As part of the company’s week of Mac-focused announcements, Apple just introduced a smaller, but even more powerful Mac Mini. It now features Apple’s latest M4 silicon, supports ray tracing for the first time, and comes with 16GB of RAM as standard – seemingly the new norm in the Apple Intelligence era. The machine still starts at $599 with the regular M4 chip, while the more powerful M4 Pro model has a starting price of $1,399. Like the redesigned iMac announced yesterday, the Mac Mini is available for immediate pre-order and will hit stores on November 8.

The first thing you notice is the new design. As rumor has it, the Mini has shrunk considerably – and it was a relatively small desktop machine to begin with. Now it is downright small, with a length and width of five centimeters. If you’re wondering how Apple manages to keep things cool, the company says it’s due to the M4’s efficiency and “an innovative thermal architecture, which directs air to different levels of the system, while keeping all ventilation through the foot takes place.”

Still, Apple has provided this thing with plenty of I/O: on the front there are two USB-C ports and a 3.5mm audio jack. On the back you’ll find Ethernet, HDMI and three USB-C/Thunderbolt ports. The USB-A ports are indeed history, but it’s worth noting that the base M2 Mini only had two Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB-A ports. With the M4 you get a total of five ports. So you lose native USB-A, but get an extra Thunderbolt port.

The speed of those Thunderbolt ports will differ depending on which M4 processor you choose. The regular M4 chip includes Thunderbolt 4, while the M4 Pro gives you the very latest Thunderbolt 5 passthrough.

The M4 Pro Mac Mini also delivers better overall performance with its 14 CPU and 20 GPU cores. RAM can be configured up to 32 GB with the regular M4 or 64 GB with the M4 Pro. The storage is a whopping 8TB. So while the Mini is quite small, you can make it seriously powerful if you’re willing to spend enough. 10 Gigabit Ethernet also remains an optional upgrade for those who want it.

We’ll likely see the M4 Pro chip appear on the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros that Apple is expected to announce this week, along with an even more capable M4 Max chip that won’t be available in the Mini. But the Pro should be enough, as it is for many prosumers and creatives.

It’s a busy week for Apple. The M4 iMac made its debut on Monday, and the company also introduced its first Apple Intelligence software capabilities for iOS, iPadOS and macOS. (More AI features, including image generation and ChatGPT integration, will be released in December.) Tomorrow could see the debut of those upgraded MacBook Pros as Apple finalizes its new hardware. The company will announce its quarterly results on Thursday, which will undoubtedly include the release of its newest fleet of Macs.