Mac mini (M4 Pro, 2024)
Previous generationM4
The 2024 pro Mac mini, replaced by the M5 Pro model in September 2026 and still sold new while stock lasts. 273GB/s of memory bandwidth and up to 64GB still make it a capable local-AI box, but the M5 Pro generates text faster and reads prompts several times faster, so buy it only well below the new model's price.
Against the line-up
Geekbench 6 CPU
Blender Benchmark
The whole Mac mini line-up side by side, with prices
Every benchmark
Quoted from the publications that ran them; we don't test hardware ourselves. Figures from different publications were run on different systems and scenes, so compare within a row's source.
Local LLM (llama.cpp / Ollama)
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Llama 2 7B Q4_0, Generation |
49.6tok/s | llama.cpp community benchmarks (GitHub), Oct 19, 2026 M4 Pro, 16-core GPU, 273GB/s llama-bench tg128 (generating 128 tokens), all layers on the GPU. |
| Llama 2 7B Q4_0, Prompt processing |
364tok/s | llama.cpp community benchmarks (GitHub), Oct 19, 2026 M4 Pro, 16-core GPU, 273GB/s llama-bench pp512 (reading a 512-token prompt), all layers on the GPU. |
| Llama 2 7B Q8_0, Generation |
30.5tok/s | llama.cpp community benchmarks (GitHub), Oct 19, 2026 M4 Pro, 16-core GPU, 273GB/s llama-bench tg128 (generating 128 tokens), all layers on the GPU. |
Blender Benchmark
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Standard run |
2,570samples/min | Blender Open Data, Oct 19, 2026 Apple M4 Pro (GPU - 16 cores), Metal, Blender 5.2.0 Median score over the three scenes, 11 submitted runs |
| CPU |
362samples/min | Blender Open Data, Oct 19, 2026 Apple M4 Pro CPU, Blender 5.2.0 Median score over the three scenes, 32 submitted runs. Blender Open Data does not split the 12- and 14-core CPUs. |
Geekbench 6 CPU
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-core |
22,661points | Tom's Guide, Sep 21, 2026 Mac mini M4 Pro (configuration not stated) Geekbench 6.7, in the Mac mini M6 review |
Sources
- Blender Open Data (results database)
- Tom's Guide (review)
- llama.cpp community benchmarks (GitHub) (results database)
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