A Waste of Money?! - M4 Vs M4 Pro Mac Mini in DaVinci Resolve STUDIO

[@SR-mm2wz]

This is the best comparison of the base and pro for DaVinci Resolve I have seen so far. Thanks so much for not just showing render spends, and actually focussing on timeline performance as well as magic mask etc.

[@MrAlexTech]

Hey you're most welcome! Thanks for watching.

[@akin242002]

Even the render speeds for 10-minute 4k videos or shorter are fast. 2 minutes or less won't change anyone's life unless you work at a high-pressure news organization pumping videos out like a maniac.

[@BrianPhoto]

just picked up DaVinci Studio at 20% off during black friday. Looking forward to future content from your chan!

[@MrAlexTech]

Ohh excellent choice Brian! It's the first time I've ever seen the Studio version be on sale!

[@PeterWrightNZ]

I bought the Mac Mini M4 Pro and it took 11 hours to render 1hr 45 min video with sharpening, tracking and deflicker. My 2020 Macbook Pro was going to take 3 and 1/2 days to render the same project, but the 2020 MBPro crashed after 8 hours of rendering, just could not handle it. So the M4 Pro is definatelty worth it for big jobs where you need lots of Fusion effect and staiblisation. I love it. Buy the Pro, Cheers.

[@toadlguy]

Great comparison. The one thing I would add is that you really do need 512GB of SSD which makes the realistic M4 model cost $799. And to really compare apples to apples you would need to bump up the memory to 24GBs so $999. The other M4 Pro advantages besides more cores, more GPUs and faster processing include way faster unified memory (up to 273 GB/s vs 120) and Thunderbolt 5 vs TB4. So the base model will do the job but the Pro is probably a lot better for video editing.

[@NithilanDhandapani]

Even the Ghost living with you got impressed with your dedicated comparison video Sir. Kudos

[@reng4428]

Thank you, Alex, for two excellent reviews of the Mac Mini. Outstanding delivery! Very informative and without unnecessary fluff. Truly professional, and for most Mac users, your videos are exactly what they need! Bravo, Alex!

[@MrAlexTech]

Heyy! Thank you. I'm glad these videos have been useful. It's been fun, and a nice change from my usual 😄 Plus I'm slowly coming around to MacOs!

[@zzaretube]

M4 is a great deal unless you need to upgrade. Every single upgrade is way more expensive for the base model, making the pro model better if you need to upgrade RAM and SSD, giving you better CPU and GPU as well for almost the same price basically.

[@MrAlexTech]

Yeaaah that's how Apple get you the clever swines ha! If you've upgraded the memory and Storage, you're only a few hundred off the Pro so, you might as well.

[@ivanferrero]

Absolutely incredible review...the best I have seen so far. As a content creator trying to decide which to pick (I´m still on Mac Mini M1 16gB) I think any of them would be a great jump once seen your comparison :)

[@MrAlexTech]

Heyyy! Thanks man. Ohh yeah it'll be a decent step up from the M1 :)

[@makotofilmes]

Hi, Thank you very much for sharing your video. I have an i9 12900k, with 128gb of ddr5 memory, but my video card is a titan X (very old). I did the tests with the files you made available, and believe me, the m4 base performed better than my PC in almost all tests, at most, my PC was equal to the m4 base. In the magic mask test, for example, the tracking on my PC reached 4 fps, while on the m4 base, it reached 9 fps. Anyway, thank you for sharing your knowledge in such a valuable video. Hugs from Brazil

[@matevosyanmikael2194]

I have Intel i7 13700k with Arc 770 16 GB and 128 GB ram and it is few times better than this hyped gadget , even I'm not mentioning After Effects. The playback of this m4 and pro version is trash .

[@makotofilmes]

@ Thanks!! Do you use only Arc? Or some other video card in conjunction? I was thinking about adding an Arc in parallel with my Nvidia

[@joemehere1151]

Thanks Alex!

[@MrAlexTech]

No problem! Sorry it's a little bit later than planned 😄

[@spatialoptic]

I picked up a 1TB Nvme drive and enclosure for $99 and added it for extra storage. Will probably do the same for my M4 Mini Pro.

