This review looks at the performance improvements in video editing running Apple Final Cut Pro (v11) on the new 2024 Apple M4 Pro Mac mini. I purchased this Mac mini for my own use.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Is the new M4 Pro Mac mini the greatest computer ever invented, blending an exciting mix of magic with incredible, hitherto unknown, computer technology that will change the world as we know it and usher in a new golden age?
Um, no.
Does the new M4 Pro Mac mini provide serious horsepower for all forms of video (and audio) editing in a small size and at a very attractive price?
Unquestionably yes.
Before I get into the details, if you own an Intel system, you need to upgrade. Any M-series Mac blows the doors off any Intel system, including all Intel Mac Pros. It’s not even close. However, if money is tight, buy a used M-series Mac. As you’ll see in the charts below, even used gear delivers great benefits.
In my testing, I compared the new Mac mini to a 2018 Mac mini, M1 Pro MacBook Pro, and M2 Max Mac Studio. The short answer is that there is no media editing you can imagine that the M4 Pro Mac mini can’t handle – limited only by the speed and capacity of your storage. It packs very high performance into a very small package at a great price.
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Product: M4 Pro Mac mini
Website: https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/
Starting price: $599.00 (US)
Price as reviewed: $2,499.00 (US)
MY FOCUS
(Click to see larger image.)
These are the four computers I used for testing. Each had between 1 – 2 TB of internal storage. RAM ranged from 8 GB to 64 GB.
This is the third Mac mini that I’ve owned; my first was purchased back around 2010 or so. The unit it will replace is a 2018 Mac mini with an i7 CPU, 8 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of internal storage. I’m currently using it as a web server and for scanning slides and still photos.
Much has been written about the M4 Mac mini. Here are my personal highlights:
Since my focus is on media editing, principally video editing, I wanted to compare its performance to these earlier computers. While it didn’t win every test, especially when the GPUs were involved, it did perform exceptionally well.
I don’t understand chip design at all. But, this is a cool graphic, so here is is to give you something extra to look at. Courtesy of Apple Inc. (Click to see larger image.)
GEEKBENCH RESULTS
The first place everyone goes to test speed is GeekBench. Here, the speed of a single CPU core in the M4 Pro handily wins the race.
A single CPU core of the M4 Pro is:
When it comes to the combined speed of all CPUs, the M4 Pro again wins the race. The combined speed of all CPU cores on the M4 Pro are:
However, when it comes to GPU speeds, core counts matter. Here, the Mac Studio wins because the M2 Max has more GPU cores than the M4 Pro. Still, the M4 Pro is 17.5X faster than the i7.
As you’ll discover, while GeekBench provides good numbers for comparing systems, it isn’t a good indicator into the real-world performance of video editing where the NLE software plays a more dominant role in performance.
INTERNAL DRIVE PERFORMANCE
Next, I compared the speeds of the internal drive. While there was a big jump in speed – principally due to improvements in SSD bandwidth – there is not a huge difference between M-series computers.
Also, and I need to stress this, you should ALWAYS plan to use external storage for media. Apple storage is expensive, and regardless of how much you buy, you will never have enough. Use the internal storage on any Mac for the operating system, applications, and work files.
All of these computers had either 1 or 2 TB of internal storage. All tests, except one, had libraries and media stored on an SSD RAID connected via Thunderbolt 3/4. No test came close to fully saturating that bandwidth.
ETHERNET PERFORMANCE
A 1G Ethernet network delivers about 100 MB/second in data transfer speeds. Fast, but rarely enough for reliable editing. My network is configured for 10G. While I don’t edit from a server, I decided to see if there was any significant difference in speed between the Mac Studio and the Mac mini.
There wasn’t. The speed differences indicated here were due more to bandwidth issues internal to my Synology server.
NOTE: While I really like the high-speed data transfer of 10G to my server and use it regularly for backups, I don’t use it for editing because the Synology keeps dropping frames, even at smaller frame sizes.
FINAL CUT PERFORMANCE
When I tested Final Cut, I looked at the following scenarios:
NOTE: When it came to comparing FCP 14.8.1 and FCP 11, the speed differences were non-existent. Apple added new features, but the underlying performance remains the same. I logged the differences, but there was no reason to put them into a chart.
(Click to see larger image.
Also, software always lags hardware for performance. Apple has to ship the gear before programmers can tweak their software to take advantage of this. This is especially true for the new M4 Macs. As measured by Activity Monitor:
Most of the heavy CPU work was done by the efficiency cores, not the performance cores. I don’t know why. Also, at no time were all CPUs involved in rendering or exporting.
Left: A project where every clip had effects applied. Right: A project that had only a few titles and dissolves.
GPU use depended upon the project. GPUs are needed for anything that changes the look of a pixel. CPUs are used for media playback, positioning, rotation, and scaling.
When exporting a simple edit, containing cuts and dissolves, B-roll, and no effects, the raw CPU horsepower of the M4 Pro easily won out.
NOTE: As a side note, the 2018 Mac mini averaged 45 MB/second reading data from the drive. The M4 Pro averaged 810 MB/second. The Mac Studio was around 700 MB/second.
This 10 minute project had a lot more complex effects:
It was interesting that rendering by itself took far longer than rendering and exporting at the same time. I think this is because rendering, by itself, runs in the background and is constantly interrupted by other tasks from the computer.
Taking that more complex project, I then compressed it into both H.264 and HEVC using the default 1080p settings in Compressor, with two changes:
A compression task that took over 15 minutes on the 2018 Mac mini, took less than a minute on the Mac Studio. The M4 Mac mini was very close behind and faster than the MacBook Pro.
Finally, for multicam editing, the 2018 Mac mini could not play any 4K multicam streams. At all.
The M-series computers easily handled dozens of streams. I gave up counting at 40 4K streams. HD multicam could support far more.
Multicam memory management in Final Cut is an amazing piece of engineering. Here, Activity Monitor shows Final Cut using only 2.22 GB of RAM to stream 40 UHD ProRes 422 clips! In comparison, Premiere uses more than 40 GB to stream 30 clips.
This is why you don’t need a lot of RAM for multicam editing and why Final Cut handles multicam edits so easily.
SUMMARY
The M4 Pro Mac mini is an amazing machine, with performance to burn. Even the base level M4 is more than adequate for most single camera editing, though I would strongly advise getting at least 1 TB of storage.
Multicam editing requires more RAM, though you don’t really need more than 24 GB. In my testing, even for 40 streams of 4K video, RAM was never full. Photoshop took far more RAM than FCP.
For all media editing, the M4 Pro is a delight. There are only a few reasons to consider an M2 Mac Studio, none of which relate to performance:
All that being said, the M4 Pro Mac mini equals or exceeds the performance of a Mac Studio at a fraction of the price. It is totally suited to video editing. And it fits very nicely… just about anywhere.
