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Apple Mac Mini
- digitalsushi 12y agoHi folks. I am not a hardware nerd at heart. It appears this 'iris' GPU will not be able to do 4k display. Does anyone confirm?
- frandroid 12y agoIt better be able to do 5K, since the Thunderbolt will inevitably be upgraded to the same screen the new Retina iMac comes with...
- alexgaribay 12y agoIt won't because the bandwidth of TB2 cannot transfer the amount of data needed for a 5K display. The new Retina iMacs can get away with it because it can interface with the graphics output directly.
- gambiting 12y agoHmmmm my math can be wrong but I don't think you are correct: 5120x2880 = 14745600 pixels 14745600pixels x 3 colours, 1 byte each = 44236800 bytes 44236800/1024/1024 = 42.19MB each frame 42.19MB per frame x 60 frames a second = 2531.25MB. TB2 has a bandwidth of 20Gbps = 2560MB/s So yeah, theoretically TB2 has enough bandwidth. But it's a very tight fit.
- Shebanator 12y agoI don't know the actual answer, but it may be that the display actually expects 32bpp, in which case it would be over the limit by a considerable amount.
- nullz 12y agoThe above calculation was for 32bpp: 3 colors * 1 byte * (8 bits/byte) = 32 bits
- gambiting 12y agoI am sorry,but no it wasn't. 3*8 is 24 not 32. But in any case I don't think the display requires 32 bits, alpha is not necessary.
- Shebanator 12y agoThanks for the clarification. fwiw, I knew that alpha wasn't necessary, but vaguely remembered that DisplayPort might support displays that expected the entire 32 bit word to be sent. Looking at the specs, I don't see that. But it does show that DisplayPort supports 16 bits per component, or 48bpp. FYI, Wikipedia's section on DisplayPort lists the resolution of 5120x2880 x 24bpp @ 60Hz as requiring 22.18 Gb/sec of bandwidth, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Specifications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Specifications
- brigade 12y agoDisplayport (and HDMI) have a 2 bit ECC overhead for every 8 bits transmitted, so effective bandwidth of DP 1.2 is 17.28 Gbit/s. Additionally, the timing adds additional overhead, so the required bandwidth is actually 22.18 Gbit/s for 24bpp 60Hz 5120x2880
- MHordecki 12y agoEven if the GPU does, DisplayPort 1.2 doesn't support 5K displays.
- zador 12y agoAccording to Intel site, looks like it can do 4k.
- UVB-76 12y agoTech specs suggest both the Intel Iris and Intel HD Graphics 5000 models have the same support for 4K: https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/specs/ https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/specs/
- Xeoncross 12y agoThe HDMI has "Support for 4096-by-2160 resolution at 24Hz" - http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-mini http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-mini Still only 1080p at 60Hz
- MHordecki 12y agoIris (such like the one in 13" rMBP) can't, Iris Pro (15" rMBP) can.
- gambiting 12y agoI seriously do not understand how can it ship with a 500GB 5400rpm drive by default. This gives such poor experience to the user that Apple should have opted for all-ssd approach two generations ago. Very disappointed by that.
- umeshunni 12y agoAgree - a 128gb ssd would have been better than that and cost roughly the same.
- mbreese 12y agoBetter for some uses... one of the major use cases for the mini is for media storage or file sharing, in which case I'd gladly trade speed for space.
- walshemj 12y agothen why 5400k? At work (90% mac shop) we are just looking at what to do for a central server. Apple isn't supporting that market very well - they need a shuttle sff size mac midi that uses full fat non mobile parts. The gen 8 HP micro severs are just so much better
- mbreese 12y agoHonestly, it could be due to heat issues. It's a small device and faster drives can get hot. Apple has tried to support that market before, and it's just not a big market, and it isn't a one-size fits all market. Many people have been clamoring for an Apple solution for SMB server, and it just isn't profitable. This is especially true when you take into account cloud shared storage providers like Dropbox or Box.net. It's also a market that is more focused on margins. It's easier to charge a higher margin for a device you use everyday, but what about one that you install in a closet or put in a corner and forget? An HP microserver running FreeNAS is a tough combination to beat for an SMB central server.
