Apple unveils Mac mini Core Duo - Page 6

God damn it Dell's website is crap!

Currently, The Dell dimension B110 configured with 2.53 GHz Pentium Celeron D, 512 MB RAM, 80 gig 7200 rpm HD costs $339, including a keyboard and mouse. No wireless, no digital audio I/O, no IR receiver, slower RAM.

Now, I couldn't find anywhere how many USB ports that has, but I'm going to assume it has some USB 2.0 ones. No way it'll have Firewire, but that could be added for $20 as a PCI card.

Yes, this machine is vastly inferior to the baseline mini. What I'm saying is that the current baseline mini shouldn't be the baseline mini. There should be a cheaper one, without wireless, digital audio I/O, or front row.

I hope that those who suggest that Apple are waiting for the Celeron M 4xx are right and that a stripped down version of the mini will surface later.

That Dell also does not come with good video editing software, photo imporing/editing/storage, DVD authoring, web authoring, or music creation.

Exactly. And That's why at $499, a Mac Mini would be worth the premium.

The current mini is also worth the premium, but only if you want all the stuff it comes with. If you just need a basic computer, what's the point of paying for the extras that you'll never use?

TenoBell, do yu know that if one maxs out the new mini to 2GB memory that all of that can be accessed by the GMA 950 when viewing a DVD? What happens in a normal internet access session, say dealing with Blackboard or some other site?

>Memory available to Mac OS X may vary depending on graphics needs. Minimum graphics memory usage is 80MB, resulting in 432MB of system memory available.<

Are you kidding me? What is Jobs smoking?
Also, there are 2 RAM slots but both are used!
An optional external modem-come on, get real.

Are people supposed to be impressed with a 1.5 Ghz Intel Chip while PCs are at 3Ghz?

Why did Apple make the switch at all? Higher price, still anemic Ghz rating, shared graphics memory.

I am baffled. Nice to see I'm not the only one.

P.S. And they are charging $79 for iWork!? PC makers include Microsoft Works for free, Apple should be including iWork for free also.

Do I see mag-safe power-connection for the Mac Mini?

Bad news if that's true.

Originally posted by steve666
.......Are people supposed to be impressed with a 1.5 Ghz Intel Chip while PCs are at 3Ghz?.......I am baffled. Nice to see I'm not the only one.


Umm, one point. You need to go read up on WTF Pentium M is and WTF Core Solos and Core Duos are. Then read up on how lame Pentium 4s are despite the big 3+Ghz number. Un-baffle yourself first dude before coming in here and showing how little you know. I don't mean to sound like a dick but I thought most people following Apple news would get the hang of what this Core Solo and Core Duo thing is about.

No, I seriously doubt a DVD could use 2GB of memory.


I'm confused they both shouldn't be used?


Seems you have missed the Intel paradigm shift. Clock speeds don't matter so much anymore. Intel has admitted that just because you have more clock cycles does not necessarily mean your processor is outperforming another in calculations, nor is it working in the most efficient manner. Meaning a dual Core 1.5 processor can handily out perform a single 3 Ghz processor.

Most new PC's will be using Intel Core chips, while the 3GHz is the old Pentium technology that Intel will no longer use any more.


Why do you still use a modem?

As a BTO option? Certainly. And why not?

Just read it somewhere: there is a max amount of memory the 950 can use -- 256 MB or something like that.

Wow I find it amazing that someone with that many posts doesn't know jack shit.

I see what you mean I guess a 499 price point might have been important to a certain customer base but I really don't think 599 is going to make for poor sales.

And I still think my

TRICKED OUT MUTHA F*CKIN HIGH END MINI
1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor
2MB L2 Cache
667MHz Frontside Bus
2GB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM)
120GB Serial ATA hard drive
Double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0
Apple Remote
$1459

is a pretty good deal.

Does the Imac have 5.1 out?

As an BTO option? Yes.

New? The chipset was tested and reviewed last mid September.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/15/are_intel/

It's a glorious article, especially about the comments how Intel's $7 chip, by design, has no desire to compete in mid or high end graphics.

At $7 per chip I sure as hell hope it couldn't or ATI and Nvidia might as well close up shop now.

Now we are going to argue the semantics of the word new?

OK, its newer than a GPU from 2004.

The GMA 950 is no hardcore gaming chip that's well established. But the GMA 950 was designed to deliver HD playback to televisions.

And you still haven't addressed how the Geforce 6200 has 100% better performance just because it costs more.

You could be a bit more polite about that.

If I can remember which site did the article (it wasn't a review of the iMac) about H.264, that I read over a month ago, I will post it. A search of the ever only sometimes helpful Google 76 pages on the subject didn't turn it up.

