The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming

[theluggage]

Even the utilitarian NUC looks more modern and is much smaller.

Have you even looked at the latest NUC?

ASUS NUC 14 Pro+ Revel Canyon Stylish Series Mini PC

ASUS NUC 14 Pro+ Revel Canyon Stylish Series Mini PC

www.icubes.co.uk

Now, I'm a fan of keeping one or two USB-A ports around and having an accessible power button, but the last word I'd use to describe two gaping USB-As and a honking great rectangular power button on the front is "modern". Looks like about the same footprint as the original G4 Mac Mini, so its hardly AppleTV sized.

...plus, there's the usual external power brick which always gets left out of the beauty shots...

My guess (based on no information, just a hunch) is that the new Mini will have the same proportions and design as the current Studio.

Not according to the latest rumours (which could still be wrong but they do seem to be converging...):

Mac Mini to Lose Its USB-A Ports Later This Year

Apple's redesigned Mac mini will not have any USB-A ports, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. The current Mac mini with the M2 chip features...

www.macrumors.com

 

[DesertSurfer]

Have you even looked at the latest NUC?

ASUS NUC 14 Pro+ Revel Canyon Stylish Series Mini PC

ASUS NUC 14 Pro+ Revel Canyon Stylish Series Mini PC

www.icubes.co.uk

Now, I'm a fan of keeping one or two USB-A ports around and having an accessible power button, but the last word I'd use to describe two gaping USB-As and a honking great rectangular power button on the front is "modern". Looks like about the same footprint as the original G4 Mac Mini, so its hardly AppleTV sized.

...plus, there's the usual external power brick which always gets left out of the beauty shots...



Not according to the latest rumours (which could still be wrong but they do seem to be converging...):

Mac Mini to Lose Its USB-A Ports Later This Year

Apple's redesigned Mac mini will not have any USB-A ports, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. The current Mac mini with the M2 chip features...

www.macrumors.com

I don't see anything in that article that would be inconsistent with a Studio-like design for the mini. The port arrangement is predicted to be similar to that of the Studio. The form is said to "..approach the size of an Apple TV, but it may be slightly taller than the current model, which is 1.4 inches high." Thant's not inconsistent with Studio design language. So of course I may be wrong, but I haven't seen anything that rules out a Studio-proportioned Mini, and I like the idea should it turn out that way.

 

[theluggage]

So of course I may be wrong, but I haven't seen anything that rules out a Studio-proportioned Mini, and I like the idea should it turn out that way.

Same proportions but the size of an AppleTV isn't the same as "the same design"...

For one thing - the back of the Studio is crammed with ports and has the USB ports vertically mounted to save space without blocking USB-A dongles etc. which - in the studio - is achieved by having "up" facing ports on a daughter board mounted at 90 degrees to the mainboard. A much better design mechanically, as the daughter board can be replaced and spreads the insertion force better, but the sort of more expensive design choice you're unlikely to see on the Mini.

 

[sublunar]

Still waiting for that magic practical justification for drastically reducing the footprint of a desktop.

About the only genuine failing of the Mac Mini was the Bluetooth/Wifi issue - they could have gone back to the original Mini concept of having a plastic (or even toughened glass) top panel or probably have made the whole Mini-sized case out of polycarbonete. As you say, though, its a trade off between WiFi and thermals - plus aluminium is recyclable which, at worst, helps Apple's greenwashing (and, with aluminium, might actually count for something).

Well, I'm not going to mount a defence of what Apple are or aren't rumoured to be doing with the Mini - I like the form factor of the current box - it's good enough to double as a set top box in the current configuration. But that's not to say that changes in technology that make miniaturisation a possibility are a bad idea. I just want it to remain affordable. If Apple eliminate the bluetooth/wifi issue (which I believe are related to proximity to USB3 ports) then that's a big plus for me.

If the PSU is again built in it seems to me that Apple have found a way to miniaturise it - possibly making it cheaper?