- stock_toaster 12y agoBTO option is now a dual core i7 (3Ghz), vs previous model's BTO option of a quad core i7 (2.3Ghz). I wonder what the performance difference is between the two.
- Luc 12y agoBTO: Built To Order
- karpodiem 12y agowhich is totally insane. Yes, let's alienate the group of people who build 3rd party software and want a reasonably priced headless mac, and user upgradeable memory/HDD. Idiots. $100+ billion in cash or marketable securities and total spite for the dev/performance market. Just blind arrogance at this point - 'we don't need to offer this option anymore'
- coob 12y agoYes the spite is on Apple's side… I suggest you take a breath, and maybe a walk. This is not worth getting angry about.
- oso2k 12y agoApple has never been shy that "developer" Macs are the MacPros. The fact that you can get a reasonable developer experience on a Mac Mini or an iMac the last few years has been coincidental.
- 4ad 12y agoLet me put it this way. If I do a pkgsrc bulk build, what do I build it on? Previously there was the XServe platform that I could have in a rack along my other infrastructure. They ditched that. The old MacPro's you could install in a rack, though they were massively overpriced for what it was a purely CPU-bound job. Now the new MacPro's are not rackable any more. Mac Mini's were never great, but they were cheap enough you could buy a few and small enough that you could put somewhere, although it sucked.
- SloopJon 12y agoNo quad-core models?
- eva1984 12y agoGood choice for a home server
- rcchen 12y agoSo correct me if I'm wrong, but they appear to have done the same thing with the Mac Mini to achieve the lower price point as they did with the iMac earlier this year, by introducing a 1.4Ghz i5 model? I don't recall the base Mac Mini being as weak before...
- swinglock 12y agoCorrect. Yesterday a the entry Mac Mini was $599 and had a 2.5GHz dual-core i5 with 4GB of RAM.
- zanny 12y agoI hate the Intel nomenclature break on mobile vs desktop. On desktops, Celeron is dual core, i3 is dual core with hyperthreading, i5 is quad core, and i7 is quad core with hyperthreading. On the other front, they mix random clock values and core counts across skews so you never know if your i7 is a quad core with hyperthreading (4750Q for example) or a low power dual core (4700U) because there the suffixes on the parts number dictate core counts and such.
- jrockway 12y agoTo be fair, the i3/i5/i7 brand is for consumers ("i7 is better than i5"), and the "4750Q" is for OEMs. Remember: you're not Intel's customer, you're Apple's customer.
- happycube 12y agoIt's very annoying. If it ain't at least quad core, it shouldn't be an i7.
- MattSteelblade 12y agoAt least early on, there were dual core i5's...
- burnte 12y agoI believe you are incorrect. i3 has hyperthreading, i5 has turboboost, and i7 has both. If what you say were true, I shouldn't be able to get a dual core i5 or i7 in the latest Minis. store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-mini?product=MGEN2LL/A&step=config
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- post_break 12y agoThe Mac mini when first introduced was $499.
- jrochkind1 12y agoNot a bad price until you see it costs $300 to go from 4GB RAM to 16GB RAM. Do these have user-upgradeable RAM? I can buy RAM a lot cheaper than that.
- cherry_su 12y agoYes. Tech specs do not say "onboard memory." http://www.apple.com/mac-mini/specs/ http://www.apple.com/mac-mini/specs/
- cherry_su 12y agoJust kidding. Even if Apple doesn't say "onboard memory," that doesn't mean the computer does not have onboard memory. http://blog.macminicolo.net/post/100240431773/a-look-at-the-2014-mac-mini http://blog.macminicolo.net/post/100240431773/a-look-at-the-...
- LeoNatan25 12y agoYou can upgrade the RAM.
- gambiting 12y agoNo you can't. This generation has ram soldered on so no more user-upgradeable ram :-(
- LeoNatan25 12y agoReally? This is terrible, did not know that.
- personZ 12y agoIt looks like the physical design is the same as the late 2012, which on mine has a screw top "bottom" (until moments ago I had it upside down...always thinking that screen top was the top) that reveals a couple of so-dimm ports. I am extremely surprised they didn't go Broadwell given that Intel is just starting to put those out in volume.
- glxybstr 12y agoi just bought a mac mini a few months ago. wish i would have waited...
