Head-to-Head Showdown

Apple Mac mini (M4 Pro, 24GB) vs Apple Mac mini (M4, 16GB)

Comparing ARM architecture against ARM for local AI inference. Review generation throughput, memory architecture, and runner compatibility.

Select Any Two Systems to Compare Head-to-Head

System A (Left)

System B (Right)

System A

Apple Mac mini (M4 Pro, 24GB)

Apple M4 Pro (12-core CPU, 16-core GPU)

24 GB MemoryARM~36.2 t/s

System B

Apple M4 (10-core CPU, 10-core GPU)

16 GB MemoryARM~15.9 t/s

Specification	Apple Mac mini (M4 Pro, 24GB)	Apple Mac mini (M4, 16GB)
Architecture	ARM	ARM
Processor	Apple M4 Pro (12-core CPU, 16-core GPU)	Apple M4 (10-core CPU, 10-core GPU)
Operating System	macOS	macOS
System RAM / Unified Memory	24 GB	16 GB
GPU-Usable Memory (VRAM or unified)	16.1 GB	10.7 GB
Memory Bandwidth	273 GB/s	120 GB/s
Memory Type & Bandwidth	Unified Memory (273 GB/s)	Unified Memory (120 GB/s)
NPU Acceleration (TOPS)	38 TOPS	38 TOPS
Small models (3–7B)	Yes (Compatible)	Yes (Compatible)
8B models (Qwen3 8B)	Yes (Compatible)	Yes (Compatible)
Estimated 8B Generation Speed	~36.2 t/s	~15.9 t/s
Recommended Max Context	32k tokens	32k tokens
Power Consumption Envelope	20-40W	12-22W

The buying and sizing guides that explain the numbers above.