How do I effectively compare M4 chip options across MacBook Air, Mac mini, and iMac?

veehbJ wrote:

I thought I'd just sent a reply to your excellent posts. Don't see it here, so it must have not made it.

Maybe you will see two replies from me. I really appreciate your above posts. Great advice and explanation. I probably just need a new iMac with enough memory and storage.

If you are interested in the 24" M4 iMac, I would recommend against the two-port versions. With only two ports (that you'd be using for everything), you'd probably be spending money on a third-party hub or dock right away. There are also other compromises like a weaker CPU/GPU and the ability to drive fewer external displays.

But the Mac Mini is interesting, but gets expensive when you add all the peripherals. I don't need a lot of processing power, and if I build a powerful computer, most of it's capability will go to waste. I'm making this too hard. Need to decide and place an order.

It sounds like you're thinking more of a desktop than of a notebook.

It also sounds like you need RAM, storage, and expansion ports more than you need processing power.

I think with the M4, even a plain M4 chip could handle that job.

• You can get up to 32 GB of RAM on Macs with plain M4 chips. 32 GB would be enough for many people doing heavy work using applications like Photoshop and Lightroom Classic. If you don't need 64 or 128 GB of RAM, you don't need to get a M4 Pro or M4 Max chip just to be able to order that much RAM.
• M4 Mac minis, four-port versions of the 24" M4 iMacs, and M4 MacBook Pros offer decent sets of ports. (The M4 MacBook Airs and the two-port versions of the 24" M4 iMacs are more limited.)
• You can get up to 2 TB of internal SSD space on Macs with plain M4 chips. I'd recommend getting at least 512 GB of internal SSD space. If you need more SSD space than you can order on a "cheap" (plain M4) Mac, there are third-party external SSDs – many of which now cost less than $100 per TB.

With all this in mind, that suggests focusing on Mac minis with plain M4 chips – and on 24" M4 iMacs which have four Thunderbolt ports. For similar configurations (same chip, same amount of RAM and internal SSD space), the performance of the M4 mini and M4 iMac are going to be essentially identical.

So it comes down to which type of "chassis" you prefer and to your budget.

If you can find the model that you're looking for, you can save a bit of money by purchasing a computer from the Certified Refurbished section of Apple's online store. The selection is "catch of the day", and the price is usually 15% off list.

Refurbished Mac Deals - Apple

Right now, in the U.S. Certified Refurbished store, I see a few Macs with plain M4 chips, including

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• Mac minis with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB SSDs for $679 ($120 off list)
• iMacs with 16 GB of RAM, 512 SSDs, and four Thunderbolt ports for $1439 ($260 off list)

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• Mac minis with 24 GB of RAM and 1 TB SSDs for $1019 ($180 off custom-order list)
• iMacs with 24 GB of RAM, 1 TB SSDs, and four Thunderbolt ports for $1779 ($320 off custom-order list)

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These are just examples. You may have different configurations in mind. But if you see a current configuration that you want in the Apple Certified Refurbished store, there is very little risk to buying it. I bought a Certified Refurbished Mac many years ago for a family member, and more recently bought one for myself – and in both cases, the machine looked "new" right out of the box, and proceeded to run flawlessly.

You can get the free app Mactracker to get this kind of information just about every device Apple offers or has sold in the past:

The System on Chip design means that the chip level (plain, Pro, or Max) influences many aspects of the system.

As you go up the line from plain to Pro to Max, you get “more” hardware units of various types: CPU cores (especially performance cores), GPU cores, hardware video encoding and decoding engines, display controllers, and I/O controllers for things like Thunderbolt ports. Higher end chips also can support more RAM. (You cannot expand RAM after purchase on any Apple Silicon Mac.)

MacBook Airs use plain M4 chips.

MacBook Pros use plain M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips and have fancier screens and more ports.

iMacs use plain M4 chips.

Mac minis use plain M4 and M4 Pro chips.

Mac Studios use M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips. (Apparently no M4 Ultra chips were ready yet.)

Plain M4 chips are more capable than plain M1, M2, and M3 chips were. Mac notebooks with plain M4 chips support up to two external displays with the lid open - a first for Mac notebooks based on plain M-series chips. And Mac minis with plain M4 chips have three (not two) Thunderbolt ports.