- cstrat 12y agoits been well overdue for an upgrade, if you had asked on forums everyone would have suggested you wait.
- k-mcgrady 12y agoBut they would have been saying that for around the last 12 months now. An update was long overdue. Guessing upgrade cycles of Apple's less cared for products (i.e. not iPhone/iPad) is getting difficult.
- cheeseprocedure 12y agoI always check this out when I'm looking to buy: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com http://buyersguide.macrumors.com
- lokeshk 12y agoI'm slightly bummed that I can't get SSD on their starting model, and have to force myself to a fusion drive if I want to do better than hard drive.
- Shivetya 12y agotaking real offense that to get the option to have more than 256g SSD you have to buy the 999; top level; mini first? You cannot even buy a SSD on the 499 entry model, you first have to step up to the 699. Really Apple. I was looking forward to new SSD minis for the parents, but 699+200 is a bit a much.
- smackfu 12y agoAlso realize that the Fusion Drive price includes $50 to upgrade from 500 GB to 1 TB drive. Which is like a $20 part difference.
- srcmap 12y agoIt is fairly easy to swap out the sata HDD with a sata SSD, right?
- mjcohen 12y agoHas the mini server gone away? I don't see it mentioned.
- jamie_ca 12y agoThe server features are available on the app store now (IIRC it's $20). The model with two distinct disks looks gone now, though.
- walshemj 12y agoBugger I hope not
- smackfu 12y agoProbably a bad sign that this 404s: https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/server/ https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/server/
- ddod 12y agoI've been waiting for about a year for this refresh and fully expected to buy one today, but after looking at the combination of price, default HDD, processors, and very weak integrated graphics, I just can't justify buying this. Compared to the relationship between the 2012 Mini and the 2012 computing ecosystem, the 2014 Mini is really not that impressive.
- christoph 12y agoI don't really understand Apple's current obsession with fitting their machines with low-end GFX. I get that it increases battery life, but let me make the choice between high-end GFX/poor battery life & low-end GFX/great battery life (at least as an option). A top end Macbook Pro retina really should be capable of sporting a top end 8x series Nvidia as a minimum. In fact a 9x nVidia refresh with 40% the current battery would probably make me drop the cash for another one (I only bought a new Macbook about 3 months ago). I want "this" physical hardware, but with a nice GPU so I can demo things like the Rift DK2 on the road without hulking around another PC laptop just for "those moments". The current Macbook Pro just isn't cut out for modern day 3D like a cheap(ish) MSI stealth Pro is...Trust me Apple... I'll find a power outlet if I need it. As an aside, it's still the best laptop I've ever owned.
- stephenr 12y agoMy last two (current and previous) MacBook Pros have been 17". The last one had a dedicated Nvidia GPU, this one has intel + Radeon GPU. In both machines, I've had faults in with the discrete GPU. Both times required logic board replacements twice. (that's four replacement logic boards across two laptops). I can absolutely understand why Apple is moving as much as possible of their line to using integrated Intel graphics solutions - they're 'good enough' for the vast majority of people, and have followed Intel's recent energy efficiency work, so not only do they drain the battery slower they produce less heat, and from what I've seen are much less likely to have catastrophic failures than discrete graphics. If you want discrete graphics, buy a high end machine. If you don't have that requirement, why pay for the extra hardware that is more likely to cause a fault than be of use?
- chrismeller 12y agoDid I miss something, or does maxing out the CPU and the RAM on the mid-level model get you the same specs as a maxed-out high-end model for $200 cheaper?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- sauere 12y agoThe $699 model + the SSD upgrade sums up to a whooping $899. I like the form-faktor and all, but really, with 900 bucks i am sticking to my custom ITX builds
- cjensen 12y agoYes, that's long been the obvious stupidity in Apple's Mac line: the lack of a mini-tower. Mini-towers let you stick in a full power desktop CPU and as much disk space as you want. Moreover, they dropped the expandable Mac Pro in favor of the new trashcan model which cannot be expanded -- except using thunderbolt which is just not as cheap as a drive bay. That said, they're probably doing the right thing. The people who want the ITX build are hackers like us, and we just aren't that common.
