I use an M1 Mac Mini for Xojo. The performance is OK, but feels slightly laggy in general use. I also have Bluetooth issues with my keyboard due to USB interference where I have to kill bluetoothd about once a week.
So I’m thinking about getting a new Mac Mini.
The M4 Pro option has a few more cores and significantly higher memory bandwidth and more memory than the M4. If I got the M4 I would probably bump the memory up to 24GB.
So the question is whether I would see any tangible benefit when using Xojo or in everyday use?
In “everyday use”, you would probably not use multi-core - where these high-performance chips separate from the herd. Soon you will see single-core comparisons between the M4 and M4 Pro and those are much closer and higher than the M2.
So is it worth that several hundred more dollars? It’s like the 10GB ethernet option. 1 GB per second is fast enough for me and to take advantage of 10GB per second I’d have to get new switches and ethernet cable.
Sure, if you are editing video and such you can use the horsepower. And if Xojo had a fully debugged, easy to implement, “uses multi-core” feature, you could take advantage of that. But the basic M4 has multi-cores too, just not as many.
If there were X amount of dollars, I’d invest in that 24GB or RAM before I’d spend more for the Pro.
But it’s not an easy decision. Because if you put that $200 towards the Pro, it comes with 24GB RAM so you are only paying a little more for the Pro features.
What I’m waiting for is the SSD stats. Apple screwed up on the basic M2 model and severely curtailed the thru-put on the 256 GB version. You had to jump up to 512GB to get the same thru-put as you’d have with the Pro (and the Pro was higher still if you went to 1 TB).
If your primary issues are with BlueTooth and Keyboard, I’m not sure an M4 would help you much. I finally got rid of most of my BlueTooth devices. I don’t need to move the keyboard around so that is wired. I finally returned to a wired mouse and have much faster response time and no battery issues. Also, no conflict issues as I have two mini’s (that means two keyboards and two mice) very near each other. Mice are cheap. Keyboards can be a bit more. I’m guessing if you go back to a wired keyboard and mouse - your “laggy” problem will disappear.
You will benefit a lot from the higher single core performance of the M4 compared to the M1.
Xojo needs high single core performance. The other cores help with the compiler. And of course you benefit from other cores doing the background tasks for the operation system.
Memory is fine at 16 or 24 GB as Xojo uses a few GB only. But if you run a Windows VM, you may need 8 GB for the VM alone.
Thanks for the thoughtful responses. Of course the M4 will be much faster than the M1. What I really should have asked is if I would see a difference between the M4 and M4 Pro for my use case? Which Paul kinda answered.
I’m stuck with a Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad. The mini is not near where I sit. So I’m hoping that getting shielded cables and not using USB-A will cure that problem.
