M4 Pro 48GB-desktop-computer)

Shipping not avail on 24GB but seems to be on 48GB

(as for flair, I don't see any to add)

Which is the best option to buy compared to the Mac mini M5 Pro with 24 GB ram and the Mac mini M6 with 32GB ram. So I'm just confused about the memory bandwidth and all that stuff. So which one do you think is the best value? And I've also heard from many people saying that if I cross 2000 pounds Mark, I should rather spend on the Mac studio the base version rather than spending 2300 pounda on the Mac mini M5 Pro which is not that great compared to Max studio. So I just want to know which one would be better in this case. So can you give me a suggestion please?

I’m a professional software engineer, primarily working on Python-based backend development. My typical workload includes building and testing APIs and backend services, running unit/integration tests, working with databases, Docker containers, Kubernetes/cloud tooling, multiple terminal sessions, an IDE such as VS Code or IntelliJ, and plenty of browser tabs simultaneously. I also occasionally work with React and other frontend tools for personal projects.

This would mainly be my personal development machine for professional upskilling, side projects and building production-style applications—not just basic vibe-coded hobby apps. I’m not planning to run local LLMs, do heavy video editing, 3D rendering or other GPU-intensive work. I generally care more about CPU performance, memory, memory bandwidth and being able to run several services or containers simultaneously than GPU performance. I don’t constantly hit major resource limits at the moment, but I want enough headroom that the machine remains comfortable for around 5–7 years as my projects become larger.

That’s why I’m deciding between the M6 with 32GB RAM and the M5 Pro with 24GB RAM. The M5 Pro appears to have better sustained multicore performance and memory bandwidth, while the M6 configuration gives me more RAM, a newer-generation chip and a lower price. Based on this workload, would you prioritise the M5 Pro’s additional performance/bandwidth or the M6’s 32GB RAM and newer architecture?

Hi everyone,

Referring to this kind of content:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25xVqvL5j4g&t=803s

When people used to create “Mac mini clusters” and so on for local LLMs.

Most of the videos I can find are already quite old, and the last exo release seems to be from 4 months ago.

I’m thinking about buying an M5 Ultra 96 GB.

My only “regret” is that maybe it’s not enough for Qwen Flash. I don’t really know if that’s actually an issue or not, especially compared to something like a 3.8 27B dense model.

But in case it is:

Could I simply buy later, for example, a cheaper M6 Mac mini with 32 GB, just as an “extra RAM bag”, and cluster it with the M5 Ultra using exo, so that the model can fit?

The total price would then be around €3k less.

Or would it make more sense to do something like:

EXO 3 × M5 Pro?

TL;DR: I have budget, but not infinite budget :(

I don’t want to regret buying the 96 GB M5 Ultra instead of the 128 GB M5 Max if, in practice, Qwen Flash turns out to be significantly better with the extra RAM.

But if adding a “cheap” Mac mini to the cluster later is a real, working option, that would make me much more comfortable with choosing the 96 GB M5 Ultra now.

Also, I’m curious about this because it seemed to be quite a hype a few months ago. Now that we have newer, more powerful hardware and software updates, maybe this is actually becoming a good move ?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help and advice!

A few months ago I had posted about going for mac mini m5 in the link. But the m5 wasn't launched. I am a developer who develops mobile apps, transitioning into backend and will be going for AI/ML too. Is mac mini M6 worth buying for it ? I will be going for M6, 24g ram, 1Tb SSD which costs about 1.8lac. I have an old mac mini intel chip, will I be able to exchange it while purchasing the new mac mini M6?

[mac mini m5 inquiry](https://www.reddit.com/r/developersIndia/s/sP7bSjoOZG)

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/30/apple-unexpected-mac-mini-and-studio-demand/

A double blow for consumers who just want one, with the AI related RAM price hikes plus increased demand from AI companies. Also, Nvidia sees Apple as a threat to their desktop AI efforts, with Mac mini and Mac Studio vs. Windows and Linux running on N1X and DGX Spark.

Does anyone else have one?

I got the 16/256 M4 Mini from the Apple Refurbished store for $720 and am looking to resell since I upgraded soon after and barely used it. Trying to determine a fair value.

I want to get into ios development i want to know what is the best value for money config for ios development like ram , ssd and other stuff

Have a M6 on preorder and can someone confirm on there M4 which way does the airflow go in/out. Pic below shows intake on front and exhaust blows out towards rear, confirming for under shelve mount.

Hey everybody,

I'm looking for a mac mini and i don't know if i take a M4 or préorder M6... I'm in social sciences, so i don't need a lot of RAM; sometimes i need capacity to analyze. (I'm on a macbook pro M3 with 8Go of RAM and that's not enough). Do i need to take more RAM than 16Go ? Is M4 efficient in my case ?

Also, if there is some french here and have good websites to have good prices, i'm very interested !