[@MrAlexTech]

Yeaaahh same! External NVME is the solution for the disappointingly small internal SSD>

[@frankinblackpool]

I almost got sucked into the apple hype until you made that very brief comment about a PC with a beefy graphic card. I think I shall stick with my 5 year old PC and 3090 card. However I will upgrade the CPU. On Monday, my mate took ownership of the M4 Pro 14 cores 48gb of unified ram and 1tb storage. That’s a lot of money spent for a few minutes difference in render times. Or have I read those tables wrong? Very interesting review. Personally I’d love to have seen some head to head tests with your PC. I’ve only seen one review where a Threadripper went up against the M4 Pro chip. Not a fair fight, but it did cut through all the marketing.

[@MrAlexTech]

Hey hey Frank! Yeahh you're likely better off with your pc as mentioned. It's an 'all things considered' situation, big pc will be faster, but also bigger, louder, hotter and more expensive etc. As you already have a good pc, keep that! But for those that don't, these are a good option and very weirdly for Apple, offer a lot for the money. The macs don't have a GPU (only integrated) and for that they are impressive, but cant compete with a full fat GPU. Again, cost. Threadripper build realistically is what, 3 to 4 grand?! I do genuinely think you'd be stretched to build a faster pc for 599! But once you spec the mini up to £1200-£1500, then it starts to become more blurred. I did run some benchmarks on my 4080 pc (with Ryzen 9 5950x) as well but after mulling it over, i didn't include them. I'm not trying to advocate these as pc replacements and I didn't want this video to be a big pc Vs mac argument. But for you... 19.1 render - 11m 55s (slower than M4 Pro) Fusion Spaceship - 29m 32 (slower than M4 Pro) Halation Timeline - 8m 13s (faster than M4 Pro) (But even thats complicated as my screen caps are Prores, which isn't hardware accelerated by Nvidia but is on the Mac) Again, the M4 as a CPU is impressive and in cpu heavy tasks, the M4 Pro beats my PC. But in GPU heavy tasks, the 4080 walks it. But again, expected considering size, price and power. The whole Mac Mini is 140w, my 4080 alone is 320w 😄

[@drpepa09]

@@MrAlexTechwhat ya pc specs?

[@itskastel]

@@MrAlexTech Do you think it is better to buy this and a portable screen than a laptop for editing if you feel like traveling?

[@VishnuAttiappan]

Awesome work Alex! It would have been much more of a complete comparison if you had include the RAM usage (16gb vs 24gb & swap memory) between the two through out the test as memory also influences the speed. Regardless, this and the previous one are the most comprehensive videos on this topic. Thanks a lot Alex!

[@piotr.widziszewski]

Thank You for Your effort and very informative video (as always) - You help us a lot in a decision making process :) !

[@nienormalnyVLOG]

great video ! Will you be testing m4 pro 14 cpu and 20gpu for same DaVinci tests ???

[@MrAlexTech]

Ah! I forgot that one was coming ha. Maybe! I have to buy these myself and my channel is big enough to get massive adsense 😄

[@Marsbar2024]

For someone just getting in to video editing, a mac mini is something Im seriously considering. Based on price alone, its a PC build is 50-60% more expensive for me in my country and thats with a 7800xt gpu, i13600k cpu and 32gb ram.

[@MrAlexTech]

Tricky! Are you a current Pc or Mac user? Or are you happy to go either? That PC build will likely be more powerful, especially on the GPU front. The M4 is faster in single core, but the Intel is faster in multicore. It's a hard choice. Quick note though... Apple return policy is excellent. 14 days, no questions asked! So you could always try one, and return it if it doesn't fit your needs.

[@skyscraperphilosopher8476]

Great video again! Do you think it would have made much difference in "smoothness" for the M4 if your footage only was 1080p? I edit mostly 1080p footage these days and upscale later. Also, would have loved to see you also include "Better" for Magic Mask, along with tests of Depth map and Relight

[@CEJ2023]

Thank you for a solid comparison. I'm debating between the M4 16GB or 24GB RAM option but I'm struggling to find comparisons between these two models. I've seen some concerns on the 16GB for when apple AI is being used alongside davinci resolve being open. What are your opinions?

[@MrAlexTech]

More memory is never a downside. More is always better so if you can upgrade, then go for it. But the 16 isn't 'bad'. I can't say I've tested Intelligence alongside resolve though

[@CEJ2023]

@MrAlexTech very true, if I can I'll get the 24GB option, thanks again

[@spatialoptic]

The M4 Mac Mini is outperforming my Xeon 6-Core machine with 32GB Ram, NVMe drives and the NVIDIA Quadro RTX4000 with 8GB RAM. It feels like I’m on Windows 3.1 when I compare the experience! 😅

[@SuperDeluxe80]

Only thing xeon has with quadro is the double floating point and ecc ram never been speed hardware.

