The Apple M4 Pro chip is official now that Apple has announced the new Apple Mac mini with M4 and M4 Pro.
The new chip is a step up from the existing Apple M4 chip, which is already powering the latest Apple iMac M4 and Apple iPad Pro. The new Apple M4 Pro, meanwhile, offers a boost in core counts for both the CPU and GPU built into the chip for those who need more performance without committing overkill on their latest creative project.
Since the Apple M4 Pro fits into the midrange in terms of what Apple fans are looking for from Apple Silicon, this is going to be a popular option for many, and fortunately, we have all the latest from Apple about the new chip in terms of specs and potential performance you can expect over the last-gen Apple M3 Pro and we’re here to answer all your questions about this latest SoC for Mac products.
What is it? The follow-up to Apple’s M3 Pro chipWhen is it available? Available with select Mac products, shipping November 8, 2024What does it cost? It won’t sell on its own, but will come installed on Apple Mac products like the Apple Mac mini (2024).
The Apple M4 Pro chip won’t sell on its own, will come as an optional upgrade for the newly announced Apple Mac mini 2024 and the likely Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch and Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch refreshes, expected to launch this year.
While you can pre-order the new Mac mini with Apple M4 Pro now, you’ll have to wait until November 8th to actually get your hands on any new hardware with the Apple M4 Pro chip – as the new Mac mini models will start shipping out by then or you can pick it up in store.
The Apple M4 Pro chip will not sell on its own, but instead, it will power the new Mac mini as a premium upgrade, and will likely be an option for the highly anticipated 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models widely expected to be revealed later this month.
The new Apple M4 Pro will have some noticeable improvements over last year’s Apple M3 Pro, while it will stay the same in other areas.
First, it’s a ‘second-generation’ 3nm system-on-a-chip, so it has a similar architecture to the Apple M3 Pro, but there are some important differences.
First, it features faster clock speeds than the Apple M3 Pro, at least according to Apple.
There’s also the neural engine, which is capable of 38 TOPS compared to the Apple M3 Pro’s 18 TOPS, which is exactly what you’ll need if you want to take advantage of the new Apple Intelligence tools, apps, and functionality introduced in this latest generation of Macs.
Additionally, you also have support for Thunderbolt 5 and increased memory bandwidth, which makes the unified memory more efficient despite remaining the same starting amount as last year’s M3 Pro.
In terms of performance, Apple said that it will have up to twice the ray-tracing performance as the Apple M3 Pro and faster performance and efficiency cores, though Apple hasn’t revealed much yet about the latter.
Ultimately, we’ll have to see how the new chip performs once we get our hands on the new Mac devices that it powers to know for sure, so watch this space for reviews and performance breakdowns once we have them.