That's the sort of penny pinching I'd expect on a cut-to-the-bones £50 Raspberry Pi, not a high-margin premium product like a Mac Mini that is already comparatively tiny. If it is true it reflects really, really badly on Apple, and would suggest that they really couldn't see beyond the iPhone.

I suspect that Apple care even less about the co-lo guys (competing with iCloud, the varmints!) than they do about third-party peripherals. Now, the companies making rackmount kits for the co-lo guys will get to sell people new racks - and that stuff is pricey!

The previous rumours all noted that the co-location guys were in on the 2018 Mac mini - surely the co-location guys are not just doing local file server/backup duty - it's surely more competition with Amazon Web Services too. Apple would need to have known that they would get a certain number of orders to make the 2018 mini update worth doing.

Yeah - at least the current rumours are talking about 5 USB-C ports + HDMI + Ethernet + internal PSU - when the "ATV-size-Mini" talk started I was rather expecting 4 USB-C, nothing else + external USB-C wall-wart. Even 3 rear USB + Ethernet + HDMI + IEC Power is going to be tight on the back of an ATV-sized box...

Now this is the meaty bit. If it's true that M4 is capable of supporting 4 USB4 controllers - and that spec includes Thunderbolt 3 - then that explains why we could have between 3-5 USB-C ports. It's what is activated on those ports that should be of interest to us.

So we could get 3 USB4 ports on the back and up to 2 plain USB-C at the front (for space reasons). If the USB-C are capable of a basic 10Gbps (twice that of standard USB3) then it's a net connectivity increase as far as I'm concerned and people with fast USB-C SSDs will be happy for the additional storage options.

I'm not going to get annoyed if Apple couldn't fit 2x USB-A ports on the next Mac mini or an SD port but adapters aren't too pricey. Remember that wireless keyboard and mouse is popular.

The current Mini form factor is right old fashioned compared to modern mini desktop PCs. Even the utilitarian NUC looks more modern and is much smaller. Apple needs to realize it's not 1976 anymore and big bulky boxed designs are not eco-friendly.

Looking at the back of the existing AppleTV I can see why there's barely any room for USB-C ports after the ethernet, HDMI, and power sockets have been added. Maybe 3 is the ideal there. That's probably why there's rumours about a further 2 at the front.

Remenber that the current Apple TV 4K (3rd gen A15) is fanless - if they revert back to the 2nd Gen A12 design that's very slightly taller to accommodate a fan (and possibly a heavier heatsink?). Taller still and the heatsink gets bigger again. I'm just not convinced an M4 Pro CPU in that case is not going to throttle - it's better off as a bottom spec Mac Studio SKU I'd say.

 

[DesertSurfer]

Same proportions but the size of an AppleTV isn't the same as "the same design"...

For one thing - the back of the Studio is crammed with ports and has the USB ports vertically mounted to save space without blocking USB-A dongles etc. which - in the studio - is achieved by having "up" facing ports on a daughter board mounted at 90 degrees to the mainboard. A much better design mechanically, as the daughter board can be replaced and spreads the insertion force better, but the sort of more expensive design choice you're unlikely to see on the Mini.

The Gurman article says "..approach the size of an Apple TV" which leaves room for the new mini not to be exactly the size of an Apple TV. We'll find out soon enough.

 

[Chuckeee]

For one thing - the back of the Studio is crammed with ports

In addition the rear of the Mac Studio is dominated by an air vent. Let’s not forget air vents. And if (which appears likely) the new Mac mini has a cooling fan then some side somewhere probably has air vent.

 

[Chuckeee]

If the PSU is again built in it seems to me that Apple have found a way to miniaturise it - possibly making it cheaper?

The existing PSU used in the M2Pro Mac mini is already pretty compact. Looking at the existing M2Pro mini there appears to be lots of empty volume. The issues are probably more about air flow and cooling for the M4pro chip version than sufficient volume for the components. Although you are correct, Apple is always looking for cheaper components.

 

[theluggage]

Well, I'm not going to mount a defence of what Apple are or aren't rumoured to be doing with the Mini - I like the form factor of the current box

Sure - the rumour is still just that, but Gurman et. al. are starting to get quite specific. Completely agree that the existing general design is "ain't broke - don't fix" except maybe for a plastic wireless window.