[@aerobrain2001]

Great video, not many decent comparison videos for Macs on DaVinci, certainly not non-hyperbolic ones!! One small thing, I assume your MacBook Pro is actually the M3 "Pro" MacBook Pro, not the M3 MacBook Pro?!

[@MrAlexTech]

Thanks! Yeah it's the M3 Pro MacBook Pro. I'll still argue it's a really dumb naming structure 😄

[@aerobrain2001]

@MrAlexTech I wholeheartedly agree!!! For a company that spends soooooo much effort on looks/appearance down to the folds on the boxes, their inability to come up with decent product names is comical :-)

[@itskastel]

Do you think it is better to buy this and a portable screen than a laptop for editing if you feel like traveling?

[@SwaRnaJIt]

Great content Alex! I have a question, I am from India, from here the price is showing in Indian Money equivalent $272 (after 20% discount). When am choosing USA, it is showing $235.00. Can I buy it from USA region?

[@MrAlexTech]

Oh I'm sorry I don't know the answer to that!

[@goobfilmcast4239]

Apple will resolve GPU, 3D and overall rendering performance in the next iteration of the Mac Studio. The fact that this crop of Minis can take on Pro-level tasks at those price points is astounding. IMO, full-on Mac Pro towers will finally be put to rest. PC Modular computing will, of course, still be a "thing" but it will become more and more of a niche and hobby interest as hardware makers migrate away from legacy x86 architecture. For the ultimate Pro power users perhaps we will see a revival of eGPUs and other flavors of specialty "cards" running from an even faster variant of Thunderbolt 5 (6...7....?)....one quick connection....case stacking not "cracking". Anyway, the current Windows/PC Industrial Complex is looking at the success and benefits of Apple Silicon SoCs and hope to profit from it....

[@MrAlexTech]

Yeaah totally agree with the eGPU. Thunderbolt 5 makes sense. We just need Apple and Nvidia to become friends.

[@t3chrs]

Just to make sure I’m clear this is M4 with 16GB and M4pro with 24GB memory?

[@MrAlexTech]

Yes indeed. The cheapest version of each... Also good point, probably should have put that info in the video 😄

[@dilltakespics4849]

Real-life application: What if you're running Davinici while having Photoshop and After Effects open simultaneously? Do you think that would hinder any performance with the M4 base?

[@techonthemove]

I think a Head to Head on FCP is more useful. The machine learning etc is geared towards software thats coded for it no?

[@kentcurrie7326]

Where did you download the spaceship fusion demo?

[@alamandaniel]

Thank you for this video.I was wondering how M4 PRO deals with speed warp .You said in this vidio that your PC works just fine with heavy duties tasks. Can you put the specs in the comment sect. or make a video about it ?

[@MrAlexTech]

I made a video when i installed the 4080 which talks speed warps! IT's this one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bWrGnJugfqZrr9E

[@MrAlexTech]

Ooh just realised something. That video was from before they updated some of the stuff in Resolve so performance isn't accurate. Older video makes it look worse than it currently is (like speed warp etc). Maybe I should update that video 😄

[@alamandaniel]

@@MrAlexTech well, I`ll be the first to watch it and give a big 👍. I'm considering upgrading from my M1 to the I7 14700K and RTX 4060, and this video helped me a lot

[@prann9ay]

I don't have a dialogue separator in my version. It's an updated one still.

[@MrAlexTech]

You have to click on the audio timeline track, not the individual audio clip on the timeline. Watch exactly where I click at 02:51

[@spatialoptic]

I love the base model. I purchased one for my daughter. I will get two more Mac Mini M4 base models for my other two daughters.

[@MFoster392]

I wish you would test the difference between the RTX 4980 and 4090 laptop GPUs considering there's about 1000 dollars difference between the price of the two laptops regardless of the brand :)

[@MrAlexTech]

I don't have any laptops with those in unfortunately, and that'd cost me a few grand to buy ha! I could try getting hold of some, so I'll see what I can do. If I was guessing though... the 4080 will be plenty! They have the same video decoding ability, and the same encoding ability. Difference will be if you're using really heavy GPU effects like Noise Reduction etc.

[@MFoster392]

@@MrAlexTech Thanks :)

[@slycendycemakesamovie7582]

well.. not that I would.. but..for $1399.. you technically could buy 2 base models.. and work on two different projects at the same time lol

[@Film.9ine]

M4 Max? 🙏🏼

[@MrAlexTech]

Ha! I may have 'maxxed' out a credit card for one...