So, you can doubt me if it makes you feel good, but I have no reason to make it up.

In fact, I did tests with two old machines I have here. My dual 2GHz G5 has no problem, of course, but other machines turn up interesting results.

A dual 533MHz Digital Audio with an ATI 9800 Pro card can play 720p without a problem. 1080i is painful, and 1080p is just stop action.

But a 733 Digital Audio, also with 9800 Pro card, upgraded to PL dual 1.8GHz 7447a chips not only runs 720p well, it also runs 1080i well. 1080p runs, but drops frames. It's actually viewable.

Apple is very clear that only a G5 will run anything above 720p, but that's not true.

They are conservative. I think that a dual 1.67 will be marginal, but will work. In reference to that, two guys at MacWorld had two different experiences with this. another saw a MacBook Pro run the same 1080p clip at different times. One said that it obviously was skipping frames. the other said that it ran fine. I don't know which speed machine it was.

Make of it what you will.

Those of us who expected it aren't mad. Those who never thought it would happen are mad.

Some of us are a bit disappointed, even though we may have predicted it.

Jusy because we might be right, doesn't mean that we are happy to see it. Even if it seems ok.

We expected it because of cost issues.

But, there was always the hope for something more.

Not just that, but is there enough room in the case for the extra memory, and possible extra cooling?

Funny graphics from ziff davis:

http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/...i=98687,00.gif

I'm not really in the Mac mini market so I'm not buying it. The integrated graphics for its targeted market isn't that big of a deal.

Two legitimate gripes against Apple.

I think we are at the point where a super drive should not be optional, the ability to burn DVD should be standard across all Macs.

Apple needs to release another desktop between the mini and the Power Mac. Something with similar specs to the iMac for around $999 - $1400. I think this one is so obvious Apple will fill the hole.

A fully pimped out Mac Mini with 2gb RAM, 120 gb hd, keyboard, mouse and modem costs a cool $1224... Is that close enough?

I 100% agree about the super drive comment.

A mid range desktop would be interesting but a fully equiped mac mini is ins't that different from the imac

1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor
2MB L2 Cache
667MHz Frontside Bus
2GB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM)
120GB Serial ATA hard drive
Double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0
Apple Remote

for $1224 (75 bucks less than the imac), that's not bad the drawback is just integrated graphics, which depending on who you are may or may not be too much of a problem for you.

I should clarify the midrange desk top.

Similar specs to the iMac, full size hard drives, capable of 4GB of RAM, and 2 PCIe expansion slots.

You know, I wondered about this too, but then I realized it's not necessary and here's why...

1) The iMac is *the* AIO computer. It has decent enough graphics to play Halo, UT 2K4, etc without snagging all the time, it has good siplay sizes and resolution, good proccessors, etc ... and it's priced at $1299 and $1699. Can a comparable PC be bought for the same price ... eh ... that's another debate entirely, but the point is, it is attractive enough and powerful enough to be competitive for people that want a TAD more from their machines than a shit-box PC and Mac Mini can give them.

2) Power Macs are for the big boys, and they'll continue to buy them - it's a beast of a machine now and I can't wait to what Apple does with Intel inside of it. Don't forget you need a display, BT and AirPort aren't standard and you need a mouse and keyboard, so you're bottom price is going to be about $500 bucks over the iMac by the time you have it running. So, lets forget about the PM's for now...

3) The mini - at $599 and $799, it's a great computer for people that want nothing more than to surf, e-mail, type, and do some tinkering with the iApps. There's a $500 difference in the Duo Mini and the 17" iMac ... add a display to the mini and you're in the price range you're talking about...

Apple has the three key areas adressed ... Entry, Consumer and ProSumer. What kind of specs were you thinking ont he $999 - $1399 computer? It might not end up being TOO bad an idea if the specs are the right mix and it's not just a smaller iMac or bigger mini...

For most people the Power Mac is too expensive and feature over kill.

The iMac fits well into the middle but has no internal expansion, limited hard drive selection, and limited to 2GB of RAM.

Another desk top is needed that can use whatever monitor you choose, with 2 PCIe expansion slots, standard desk top hard drive, up to 4GB of standard RAM.

But Apple just doesn't want to do that. They must have a reason.

I suppose that they see things that we don't.

There are some cheap generic x86 systems that go for around that price up here at Fry's. They'll last maybe a 3- 4 years. But they would make nice cheap computers for people to try OS X out without having to put out much cash. Probably would get a bunch to buy real Macs for their next purchase. However, OS X doesn't run on generic systems so.....oh well.

