12-core or 14-core? Looking to replace my M1 iMac for a Mac Mini M4 Pro.

Diane Benoît wrote:

The questions: is it worth it to choose 14-core instead of 12-core? What is the difference/purpose for more cores?

The Mac mini is available with three chips:

• Plain M4 – 10 CPU cores (4 performance + 6 efficiency), 10 GPU cores
• M4 Pro – 12 CPU cores (8 performance + 4 efficiency), 16 GPU cores
• M4 Pro – 14 CPU cores (10 performance + 4 efficiency), 20 GPU cores

Many applications depend more on the performance of a single CPU core, or a small number of CPU cores, than upon anything else. For those, even a plain M4 chip might run as fast as either M4 Pro chip, given enough RAM. For lengthy batch jobs that can make good use of multiple CPU cores, either M4 Pro might complete the task in about 2/3 of the time (plus or minus) that a plain M4 chip would require.

If you're doing heavy graphics work, you'll get a faster GPU as you go from 10 cores (plain M4) to 16 or 20 cores (M4 Pro), to 32 or 40 cores (M4 Max in a Mac Studio).

Often, the reason to go with a higher-level chip comes down to wanting support for more external monitors, more RAM, or more Thunderbolt ports – but even there, the plain M4 chip has enough improvements over the plain M1, M2, and M3 chips to let a M4 Mac mini have 32 GB of RAM and drive three monitors.

However,

• The use: I'm just a casual user really, sometimes I'll work on photographs I've taken, sometimes I'll tinker around in GarageBand.

I'm not sure why your current M1 iMac would be slow, unless

• It is loaded up with "junk" software.
• There is some hardware failure (seems unlikely), or
• 8 GB of RAM is insufficient for the sorts of things you are doing in GarageBand (Check if your Mac needs more RAM in Activity Monitor - Apple Support)

It might be better to try to troubleshoot the current system first, before going out to buy a new one.

OK but there is probably nothing wrong with your iMac . . . as I said, computers don't slow down unless you have got some garbage somewhere causing the problem.

If Cocktail is a "cleaning" app that is probably the culprit. Never use apps purporting to speed up or clean your computer as they are snake-oil and most likely to cause problems.

Others on this forum will tell you to buy a Mac with the highest spec you can afford. Unless you are wealthy or don't mind being ripped off, that is bad advice as the basic M4 mini is more than enough for over 95% of users.

Of course you need external drives but you have those.

Increasing the internal drive is fiscal madness as an Apple 1 TB SSD will cost an extra £400 . . . but for just over £100 you can buy a 2TB NVMe in a USB-C caddy from a reputable manufacturer. Double the size for a quarter the price.

16GB RAM is also more than enough. Doubling it to 32GB will cost another £400 and will have little or no measurable effect on performance . . . it sounds good but that's all.

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac? If you have please download and run Etrecheck.  The free version is sufficient.

Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Copy the report

and after clicking on the Reply button use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.

Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine the cause of the problem.

You probably don't even need a new Mac.

The M1 will not slow down unless there is something on it causing the problem . . . your question should have been, "How can I speed up my M1", as there is highly likely a simple cure.

For a start, how full is that 256GB SSD? It should never get more than around 85% which equates to having at least 40GB free. That's no problem as you can dump stuff on your externals and delete it from your internal.

The current Mini should be supported for that long.

If you're into serious gaming the M4Pro with 24 GB RAM should be adequate.

Otherwise, the 12 core, 16 GB RAM model should suffice. That's what I have and I have no problems with it speed or load wise. Do not get a Mini with less storage than you have in your current iMac.

I don't see any of the usual suspects in the report.

Do you use USBclean on all MacOS drives? If so that could be part of the problem. It should be used only on Windows USB drives, FAT 32 or ExFAT formatted.

Do you have a lot of windows open in your browsers at one time? Doing so could also cause slowness in browsers as the windows manager for MacOS has to manage all of them.

The report indicated that it could not verify Time Machine backups. Do you use Time Machine for backups? If not is it SuperDuper? You should have a current full backup of your user data at all times to guard against drive corruption, accidental deletion and disk crashes.

Off topic: perchance are you related to Joan Benoit, the first woman Olympic Marathoner Gold Medalist? She's one of my heroes. I had just finished a 5 or 10 K race (it was so long ago I don't remember which) and watched her win the first ever women's marathon via a TV in a TV store window.

You should not migrate everything from your old Mac to your new as that way you are transferring loads of garbage . . . the same garbage that could be slowing down your present machine.

Take this opportunity to start afresh transferring only what is absolutely essential in order to retain the pristine quality of a new Mac.

Ideally all third party apps should be installed afresh from the developer's website.

I don't use the internal drive at all . . . I have both my minis booted (running) from external 2TB NVMes.

This means all the swap memory and virtual memory is supplied by the external. It's simple to set up as you just install the OS on it and set the Mac to boot from that.

Although the drive is slower than the internal it has absolutely no effect on the speed of the computer.

The mini is running from the 2TB drive on the left (£170 but now £270) and the 2TB drive on the right (£115 now £215) is simply for storage.

The 7 port USB hub (£25) allows me to add further drives and peripherals. The monitor is a 4K 27" Philips costing around £170. I use the keyboard and mouse from my old 2017 27" iMac.

Run and post Etrecheck and we'll see if there is anything else that may be the culprit.

The basic M4 is a powerhouse with 16GB RAM.

Of course you need a large external drive as the 256GB internal SSD is tiny.

Unless you are a power intensive user the Pro will be overkill.

I use the basic M2 and M4 for 4K video editing with Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve.

CORRECTION: 2TB NVMes now cost double at around £200

This tremendous increase in price over the past year is due to the demands of AI and cloud storage requiring vast numbers of RAM chips.

The manufacturers are prioritising the big companies so there is a shortage for consumers resulting in grossly inflated prices.

Eventually things will stabilise and prices will drop but as to when is anyone's guess.

It's rarely that tidy but I was filming my studio a few days ago!

I've got 2 minis in the room together with about 20 drives, a TV, speakers, mics etc. etc. together with 38 sockets on trailing hubs and miles of cables.

Who says photos never lie!

This is a corner of the room.