You need two ports because some Thunderbolt devices have only one port, and need to go at the end of the chain. Apple's Firewire adapter is one example.
The primary is how bandwidth on the cable is divided. Thunderbolt 1 dedicates 50% to video and 50% to data. Thunderbolt 2 allows variable allocation so the data channel can take advantage of unused bandwidth on the video channel.
Thunderbolt 1 devices can be plugged into a Thunderbolt 2 port.
By the way, mini display port monitors are another example of a device that can only go on the end of a thunderbolt daisy chain.
Loving the new hardware AND price cut. Now it's as cheap as the G4 mini was!
Part of it is that they configured for a different price range. I'm not surprised by how it shook out. As I mentioned before on here, the price increase on cpus was the steepest at the low end with the $600 model. They actually implemented something similar to what was in the $600 model in the $700 model. By that I mean they followed the 13" macbook pro. The recommended customer price as per intel's listing increased around $130 there from one generation to the next, thus the price increase there. On the low end they sort of borrowed from the Air.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Relic
Well this will make Wizard happy, can you upgrade the memory yourself or is it soldered on like the MacBooks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon.
About time.
The Wizard will have no excuse this time.
As close to a 'mid range' 'mini-tower' as he's going to get.
Decent price drop and spec boost.
Wonder if it will drive a 4k display...
Lemon Bon Bon.
You guys forget many of his words. Wizard hates dual core anything. I'll look into the details later. It sounds okay, not astounding. Iris graphics may however be a better balance than a quad core + Intel HD 5000, but they are Iris, not Iris Pro. They are much slower than Iris Pro. I see no reason why it wouldn't drive a 4k display. If they neglected to add TB2 which carries displayport 1.2, that would be ridiculous.
Comparing the Acer C720 Chromebook, with its 1.4GHz Celeron processor to the new Mac Mini with its 1.4GHz Haswell i5 is equivalent to comparing
this electric car:
to this Abrams tank:
and concluding the electric car must be just as good as they both have a similar top speed.
See what the Abrams is doing to the Mustang? Well just imagine the Mac Mini tank mauling the electric car Chromebook underneath.
Oh the humanity!
The differences between the electric car and the tank are gigantic compared to a Celeron and an i5, especially for somebody just doing office work. Who needs an i5 to do office work and watch videos streamed via the internet? The bus speeds are now so quick on the low end chips that HD videos look great. Numerous reports from C720 users say they can have ten tabs open before even noticing a slowdown in performance if at all. Many people say they can stream two video sources at once and have good performance.
The i5 is a great chip and will do things faster than a Celeron at 1.4 GHz but how much more will an i5 at 1.4 GHz do? Video games aren't my thing. About the only thing an i5 might do for me that can't be done with a Celeron 1.4 is to make videos faster. For those rare occasions I could deal with slower rendering. The new Celeron 1.4 GHz is as fast or faster than my old 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo according to benchmarks I've looked up. With the faster bus speeds a C720 plays video better than my 2008 Mac Book. If I could live with the rendering speed of the old Core 2 Duo I can live with the speed of the 1.4 GHz Celeron for $199 which includes a screen, keyboard, and track pad.
Yes, they've gutted this line of computers. I never totally understood why Apple had the Mac Mini in their lineup; it seemed like a way for folks to bypass the more expensive solutions they sold. And now this. I was absolutely waiting on this announcement before buying. The price of the last generation higher end Mac Mini and server Mac Mini's will be at a premium for a while. Too bad, it was all about the bottom line, just like retaining the 16GB iPhone.
I've been hoping for a Mini update for months and now it finally looks like it's time to upgrade my 2008 Macbook Core 2 Duo.
Though, would I see any real world difference between a 3 ghz quad core i7 and a duo core i7? I like to play simulation games, do photo editing, watch HD streaming movies on my 27" LED Cinema Display, maybe video editing in Final Cut. Too bad we don't get the option!
And it looks like there is no user upgradable RAM, so if you buy 8GB, you are stuck with that for the rest of the computer's life, right? If so, LAME!
I'm looking to get at least a 512GB PCIe flash drive, 16GB RAM, 3.0 ghz i7, which comes out to be $1699. Maybe it would be cheaper to sell my MacBook, Cinema Display, Wireless mouse and keyboard and just get an iMac Retina, which will be much more powerful, no?
New mini is anemic as I dreaded. They eliminated the quad i7 option to protect iMac sales and didn't even give us Iris Pro.
For $1450 the 13" MBA is a better deal than the slightly faster $1200 Mini although the mini is slightly more future proof if you do 16GB RAM (for $1400).