If the PSU is again built in it seems to me that Apple have found a way to miniaturise it - possibly making it cheaper?

There seem to be some nice ultra-compact GaN power supplies now that definitely weren't around in 2018 and probably not in 2020.

The previous rumours all noted that the co-location guys were in on the 2018 Mac mini - surely the co-location guys are not just doing local file server/backup duty - it's surely more competition with Amazon Web Services too.

Actually - I just looked and AWS are offering MacOS instances running on M2 Pro Minis! The primary application they are talking about is remote MacOS/iOS app development, which makes sense. However, Apple now have their own XCode Cloud service so, yeah, they're in competiton! (of course, there are other iOS development tools out there, although I think MS have now killed off Visual Studio for Mac (Xamarin as was - not to be confused with VS Code). I guess that there were also things like Mac/iDevice "fleet management" but I think there are Linux tools for that, now.

Thing is, since Mac dropped the XServe, there has been no real server-class hardware (high density, redundant PSUs, lights-out management etc.) designed for the data centre and packing Mac Minis into racks is a kludge that only makes sense if you really have to have your service running on a Mac (e.g. building Mac/iDevice software). MacOS can be a perfectly good server OS - it is Unix, after all - but once you take the Mac UI out of the equation there's not much to choose between MacOS and Linux and you're mostly using the exact same server software which is often better supported on Linux. Not to mention container systems like Docker, the server-side bits of which have to run under Linux, even though there may be nice client tools for MacOS... and with Linux you have a huge range of x86 server hardware and a growing range of energy-efficient ARM server hardware (Amazon have their own server-grade ARM chip). Plus, no restrictions on running multiple VMs under bare-metal hypervisors.

Now this is the meaty bit. If it's true that M4 is capable of supporting 4 USB4 controllers - and that spec includes Thunderbolt 3 - then that explains why we could have between 3-5 USB-C ports. It's what is activated on those ports that should be of interest to us.

Indeed - the Gurman rumour specifically mentioned the M4 Pro Mini having 5 USB-C ports and didn't mention the regular M4. Read as much or as little into that as you will...

From some of the photos of the M4 it looks like there are now 4 USB4/TB4 controllers where there used to be just 2. So maybe even the M4 Mini will get 4 TB4 and 1 USB 3-only USB-C. I'd guess the M4 Pro will still only have 4 TB4 controllers but who knows, if they're handing out extra TB4 controllers you might get 5 full TB4 ports on the pro Mini! OTOH, TB3/4 requires at least 15W power delivery per port which starts to grow the power supply...

AFAIK the HDMI & Ethernet on the current Minis and the SD Card on the Studio hang off spare PCIe and eDP lanes provided by the SoC for internal components in laptops and don't depend on the on-chip TB controllers. There seems to be a spare USB3 controller and internal hub somewhere to drive the extra non-TB USB ports (2 Type A, plus two Type C on the Studio).

That said - this is just one rumour and I'm not 100% convinced about these configurations. 5 USB-C ports with one semi-dedicated to an external USB power brick and nothing else sounds more like the Apple we know and "love". Hope not.

 

[EugW]

Indeed - the Gurman rumour specifically mentioned the M4 Pro Mini having 5 USB-C ports and didn't mention the regular M4. Read as much or as little into that as you will...

Gurman had previously said there are models with only 3 USB-C ports. 4 Thunderbolt controllers may suggest an M4 Mac mini with 3 TB4/USB4 ports, with the 4th TB controller being used for other ports.

One wonders if M4 Pro has 6 TB4 controllers, with a Mac mini with 5 TB4/USB4 ports and the 6th TB controller being used for other ports.

 

[Chuckeee]

Gurman had previously said there are models with only 3 USB-C ports. 4 Thunderbolt controllers with 3 USB-C ports may suggest an M4 Mac mini with 3 TB4/USB4 ports, with the 4th TB controller being used for other ports using USB protocols.

