Apple has officially launched its latest line of Mac Mini desktop computers, powered by the all-new Apple M4 and M4 Pro chipsets.
As you can probably guess from its name, the M4 Pro is the more premium of the two Apple Silicon processors but just how powerful is it?
Here are the five things you need to know about the Apple M4 Pro.
The M4 Pro has the world’s fastest CPU core
According to Apple, the M4 Pro packs the world’s fastest CPU core, offering “lightning-fast” single-threaded performance.
In total, the chipset features a total of 14 cores, including 10 performance cores and four efficiency cores for speedy multithreaded performance. You’ll have to wait for our review of the Mac Mini with M4 Pro to see how these specs translate into real-world performance.
The M4 Pro’s GPU is twice as powerful as the M4’s
The M4 Pro is also designed to deliver incredibly fast GPU performance. In fact, Apple claims the Pro chipset is up to twice as powerful as the standard M4 in this respect.
The M4 Pro features 20 GPU cores and, along with the Apple M4, marks the arrival of hardware-accelerated ray tracing to the Mac Mini for the first time. This should bring more realistic lighting and shadows to games.
The M4 Pro is built to handle AI workloads
With Apple Intelligence undoubtedly the most hyped feature coming to the iPhone this year, it’s hardly surprising that Apple has boosted AI performance on its desktop computer line too.
The Apple M4 Pro supports up to 64GB of unified memory and 273GB/s of memory bandwidth to accelerate AI workloads. According to Apple, this is double the bandwidth found on any AI PC chip.
The Neural Engine responsible for AI performance is also 3x faster than the M1-powered Mac Mini, says Apple, allowing Apple Intelligence models to run much faster.
The M4 Pro supports Thunderbolt 5
Another new addition coming to the M4 Pro is Thunderbolt 5 support.
Thunderbolt 5 doubles the throughput of Thunderbolt 4 and delivers data transfer speeds of up to 120GB/s on the new Mac Mini.
The M4 Pro is available in the Mac Mini
The M4 Pro is one of two chipsets available on the new Mac Mini, alongside the M4.
The Mac Mini with M4 Pro is available to order now with prices starting at £1399. The Mac Mini with M4, meanwhile, can be picked up for as low as £599.
