The M4 Pro chip in Apple's ridiculously tiny new Mac Mini could make an incredible handheld gaming PC

This observation is not going to win me any friends around here. We'd all go crazy if Intel or AMD released a chip that had the same capabilities as Apple's new M4 Pro. It would have the same IPC, GPU, and memory bus specs. That's why I would love to buy a gaming handheld or PC laptop with Apple silicon.

Because the new M4 Pro works on a totally different level. Let's just set aside for the moment all the caveats that come with this type of thought experiment. The lack of Windows OS, the question marks about real-world gaming performance using an Apple-designed GPU and the difficulties in comparing things such as ray-tracing.

Let's instead focus on the hardware. Apple has access to TSMC’s N3E production node - the most advanced silicon ever created. AMD uses N4, a two-generation old chip, while Intel chose last-gen N3B to power its new Lunar Lake processor.

Apple has a clear advantage, as N3E is more efficient than N3B. It's also more dense and efficient than N4, which is derived from TSMC N5 node.

Apple's CPU architecture is another thing. Apple's M4 CPU cores can achieve around 175 points in Cinebench 2024’s single-thread tests, running at 4.4GHz. This compares to 141 for Intel's brand-new Arrow Lake CPU running at 5.7GHz, and 139 for AMD Ryzen 9 995X which has a maximum boost speed of 5.7GHz.

Apple's chip has 60% more IPC than Intel or AMD CPUs if you normalise the clockspeed. 60 bleedin' percent! We would not believe it if Intel released a new CPU with 60% more IPC tomorrow.

Cinebench is only one metric. Apple silicon tends, however, to have a similar IPC advantage in other tests. Apple's M Series processors have a far superior IPC than anything AMD or Intel. Oh, and the M4 Pro chip comes with 10 high-performance cores. Yikes.

Next, we'll talk about memory bandwidth. Intel's latest Lunar Lake notebook chip has a maximum raw bandwidth of 135GB/s shared between the CPU and GPU. AMD's Ryzen AI 300 Series, codenamed Strix point, has a similar memory and bus support of 128 bits, so it is in the same ballpark. M4 Pro is able to reach 273GB/s - almost double the speed of any x86 laptop chip or handheld.

This is important, since bandwidth is critical to GPU performance. This comparison is difficult to make because of the GPU performance.

On paper, the M3 Pro is slightly faster in FP16 at 17 TFLOPS compared to a Nvidia RTX4070 laptop chip at 15.6 FP16 TFLOPS. This is not definitive. It gives you a good idea of how the 20-core GPU of the M4 Pro performs.

It's hard to tell how the M4 Pro hardware ray-tracing compares with the likes Nvidia and AMD GPUs. It's hard to say how the M4 Pro's hardware ray tracing compares to the likes Nvidia or AMD GPUs. It's all moot, because very few games have been optimised and compiled for Apple silicon.

Another major objection would be the power consumption. The M4 Pro is definitely going to be in MacBook laptops. Is it feasible for a portable? Apple hasn't revealed any power consumption figures. In testing, the old M3 Pro had low power mode which just exceeded 30W for both GPU and CPU and only reduced performance by a few percentages compared to the chip’s standard power mode.

Intel's Lunar Lake can reach a maximum TDP up to 37W. AMD's Strix point has a TDP maximum of 30W. Under full load, both of these chips will consume a lot more power. For handdhelds, Asus's ROG Ally has a 25W turbo mode for battery power. It's not impossible to imagine an M4 Pro in handheld form.

Apple's laptops tend to be more powerful than most PC laptops when it comes down to battery life. Apple rates the new MacBook Pro 14-inch at 22 hours. This is not realistic. But 15 hours is probably realistic. Show me a PC gaming laptop that has a battery life similar to this.

Now, I can totally understand the objections to such a thought experiment. It's all a waste of time because there are very few MacOS games and you cannot run Windows natively on Apple hardware. To be clear, I am not arguing that gaming on an M4 Pro would make any sense in reality.

Apple silicon is a great example of how other chip makers are falling short when it comes performance and efficiency. How can it be, to use just one example: that Apple produces CPUs with a much higher IPC than AMD or Intel? It should absolutely, positively be the opposite. AMD and Intel are CPU core specialists. That's why they exist.

It's been a frustrating few months with Intel's disappointing Arrow Lake processors and AMD's new Zen 5 chips. When you see what Apple has achieved with its new M4 processors, you have to wonder just what AMD and Intel's engineers are up to.