One wonders if M4 Pro has 6 TB4 controllers, with 5 TB4/USB4 ports and the 6th TB controller being used for other ports using USB protocols.

Would HDMI and Ethernet together use the remaining TB4 controller? What if it was 10G Ethernet?

I don’t know.

 

[EugW]

Would HDMI and Ethernet together use the remaining TB4 controller? What if it was 10G Ethernet?

Yes, AFAIK you can have 10 GigE and HDMI from the same TB4 controller, but I'm not sure what the max specs are for the HDMI in that context.

P.S. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall the HDMI in the existing Mac minis are already USB-based.

 

[sublunar]

Gurman had previously said there are models with only 3 USB-C ports. 4 Thunderbolt controllers may suggest an M4 Mac mini with 3 TB4/USB4 ports, with the 4th TB controller being used for other ports.

One wonders if M4 Pro has 6 TB4 controllers, with a Mac mini with 5 TB4/USB4 ports and the 6th TB controller being used for other ports.

Let's not get too wedded to the idea that the Mini is going to become the same size as an AppleTV (as per earlier quote it's 'approaching' the size of a Mac mini. Maybe they are settling on a configuration that's somewhere in between?)

Anyway, if we ignore that and agree that whatever replaces the Mac mini may be a bit short of physical space for ports, then we get to a situation like the Mac Studio where potentially we have 2 SKUs.

M4 with 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports on the back, USB-C 10Mbps at the front.

M4 Pro with 3 Thunderbolt ports on the back and 2 Thunderbolt at the front (something like how the Mac Studio is set up).

Both models have Gigabit Ethernet as standard - although they really should do 2.5Gig - and have 10Gig ethernet as upgrades.

I'm just going on the old Intel PCIe lanes methodology here but if Apple really do have 4 TB controllers they could split the fourth out to provide the ethernet, wifi, BT, and 2 USB-C 10Gbps ports at the front of the M4 SKU.

We don't know enough about the M4 Pro to assume but if it could have 6 TB Controllers that's where we have 5 USB4 Ports (3 at the back, 2 at the front) on the Pro SKU with the 6th running the connectivity ports as @EugW says.

This is likely to come with a price increase though.

Would HDMI and Ethernet together use the remaining TB4 controller? What if it was 10G Ethernet?

As written above you'd assume that the 40Gbps bandwidth available to TB4 would take in 10Gig ethernet 2x USB-C 10Gbps ports, wifi, and BT.

Yes, AFAIK you can have 10 GigE and HDMI from the same TB4 controller, but I'm not sure what the max specs are for the HDMI in that context.

P.S. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall the HDMI in the existing Mac minis are already USB-based.

I'd have assumed that video would not come from one of the TB4 controllers as that was pre-existing on prior Minis and the 'lanes' may come directly off the SoC (ie, it doesn't come off the TB controller allocation). By the same token neither does ethernet either I guess.

 

[theluggage]

Would HDMI and Ethernet together use the remaining TB4 controller? What if it was 10G Ethernet?

I don't see any evidence that past Minis and Studios have had to "steal" a TB controller for the HDMI and Ethernet. The M2 Pro Mini, for example, has the 4 TB ports plus HDMI and (optionally 10Gb) ethernet. The ethernet and SD reader on a Mac Studio show up as being connected to PCIe.

P.S. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall the HDMI in the existing Mac minis are already USB-based.

Don't think so - the MBP teardowns show a DisplayPort-to-HDMI converter chip. You'd need something like DisplayLink to run HDMI from USB.

It would be interesting to see an in-depth analysis of how all the ports and peripherals are connected in Apple Silicon Macs. My assumption has always been that the SoC has, in addition to 2 or 4 USB4/TB controllers, a few PCIe and/or USB lanes to power the internal gubbins (keyboard, trackpad, webcam... touchbar back on the 13" MBP) and an eDP output for the internal display, and that these are used to drive the "extra" HDMI, Ethernet and USB-A ports on Minis.