[@shreddykrueger9171]

Do final cut pro x

[@StingyGeek]

M4 looks very viable compared to buying PC system, take in the price of the CPU and (massively overpriced) GPU and apple, surprisingly, looks to be good value. As long as you don't think gaming is important. I hope this AI bubble bursts and NVIDEA falls on its ass big time. What a shovel seller that company turned out to be. (edit:typo)

[@MrAlexTech]

Weird right?! When has Apple ever been the 'good value' product

[@akyhne]

And the Pro Display XDR is not heavily overpriced?! Apple does this too, you know.

[@MrAlexTech]

@@akyhne Wait until you buy their Cleaning Cloth and Thunderbolt cables 😄

[@akyhne]

@MrAlexTech I'll die, before I buy anything from Apple.

[@StingyGeek]

@@akyhne Sure. Apple's upgrades are particularly badly priced. But we can all compare value. In terms of monitor, I wouldn't buy apple. All these companies want to rip you off, but NVIDEA is particularly bad. And good on them if I owned shares. But screw them as a consumer.

[@matevosyanmikael2194]

Thank you ,this helps me a lot to not to buy this 😊.

[@MrAlexTech]

Happy to help 😄

[@andersistbesser]

256 gigabytes storage…🤣🤣 damn what was apple thinking? I need at least 2 terrabytes and i just orderd a 4 terrabyte drive for my system. Nothing is worse than video editing on a machine with not enough hd space and no externals are not a solution.

[@MrAlexTech]

Yeah the 256Gb is piddly, and the upgrade costs are extortion. However, I'm quite happy using my external. It's thunderbolt 4 NVME so it's as fast as the internal drive (256gb) and it's 2TB. Bonus is I can grab and run out the door when I'm using the laptop too. Fun note... the NVME enclosure fan is louder than the Mac Mini!

[@videomandan26]

What hardrive enclosure do you have?

[@MrAlexTech]

@@videomandan26 It's by Ugreen! www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Enclosure-Cooling-Aluminum-Compatible/dp/B0CLV3D3H6/ref=sr_1_5?crid=V27U3SVBOYLB&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.bdJhnmz0d01IUyipiBPWbZgmL4Nyht4m3vWxgMcsGJGx1OPGm7qexw2o0ovz6KzpBOUkY9I6Nd5wjefR9bgQSPjJlwFph-TvuVzrU2KEdUR1pTZN9ymsaa08hMs573m_AaPsAmNIP_07c1stX34x_NZUIOdWQcVxNAKr5oO9puZG6c3R0-nqSTNmem7oaX4vNDyqxIdsH_S2JRTlrOGgeJaimK09TcIaD3DqoFNUpIc.NG3ZyhoatwGWm0KTWzbvUfApZIL4pDvX2_tqO3E65Rw&dib_tag=se&keywords=ugreen+nvme&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1732318373&sprefix=ugreen+nvme%2Caps%2C72&sr=8-5

[@driedekker]

built your timelines and all run full 25 fps in windows i9-14900k amd 6900 xt se fine , So will not be buying a mac m series anytime soon. Thanks for the great video.

[@MrAlexTech]

Of course! You're unlikely to beat that spec PC with the Apple MacSalad!

[@iandawkins2182]

I will never own or use a Mac but still a brilliant video as always. Thanks 👍👍

[@MrAlexTech]

Thanks Ian! I know they're not for everyone. Historically, I'm a PC guy too. But I am having fun playing with these Macs.

[@iandawkins2182]

@@MrAlexTech Yep I understand, I use Windows based PC's because I use so many different packages that are not available on Mac, mainly Cad and Cam software but I did enjoy the video.

[@SuperDeluxe80]

M macs are the best mac but not very strong. My gaming pc runs circles around it. Once the cpu runs register overload it slows down and stutters. My 7900xtx with a amd 7800x3d destroys it in everything.

[@MrAlexTech]

Well of course, your CPU alone is near the price of the base Mac Mini. My PC is a Ryzen 9 5950x, NVidia 4080 and 64Gb DDR4 so yeah of course it beats it the Mac. But it's also big, heavy, hot and loud (title of your sex tape!) plus it cost about 8 times more.

[@Peóny-k2r]

Did you look at Mac mini's power consumption? Size? Noise? Temperature? Price to performance ratio? Ecosystem? Yeah. You don't need to answer that.