- walshemj 12y agoas I said else where small mac shops when they get to 10-15 people start to need a mac midi if they want to stay in the mac ecosystem
- rm445 12y agoNot sure that's the right number - I worked in a Mac shop (an engineering firm) with 20-30 users with 21" iMacs, served off a single Mac Mini server. If your users are just normal users, iMacs are fine. (Though the Macs did come under fire from the finance folks - taking the line that "equivalent" PCs are "industry standard" and a third of the price. I think this argument won out in the end, and the Macs all disappeared one day. It's a shame).
- gcb0 12y agowhoever comes to hacker news and upvotes all and any minor apple launches should be ashamed.
- northernmonkey 12y agoThe clue is in the word 'news'. Relax.
- jimmcslim 12y agoDespite the HDMI port and 2xThunderbolt ports, still maxes out at two monitors rather than three... guess Iris Pro would have been required for triple-head support.
- xngzng 12y agoAny idea if the harddisk is user upgradeable?
- greglindahl 12y agoSince the design seems to have stayed the same as the previous generation: Yes, but you have to take the entire thing apart to get to the drive, and the parts are laptop parts so they're kind of finicky. iFixit is your friend. The RAM, on the other hand, is extremely easy to change out.
- IbJacked 12y agoUnfortunately, the RAM on the new models is soldered on. Someone above said the drive is soldered, too, but I can't confirm that.
- greglindahl 12y agoYou are correct, that news trickled out after I wrote my comment :-/
- SeanLuke 12y agoSo they got rid of the 2 1TB drive option? Essentially the maximum internal storage on the Mini has been cut in half?
- mwcampbell 12y agoNow I wish I hadn't bought a new Mac mini 6 months ago. But I really needed one then. In any case, I applaud the switch to ULV processors (like those found in ultrabooks or the MacBook Air). Anyone know if this generation of Mac mini has a fan in it? I have a serious fanless fetish.
- dankohn1 12y agoThis is a credible answer for our new default developer machine, now that it has 2 Thunderbolt ports, but it doesn't seem cheap enough. We want dual 27" 2560 x 1440 displays, 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB fusion drive. This is for Rails development, so we're not taxing the CPU or GPU, although we do run parallel_rspec and parallel_cucumber, so more cores are helpful. The 27" iMac is $2199 + $399 for this Monoprice monitor w/ DisplayPort <http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=1130703&p_id=10489&seq=1&format=2> http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=..., for a total of $2598. This has a 3.2GHz i5 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M 1GB GDDR5. The new Mac Mini with 3 GHz i7, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB fusion drive, keyboard and trackpad is $1537 + 2 x $399 for the monitors = $2335. I'm not convinced saving $263 is worth going from 4 cores to 2, and presumably a worse graphics card.
- dirtae 12y agoYou don't tax the CPU, but you want to pay an extra $200 for a build-to-order option to bump the CPU by 0.2 GHz? How about getting the mid-tier 2.6 GHz Mac mini, with 16 GB RAM, 1 TB Fusion Drive, keyboard, and trackpad for $1,237? Then you'll be saving an additional $300, for a total of $563 in savings. If you want to save a little more, don't buy additional memory from Apple, buy it from Crucial or another vendor instead. You'll pay less than $200 for 16 GB of RAM (which is what Apple charges to bump from 8 GB to 16 GB), plus you'll have the 8 GB of RAM that is pre-installed in the machine, which you can sell, if you want.
- dankohn1 12y agoGood advice, thanks.
- bronson 12y agoAll true, except the 2014 Mini has the RAM soldered down. Buy it with the memory you think you'll need.
- dirtae 12y agoAh, you're right. I saw that the enclosure was the same (or at least nearly the same) as the old Mac mini and assumed you could replace the RAM yourself, but I was wrong. That's a shame.
- milhous 12y agoA disappointing update, but would still consider it to replace my mid 2010 Core2Duo mini if the Thunderbolt ports supported Multistream Transport (MST) so I could daisychain 3 x Dell U2415 19x12 displays.
- paul9290 12y agoMac Minis have been great entertainment boxes for me! Hook them up to a LCD TV, use a wireless mouse and enjoy tons of free content on Hulu, YouTube, Justin.TV substitutes and others!