 

[EugW]

@sublunar & @theluggage, I thought I had read that somewhere (using an alternate controller, not using a native TB controller) but it seems it’s just wrong, or perhaps I misunderstood.

 

[MBAir2010]

I wonder if it means the new AI features (?) are going to be integrated into everything and eat up 8gb of RAM, so they need to go up to 16gb just to give you the same amount of free memory as the current 8gb models?

(a very friendly question)
what are the new AI features?
I seemed to forget about that yesterday and until now.

I just started using the beta of Sequoia on the M1 Mac mini and besides everything working great,
I have not encounter any AI disturbances or overtakes, thankfully.
and this Mac mini is the 8GB model

if I encounter any on the Mac mini I can post them here.

thanks everyone!

 

[theluggage]

@sublunar & @theluggage, I thought I had read that somewhere (using an alternate controller, not using a native TB controller) but it seems it’s just wrong, or perhaps I misunderstood.

There will probably be an embedded displayport (eDP) to HDMI converter - the iFixit teardown for the 16” MDP shows one, haven’t found such a detailed chip Id for the Mini yet.

 

[Boyd01]

what are the new AI features?
I seemed to forget about that yesterday and until now.

I just started using the beta of Sequoia on the M1 Mac mini and besides everything working great,
I have not encounter any AI disturbances or overtakes, thankfully.

Not really interested in the new AI features (whatever they are) and can't use them on my Intel Mini anyway.

But this is Apple's preview.

Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence helps you write, express yourself, and get things done effortlessly. All while setting a brand-new standard for privacy in AI.

www.apple.com

 

[Corefile]

(a very friendly question)
what are the new AI features?
I seemed to forget about that yesterday and until now.

I just started using the beta of Sequoia on the M1 Mac mini and besides everything working great,
I have not encounter any AI disturbances or overtakes, thankfully.
and this Mac mini is the 8GB model

if I encounter any on the Mac mini I can post them here.

thanks everyone!

I thought the more cuddly Apple Intelligence features were being reserved for Sequoia.1 beta. I could be wrong.

 

[MBAir2010]

I thought the more cuddly Apple Intelligence features were being reserved for Sequoia.1 beta. I could be wrong.

I fear that can be accurate since the mc mini is at 15.0 but I feared Sequoia from that June intro.
My game plan is turning off any AI settings since this OS is a huge improvement for me from Monterey.

 

[sublunar]

Sure - the rumour is still just that, but Gurman et. al. are starting to get quite specific. Completely agree that the existing general design is "ain't broke - don't fix" except maybe for a plastic wireless window.

There seem to be some nice ultra-compact GaN power supplies now that definitely weren't around in 2018 and probably not in 2020.

Adding a plastic window means a redesign and retooling, so I guess they decided to get their money's worth

Maybe someone from Love From (Jony Ive?) got a contract?

Actually - I just looked and AWS are offering MacOS instances running on M2 Pro Minis! The primary application they are talking about is remote MacOS/iOS app development, which makes sense. However, Apple now have their own XCode Cloud service so, yeah, they're in competiton! (of course, there are other iOS development tools out there, although I think MS have now killed off Visual Studio for Mac (Xamarin as was - not to be confused with VS Code). I guess that there were also things like Mac/iDevice "fleet management" but I think there are Linux tools for that, now.

Thing is, since Mac dropped the XServe, there has been no real server-class hardware (high density, redundant PSUs, lights-out management etc.) designed for the data centre and packing Mac Minis into racks is a kludge that only makes sense if you really have to have your service running on a Mac (e.g. building Mac/iDevice software). MacOS can be a perfectly good server OS - it is Unix, after all - but once you take the Mac UI out of the equation there's not much to choose between MacOS and Linux and you're mostly using the exact same server software which is often better supported on Linux. Not to mention container systems like Docker, the server-side bits of which have to run under Linux, even though there may be nice client tools for MacOS... and with Linux you have a huge range of x86 server hardware and a growing range of energy-efficient ARM server hardware (Amazon have their own server-grade ARM chip). Plus, no restrictions on running multiple VMs under bare-metal hypervisors.