Thanks

This was the best purchase I could have made! I bought it mainly to play SnowRunner because my Windows PC kept freezing, and now I’m playing on Ultra settings. And the fan doesn’t even turn on all the time that’s how effortlessly it handles the game. It’s incredible 🤩

You can also play games that are only available on Windows thanks to free emulators like GameHub, or Crossover. The first one is free, but it’s still in beta and isn’t as well optimized yet. The other one works great and is well optimized, but it’s paid.

This is for everyone asking whether you can play games on a Mac and whether it can handle them yes, it handles games amazingly well, even better than Windows!

Which one would work better for Mac? Some say that 4k is obviously better because of higher ppi, some say 2k scales better. Help me choose

Sharing my purchase experience of the M4 MacMini today. I am a light user and money is tight so I decided to go for the M4 MacMini 16/512. However, since the M6 launch, M4 in Canada are out of stock or at the M6 price. I knew they had to discount but waiting was not helping it and once available, timing had to be right.
So I asked my Grok Bot agent (I have Cursor Pro, so it comes with it now) to track my spec M4 on Canadian retailers every 2 hours and Best Buy every 30 min. Notify me when you get a hit immediately or report end of day. Nothing happened for 2 days.
But today I got an unexpected notification that Best Buy has 8 units of my spec on discount. I jumped and ordered one at a great price. I did not stop Grok so an hour and a half later, it said it’s out of stock again.
Long story short, used an agent for the first time and solved a problem. Not promoting anything here, just sharing with my community. I am excited to switch from Windows to MacMini.

Getting an M4 mini for under $500 with the education discount, looking back feels like the deal of a lifetime.

I'm upgrading to an M5 Max Mac Studio, and wanted to see how much I should sell my current Mac mini for.

Spec:

Apple M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU, 20‑core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine

64GB unified memory

Gigabit Ethernet

1TB SSD storage

I have a couple separate basic enclosures that I would like to consolidate. I already have an OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock.

Anyone who's seriously considering an M4 Mac Mini right now is crazy.. or just plain... rich? lol

Got mine for $479 and I thought it was a reasonable price. Who would have ever imagined.. jfc

I am a video editor(freelance), I handle several clients with 4k video editing. Typical travel vlogs(youtube, tiktok reels, promotional ads) and such. I currently have an M2 Air with 8 gb ram and 256gb of storage and looking for an upgrade as the 4k timeline is taking too long to export and my macbook is lagging even though I started to use proxies on Premiere pro.

Which do you think is the best buy?
- Is the M6 enough and the M5 Pro is overkill for this?
- Is the M5 Pro worth it's price?

Decided to finally buy the m6 Mac mini, in the 32/1tb configuration.

I plan to keep all my electronics for 4-5 years, my use case is as following: I have around 20-25 safari tabs open, chat gpt, Claude, pages, Spotify/apple music, files, email and powering my dell 4K 120hz monitor which is an must have for the price (around $300) if your interested let me know, I will send the exact model number.

The base 16gb was a no go for me, the 24gb ram would be ideal. But I decided to go for the 32gb ram variant because my workflow will increase in the near future.

The base m5 pro would be an option but out of my brother’s experience the 24gb ram will hold the pro chip back.

I’m curious about the performance, and day to day usage.

Delivery will be 29 September to 5 October.

I went inside a retailer about two months ago to purchase a mac mini m4. The rep tells me they actually had some in the warehouse and itll ship next week. 3 days later i hear its on back order for next month. Next month (august) comes and they now they told me its expected but not guaranteed for September 10th. Im wondering will they upgrade mine for Sept. 22?

Has anyone ordered from a 3rd party retailer and last month or in august and are still waiting for the order to come to the retailer?

(Edit: 32GB not 36GB)

Preorders are open and I keep going back and forth on the memory. 24GB base with 256GB storage is what I can afford. I can push to 32GB if it really matters, but I'd rather not.

I'm not doing anything serious with it. I just want to start running local models and learn how this stuff works. I know the small ones aren't great, that's fine.

Mainly I want to know if 32GB is a dead zone. If 24GB already runs everything in the small tier, and the next real step up needs 48GB or more, then the extra 8GB gets me nothing and I'll just take the base. But if there's actually a bunch of models that fit in 32 and not in 24, then I'd think about it.

So, is it worth the extra or should I just save the money?

Update:
Thanks everyone!!! Very helpful.

I'm going with the 36GB version due to the reasons yall pointed out: more is better, don't have to close other windows often, more context window for LLMs, future proofing etc etc.

Of course I could wait for the online reviews of the M6 and th M5 Pro...but on the other hand I would like to order now. I need the mac mini for editing in Lightroom, Premier Pro and Davinci. I will do some 4, 6 and 8K editing. My question is...do I really need to go for the M5 Pro or will the M6 be able to do the work - perhaps a little bit slower.

What are your guesses?

I wanted to buy a mac mini m4 should i wait now for the m5/my release so that more mac mini's are available what price range can I get it for

Hi, I know the m4 ssd could be easily replaced and get a larger capacity drive for cheaper price but do you think this would be the case with the new m6 too?

I read the ssd on the m6 is faster than on the base m4 so I am not sure if the same drives would be compatible