and have only 5 tabs open in the browser and stream to only 1 TV using the SMB sharing of a 8gig H.265 file with everything else running in my worse case scenario above? Would I still need more than 24gig ram then?

This should be the last of my questions and give me a good idea at what I need to buy. Thank you all again for taking the time to reply and help!

Keep in mind that you can only virtualize arm64 versions of operating systems, so if you're looking to move virtual machines from your Intel-based Windows PC to the Mac, it's not going to work. You can run some Intel-based OSes in emulation but performance is poor at best, and there's no way to directly migrate from a preexisting Intel virtual machine to either an emulated Intel environment or an arm64 virtual machine.

 

[yabeweb]

I work 99% with Affinity, the base mini M4 (well using 512 myself) it’s a bomb!

 

[djkilla]

I've made a decision. I'm not going with the Pro because I have no need for Thunderbolt 5 (Thunderbolt 4 is good enough), I don't do anything with video, I heard the bandwidth can't be saturated with both CPU and GPU maxed out on video/graphics apps which I don't use, so the winner for me is the base Mac Mini 4 with ram upgraded to 24gig and storage upgraded to 512gig. It's costly for the upgrades but puts me at where I need to be.

I based this on the comments in this post and else where. If the base mini can handle everything opened at the same time in my worse case scenario in the first post (minus the VM), then it's a winner for me. If I do need to run a VM (mostly Linux OS's), then I'll leave it at 1 running. If anyone has any last words, speak now, or I'll be picking up my new Mac Mini in the next few days. Thank you all again for for your input!

 

[blufrog]

I've made a decision. I'm not going with the Pro because I have no need for Thunderbolt 5 (Thunderbolt 4 is good enough), I don't do anything with video, I heard the bandwidth can't be saturated with both CPU and GPU maxed out on video/graphics apps which I don't use, so the winner for me is the base Mac Mini 4 with ram upgraded to 24gig and storage upgraded to 512gig. It's costly for the upgrades but puts me at where I need to be.

I based this on the comments in this post and else where. If the base mini can handle everything opened at the same time in my worse case scenario in the first post (minus the VM), then it's a winner for me. If I do need to run a VM (mostly Linux OS's), then I'll leave it at 1 running. If anyone has any last words, speak now, or I'll be picking up my new Mac Mini in the next few days. Thank you all again for for your input!

Just check the upgraded M4 price against the base M4 Pro.

If you're in the UK, KRCS currently have 10% discount on new new Macs. It is substantial.

M4 Pro 14/16 (base) with 24 GB RAM (base) and 1 Tb (upgraded from 512 GB base) SSD is £1400 after discount! This is only £200 more than an upgraded M4 to the same memory/SSD, so you're paying £200 to get M4 Pro that is roughly double the performance of M4.

 

[djkilla]

Just check the upgraded M4 price against the base M4 Pro.

If you're in the UK, KRCS currently have 10% discount on new new Macs. It is substantial.

M4 Pro 14/16 (base) with 24 GB RAM (base) and 1 Tb (upgraded from 512 GB base) SSD is £1400 after discount! This is only £200 more than an upgraded M4 to the same memory/SSD, so you're paying £200 to get M4 Pro that is roughly double the performance of M4.

I'm in the United States. I'll be getting a 10% military/veteran discount plus an additional 3% discount using Apple Pay so the Mac Mini M4 with the 24gig memory and 512gig storage will cost me $937.43 with tax included. The pro with the same options would cost me $375.39 more for a total of $1,312.82 including tax. It's tempting to get the pro but I would never use the extra power features for what I'm doing so it would be a waste. For the next 5 years I still don't see me using any of the extra pro features. So according to the comments above, the base Mac Mini M4 should be enough.