The thought now occurs that if Apple are designing their own server chips (as recent rumours have suggested) - unless they are keeping this entirely in house could the xServe be coming back and our co-location friends will be switching their Mac mini orders to proper server devices that fit in proper racking and have all the amenities that 'proper' server hardware buyers take for granted? You would hardly imagine that Apple would intend to run their own server farms on Mac minis in their current form or even in a new but still consumer focused form with high end CPUs.

Even the Mac Pro ($1000 wheels and all) doesn't have the kind of hardware redundancies that servers would need.

If this is the case then Apple might have tipped off the co-location guys that a form factor change for the mini was coming and not to worry because they have something for them instead of a headache in cube form?

If this in fact means that a server product could have standard SATA or PCIe M.2 slots internally for on board raid storage then how many of us would be interested in that?

Indeed - the Gurman rumour specifically mentioned the M4 Pro Mini having 5 USB-C ports and didn't mention the regular M4. Read as much or as little into that as you will...

From some of the photos of the M4 it looks like there are now 4 USB4/TB4 controllers where there used to be just 2. So maybe even the M4 Mini will get 4 TB4 and 1 USB 3-only USB-C. I'd guess the M4 Pro will still only have 4 TB4 controllers but who knows, if they're handing out extra TB4 controllers you might get 5 full TB4 ports on the pro Mini! OTOH, TB3/4 requires at least 15W power delivery per port which starts to grow the power supply...

AFAIK the HDMI & Ethernet on the current Minis and the SD Card on the Studio hang off spare PCIe and eDP lanes provided by the SoC for internal components in laptops and don't depend on the on-chip TB controllers. There seems to be a spare USB3 controller and internal hub somewhere to drive the extra non-TB USB ports (2 Type A, plus two Type C on the Studio).

That said - this is just one rumour and I'm not 100% convinced about these configurations. 5 USB-C ports with one semi-dedicated to an external USB power brick and nothing else sounds more like the Apple we know and "love". Hope not.

It always seemed to me that the 4th Thunderbolt port on the Intel MacBook Pros was sacrificed for the SD and HDMI ports on the subsequent M1 models. Very convenient for the SD card but obviously slightly less flexible for those of us who have dongles already. It might have been for space reasons or perhaps the PCIe lanes that would have been dedicated to the 4th TB port were repurposed to supply SD card and specific video out - I'm not sure based on the recent postings here.

On that calculation I was assuming that all 4 TB controllers would come in for the M4, with 3 on the back and the fourth split into 2 USB-C 10Gps ports on the front (for space reasons more than anything else).

And it's more of a reach to assume that M4 Pro would be gifted with 6 TB4 controllers and therefore all 5 ports (3 at the back and 2 at the front) would be Thunderbolt. If this was the case then it's a net increase in speedy ports at the expense of convenient USB A ports for older equipment.

However, if M4 Pro had just 4 controllers as well it's still potentially 3 at the back and 1 at the front - but that leaves a very un-Apple-like situation where you have 2 USB-C ports at the front and one of them isn't Thunderbolt. Untidy.

I agree with the HDMI and Ethernet (1G or 10G) comment though - SoC should provide.

 

[Boil]

Anyway, if we ignore that and agree that whatever replaces the Mac mini may be a bit short of physical space for ports, then we get to a situation like the Mac Studio where potentially we have 2 SKUs.

M4 with 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports on the back, USB-C 10Mbps at the front.

M4 Pro with 3 Thunderbolt ports on the back and 2 Thunderbolt at the front (something like how the Mac Studio is set up).

Doubtful, as these two SKUs would require two different external housings because of the added second hole up front; Mac Studio uses the same housing for both SKUs it just changes the port configuration up front...

 

[sublunar]

Doubtful, as these two SKUs would require two different external housings because of the added second hole up front; Mac Studio uses the same housing for both SKUs it just changes the port configuration up front...

To clarify, I meant 2 USB-C ports at the front for M4, replaced by Thunderbolt ports instead where it's M4 Pro (assuming that's even possible for the M4 Pro).