That's why we're all wondering what happened to the $499 price point for people just to try out some OS X action. Given integrated intel graphics, intel mobo, core solo, a $499 macintel mini would be fine and dandy, and a great hook for people to get started on the Mac. \ Ah, well..............

In retail there's really nothing magical about a $499 price point. In my years of sales anything over say $200 was, for most people, beyond an impulse buy.

Frankly the difference between $499 and $599 is rather small. Sure some people would be limited by the extra C-Note but many would just toss the extra bit on the credit card and take the puppy home.

I think we as Mac fans set the importance of dollar milestones but consumers always have a bit of wiggle room. I had budgeted $500 for the Mac mini and some funds for a laser printer, iPod or LCD. Well after looking at the options I'm happy that I have dual core as a possibility and so I'm putting off some accessories to jump up to a Intel core duo which will last me longer.

I don't see how this is realistically achievable - it would mean coming with a completely different motherboard for a BTO option. Far too much expensive involved for something that not everyone will take.

And for good reason.

With paired DDR2 667Mhz RAM you get 10.6GB/s memory bandwidth. If they stuck one 512MB DIMM in you'd get half that bandwidth.

The Core Solo CPU is the problem. It's too expensive for a $499 computer.

The problem for Apple is, there's no cheaper CPU available from Intel unless they wanted to drop back to the Celeron M 3xx which has a 400Mhz FSB and I think would have to be paired with the older GMA900 GPU.

The Celeron M 4xx is due in April and that's a cutdown Core Solo with a 533Mhz FSB, 1MB L2 cache and I'd imagine a drop in replacement on the motherboard for the Core Solo. I was surprised they launched the Mini with the Core Solo. I still expect them to do a cheaper Celeron M model.

Worst Mac ever.

*former owner of a Performa 6200*

Isn't that where the Cube was? I personally thought that was good solution even though at the time, an extra card slot would have been useful.

However, I haven't needed to change a PCI card in a desktop for about 4 years. Even PCs now have pretty much everything on the motherboard. Upgradign a graphics card would be nice for those that want to I guess but otherwise I tend to upgrade everything at once. And that's why I buy iMacs now instead of PowerMacs. In the long run it works out cheaper and they're usually fast enough for me. Once there's native intel software the Core Duo iMacs are probably TOO fast for me.

MacMini $599
really big wifi antenna $100
D.K.M: $300
generator: $350

look at pron from the camp site: PRICELESS

There isn't such a thing as a 'generic' system. They're all different. Apple would have to add support for a wider range of hardware, add support resources for users who can't get it to work on their 'generic' hardware and then they're still losing the hardware sale.

If the user with the cheap-ass 'generic' hardware has a bad experience with OSX then they aren't likely to buy a Mac. If they have a good experience with OSX on their 'generic' hardware they may then question the need for buying a Mac. Either way, Apple loses.

$499 mac mini:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...Fencoding=UTF8

$499 mac mini:
http://www.macmall.com/macmall/famil...ly~macmini.asp

There is your $499 soon to be $450 maybe $400.. when they all sell & I mean ALL, your Intel Mac mini will come down to that price point or simple a new base model will show up!

I was disappointed at hearing there wasn't an ATI or GeForce in there but one thing the old Mini sorely lacked was texture memory. Now I know that shared graphics can be slow but it's sharing graphics on a machine with 667MHz DDR Ram, surely that improves the situation a bit.

I would like to be able to get higher than 80MB shared though. Is that the hard limit or would you be able to change that? If I had 1GB for the system slot 1 and 512MB for the card in slot 2, I'd be very happy.

Can anyone confirm if the Intel chip is at least as fast as the Radeon 9200?

For £100 on the old Mini you get:

Intel Single Core - at least twice as fast as the 1.25 G4
60GB HD as opposed to the 40GB and SATA!! - are they 3.5" drives btw?
more video memory, though shared
4 usb ports - I always run out of USB ports on my G4 Mini

This is absolutely perfect for me. I use 3D software with lowish resolution models so anything equal to or above the 9200 is fine. More texture memory helps a lot. The main thing is a faster CPU though and this new Mini has it.

Also, I play all those old games like SNES and DOS games and they use the CPU mainly for emulation and since the Intel may one day run Windows in virtualization as opposed to emulation, it's far better.

I kind of wish I could get rid of the bluetooth and wifi to save some money and then it would cost the same as my G4 Mini because I don't use wireless networking and I have a bluetooth dongle but I guess it might help the resale value.

I'll wait to see how the GMA goes up against the Radeon 9200 and if it is equal to or better then I will definitely consider an upgrade. The only thing still putting me off is the lack of native Intel software, mainly Photoshop. Not to mention upgrading all my software. However, it will have to happen some day.