I’m looking to buy one of the new M4 models when they are released. The iMac appeals to me for the form factor and the screen, but I’m not sure if the performance would be better on the Mac mini. I’m fully in the Apple ecosystem and don’t play any other computer games, so whichever I choose to get would be solely for whatever is best to play wow on a Mac. Would appreciate anyone’s thoughts and experiences with one vs the other 
performance will be identical unless you get the m4 pro mac mini, in which case the mac mini will be better
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Do you think the M4 pro is worth considering? I’m a casual player these days but I do want to get something that will run the game for a decent amount of years. If an iMac is capable of doing so, I find myself leaning in that direction.
Pro has double gpu performance of regular. M4 is very much baseline. if you truly want it to last a bit, M4 pro is way to go.
you can even go all in and just get m4 max macbook pro through best buy or other sites that finance over 3 years instead of apples 1. that way you get best of everything. Portable, most powerful, yet still affordable. Just make sure it’s m4 and not m3 cause unlike apples stores 3rd parties still have old models too.
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At least the baseline M4 Pro mini comes with 24 GB RAM. Sucks that they charge exorbitant prices for the RAM upgrades. $600 more for just 42 GB more RAM is asinine.
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Tell me about it lol. I was pricing my options this morning, imac, mac mini, and mbp, still not sure what I’m going to do…
If you have a choice between the mini and the imac and the specs are roughly the same, choose the mini. You can pick your own display, and the mini is going to dissipate heat much better than the imac will.
What’d be nicer is if the Studio and Mac Pro weren’t two full generations behind. The M4 Pro will wipe the floor with those much more expensive machines, and we’re not even at the M4 Ultra yet.
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I’d go with the mac mini with m4 pro. I’m on a mac studio m1 max with 64 gb unified ram. this thing handles wow with no problem while my friends on win 11 gaming computers are complaining about fps dropping, i’m sitting pretty. I can’t wait for the studios to get their chip upgrades, not sure what apple is waiting for. but the m1 max is still a monster of a chip.
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Yes, I’m now leaning toward the mac mini because you can get the m4 pro chip (doesn’t appear that it will be offered in the imac). Now I’m searching to get a monitor that can look as good as the apple retina screens without breaking the bank.
What resolution do you play at and how much ram does wow use?
with memory you have to factory in shared memory so screen size also impacts memory because larger resolution more vram more vram more memory needed for shared memory. it’s good 16 now baseline but ideally if you plan to play on anything larger than 1080p you’l want 24 memory just starting sot hat you have healty memory for OS, application, backgroudn applications, and vram.
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Check out the LG 27” 27BN88U-B. That’s what I use and it’s been wonderful.
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I currently have a Mac mini M2 pro (base configuration) and performance in WoW is fine most of the time.
I have ordered the Mac mini M4 pro with 14 CPUs, 20 GPUs, 64GB and 1TB SSD. Much better value/performance than the new iMac and should be a substantial improvement over my baseline m2 pro.
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I’m playing on a Mac Mini M1 - yes, the old model. And yet, WoW runs very nicely for me. I definitely need to use lower graphic settings for raid/battleground, and I run about mid-level settings for world content, but I rarely drop below 50 FPS. I cap FPS at 60 and I’m probably sitting at that cap 75% of the time.
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Make sure the monitor has a refresh rate of 120 or higher. It makes a huge difference.
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I almost talked myself into pulling the trigger on one of these. I am currently using M1 Mac Mini. I’m holding out for Studio M4 versions.
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I thought about that, too. But I know when the Studio M4 goes live I’d opt for the Ultra version with probably 128GB RAM and I assume that would cost me in the region of 6 - 6,5K €.
And since I was quite content with my M2 pro in the past I guess the M4 pro will be a beast in direct comparison. Of course the Ultra will absolutely demolish the M4 pro but my brain says not to spend that much money.
I set my budget at $2500-$2800. Hopefully I can get a nice bang for the buck. 
I agree. Get the M4 Pro Mini. Mine will be here next week.
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Testing things out now on my new Mac Mini M4 Pro. I only have the 24 GB of memory but it seems to be doing great so far.
I will post more once I get things dialed in.
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