 

[EugW]

On that calculation I was assuming that all 4 TB controllers would come in for the M4, with 3 on the back and the fourth split into 2 USB-C 10Gps ports on the front (for space reasons more than anything else).

And it's more of a reach to assume that M4 Pro would be gifted with 6 TB4 controllers and therefore all 5 ports (3 at the back and 2 at the front) would be Thunderbolt. If this was the case then it's a net increase in speedy ports at the expense of convenient USB A ports for older equipment.

However, if M4 Pro had just 4 controllers as well it's still potentially 3 at the back and 1 at the front - but that leaves a very un-Apple-like situation where you have 2 USB-C ports at the front and one of them isn't Thunderbolt. Untidy.

I'm a little confused as to why you say this.

Proper Thunderbolt support may be optional with USB4 but even with 4 Thunderbolt 4 controllers Apple could have 5 USB-C ports that supported Thunderbolt, albeit with two of the ports sharing bandwidth and possibly with lowered supplied power (7.5 Watts). ie. With 4 Thunderbolt controllers in a Mac mini, you could have 3 full Thunderbolt 4 ports in the back, and 2 USB 4 ports in the front which also support Thunderbolt devices, but with the front ports having shared bandwidth.

Specs would be as follows:

Rear USB-C: 3 x Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4
Front USB-C: 2 x Thunderbolt / USB 4

However, the initial rumour was that the M4 model would only have 3 USB-C ports, and then the later rumour was that the M4 Pro model would have 5 USB-C ports.

 

[Chuckeee]

I'm a little confused as to why you say this.

Proper Thunderbolt support may be optional with USB4 but even with 4 Thunderbolt 4 controllers Apple could have 5 USB-C ports that supported Thunderbolt, albeit with two of the ports sharing bandwidth and possibly with lowered supplied power (7.5 Watts). ie. With 4 Thunderbolt controllers in a Mac mini, you could have 3 full Thunderbolt 4 ports in the back, and 2 USB 4 ports in the front which also support Thunderbolt devices, but with the front ports having shared bandwidth.

Specs would be as follows:

Rear USB-C: 3 x Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4
Front USB-C: 2 x Thunderbolt / USB 4

However, the initial rumour was that the M4 model would only have 3 USB-C ports, and then the later rumour was that the M4 Pro model would have 5 USB-C ports.

When did 2 USB-C ports in the back and 1 USB-C ports (putting aside which are true TB4 momentarily) in the front become 3 in the back and 2 in the front?

 

[sublunar]

When did 2 USB-C ports in the back and 1 USB-C ports (putting aside which are true TB4 momentarily) in the front become 3 in the back and 2 in the front?

I was just going purely on the controller count. Would be a risky move to reduce the port count on the next mini.

Proper Thunderbolt support may be optional with USB4 but even with 4 Thunderbolt 4 controllers Apple could have 5 USB-C ports that supported Thunderbolt, albeit with two of the ports sharing bandwidth and possibly with lowered supplied power (7.5 Watts). ie. With 4 Thunderbolt controllers in a Mac mini, you could have 3 full Thunderbolt 4 ports in the back, and 2 USB 4 ports in the front which also support Thunderbolt devices, but with the front ports having shared bandwidth.

Specs would be as follows:

Rear USB-C: 3 x Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4
Front USB-C: 2 x Thunderbolt / USB 4

However, the initial rumour was that the M4 model would only have 3 USB-C ports, and then the later rumour was that the M4 Pro model would have 5 USB-C ports.

Apple have never split the lanes on M series macs like they did with some Intel MacBooks though.

My theory was based on the iMac 24 which despite having m1 and m3 CPUs still managed to produce SKUs with 4 usb c ports (albeit only 2 of them with thunderbolt capability).

Hence if the back of the new mini can only accommodate 3 usb c ports - and I’m guessing that all 3 would be thunderbolt) then they could still put 2 usb c ports on the front.

That said, it would reduce heat generation if Apple really did reduce the number of ports due to not requiring power to be supplied to those ports.

We are potentially only weeks from finding out.