m4

M4 Mac mini's efficiency is incredible

I had to pause some of my work getting a current-gen AMD graphics card running on the Pi 5 and testing a 192-core AmpereOne server to quickly post on the M4's efficiency.

M4 Mac mini on desk

I expected M4 to be better than M1/M2 (I haven't personally tested M3), and I hoped it would at least match the previous total-system-power efficiency king, a tiny arm SBC with an RK3588 SoC... but I didn't expect it to jump forward 32%. Efficiency gains on the Arm systems I test typically look like 2-5% year over year.

The M4 mini I just bought reaches 6.74 Gflops/W on the HPL benchmark.

I can get 283 Gflops at 42W, versus 264 at 66W on my M1 Max Mac Studio (for a round 4.00 Gflops/W).