Mac - Which Mac is best for me? - Apple

Don’t buy a model w 256 GB storage.

Don’t buy a model w 8 GB RAM.

Don’t buy the Apple monitor for the mini if money is a concern. There are great options for much less.

There also can be subvariants of each chip with a few more, or a few less, CPU and GPU cores.

The basic progression that plain < Pro < Max < Ultra remains the same. As does the fact that single-core CPU performance is very good even on the cheapest plain chip provided that you have enough RAM that the processor is not being starved for RAM. Higher-end chips are a good choice if you can use the extra cores and engines; not so much if they are going to sit idle.

Which is why Mac Studios and desktop / rack mount Mac Pros with Ultra chips are very niche machines. You are paying for a ton of extra cores and engines that most workloads will never need or use.

The Apple monitor is so expensive in part because it has 5K resolution.

Even taking that into account, by the time you buy that monitor, an Apple Magic Keyboard, and an Apple Magic Mouse, you’ve spent an amount that once would have gotten you a 27” 5K Retina iMac. And you’ve still got to buy the computer!

For a long time, LG was the only other company selling 27” 5K monitors. There are now ones from Samsung, BenQ, Asus, and ViewSonic that are on the market or scheduled to come out soon. Some of those might have street prices of $800 - $950.

If you can settle for a 27” 4K monitor, there are some of those with IPS panels and near-100% coverage of sRGB for as little as $300 - $350.

The 24” 4.5K Retina screen on your iMac has essentially the same pixel density as the ones on 21.5” 4K Retina iMacs (of which your iMac is a descendant), 27” 5K Retina iMacs (discontinued with no all-in-one replacement), and the 27” Apple 5K Studio Display. Your machine is a successor to, and represents a very significant upgrade over, an Intel-based 21.5” 4K Retina iMac. Your screen is very high-quality, but even with the bump from 21.5” 4K to 24” 4.5K, it is physically smaller than a 27” 5K screen.

In Apple’s late-era Intel iMac lineup, the 27” 5K Retina iMacs not only had larger screens than the 21.5” Retina 4K ones; they also had user-expandable RAM and better specifications. Mac minis were usually not as powerful, in computing terms, as 27” 5K Retina iMacs, and Mac Studios did not exist.

Many people then wanted the ability to buy something like a 27” 5K Retina iMac, but in a modular form so they could upgrade the computer part without having to discard the display. Now we have high-end Mac minis and low-end Mac Studios and 27” 5K Studio Displays suitable for building such a modular system. Unfortunately, given the prices on that display and separately-purchased keyboards and mice, the modularity came with a very sharp price increase.

Hence why a lot of people who liked the 27” 5K Retina iMacs but who are on a budget are torn between a 24” 4.5K Retina iMac, and getting a Mac mini or Mac Studio but then compromising on 4K resolution for a 27”-32” display to save on cost.

Many (not all) 21.5” iMacs were saddled with slow 5400 rpm mechanical hard drives or 1 TB Fusion Drives that dragged down performance. That is probably THE most common cause of poor performance in late-era 21.5” iMacs. Your iMac has not only a fast processor, but a SSD that will let you dodge that bullet from Day 1.

P.S. - I think if you look more closely, you will find that your iMac did not come with a MagSafe 3 charging port. Mac notebooks can run off battery power, and some have such ports, but iMacs run off wall power.

Oh, by the way I just purchased and received a new Mac Mini M4 with 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. I paired it with an LG 32" 4K monitor w/speakers. The total was $627 less than a similarly configured new 24" iMac.

It's blazingly fast.

Of course, if you had paired it with a 32” Apple 6K Pro Display XDR with similar pixel density / sharpness to that 24” 4.5K Retina iMac’s screen, the damage would have been quite different!

Once you start combining “very high pixel density” with “very large physical size,” choices get very limited and prices start going through the roof …

You don't need high pixel density when you're half blind and need larger text at lower resolution thus larger screen size. The cost of Apple's Studio displays are outrageous only suitable for a movie company or similar.

So many choices!

So many wonderful toys!

🙂