There is no longer a quad i7 option under $1700 (and its really $2100 since it would be silly not to get 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD since it's no longer user upgradeable).
Fusion Drive makes a HUGE difference. Definitely get it. There's absolutely no point in my book to get a large SSD.
If you are planning to run a VM in VMware Fusion or in Parallels, and/or do serious video and/or photo editing as well as gaming, definitely get 16GB of RAM. If RAM is soldered on, you should plan ahead; otherwise, get the 8 GB and see if yo are satisfied with the performance, and upgrade later if you need to.
You can't get 8 GB in one slot if you are getting 8 GB from Apple. But if RAM is upgradable, you can sell two sticks of 4 GB each on eBay.
I've been hoping for a Mini update for months and now it finally looks like it's time to upgrade my 2008 Macbook Core 2 Duo.
Though, would I see any real world difference between a 3 ghz quad core i7 and a duo core i7? I like to play simulation games, do photo editing, watch HD streaming movies on my 27" LED Cinema Display, maybe video editing in Final Cut. Too bad we don't get the option!
And it looks like there is no user upgradable RAM, so if you buy 8GB, you are stuck with that for the rest of the computer's life, right? If so, LAME!
I'm looking to get at least a 512GB PCIe flash drive, 16GB RAM, 3.0 ghz i7, which comes out to be $1699. Maybe it would be cheaper to sell my MacBook, Cinema Display, Wireless mouse and keyboard and just get an iMac Retina, which will be much more powerful, no?
You might be better off buying old stock of the quad core i7 version, and spending $450 on a third party 1TB SSD, and 16GB of third party RAM.
Fusion Drive makes a HUGE difference. Definitely get it. There's absolutely no point in my book to get a large SSD.
If you are planning to run a VM in VMware Fusion or in Parallels, and/or do serious video and/or photo editing as well as gaming, definitely get 16GB of RAM. If RAM is soldered on, you should plan ahead; otherwise, get the 8 GB and see if yo are satisfied with the performance, and upgrade later if you need to.
You can't get 8 GB in one slot if you are getting 8 GB from Apple. But if RAM is upgradable, you can sell two sticks of 4 GB each on eBay.
The price of SSD has dropped significantly. I've gotten a 1TB Samsung SSD for $375, that is slightly more expensive than a Fusion drive. Keep in mind the Fusion drive is really SSD and spindle drive together. More chances of failure if one goes bad and performance not as good as a single SSD.
That all depends on the purpose. The graphics on the 2014 Mini is definitely much better than that of 2012 Mini. However, the non-graphic processing power of the 2012 2.6 GHz Quad-core i-7 Mini beats the 3.0 GHz 2014 dual-core I-7 Mini. For those running moderate server tasks on the Mini, the 2014 model is a travesty. For those who need to drive a 4K display with moderate consumer-grade apps, the 2014 model is the way to go. However, let's be clear, Mac Mini 2014 cannot be used for professional creative tasks such as video, audio, or photo editing. It's a home-use computer, and is only capable at handling such tasks at the consumer-grade level.
Apple seems to draw a clear line now between the iMac performance and the Mac Mini performance. The retina iMac will come down in price within the next few years, just like the retina MackBool Pro has. I won't be surprised if the 21" model will start at $1399 and the 27" model will start at $1799 within two years.
The new mini is only available with a dual core processor. My old mini is a quad core i7. I suspect my old mini is faster than these new minis.
That's what I thought. Unless you pay to custom build with an upgraded processor, isn't this a step down from the previous models? Weren't the October, 2012 models a 2.3GHz Quad Core i7 for $799 and a 2.5GHz Dual Core i5 for $599?
Now we have 2.8GHz dual core i5 for $999, a 2.6GHz dual core i5 for $699 and a 1.4GHz dual core i3 for $499. As I understand it, the i3 doesn't multi-thread at all. Is this really progress? What am I missing?
HDD killed all the performance on 2012 Minis. Fusion Drive is a huge improvement even when pared with the 5000 RPM HDD. Those 2012 Minis had great specs, but without Fusion or SDD, those specs didn't help much. This time around, apple is pairing the specs to the drive performance. For a regular consumer, the mid-range 2014 Mini with 8 GB of RAM and Fusion drive will be just fine. It's only power users who realize they have been pushed out of the Mac Mini line into much pricier tier of iMacs.
I'm happy as a shareholder. This looks like higher profit margins to me. As s power user, I'm upset. However, I would much rather be a happy shareholder than an unhappy shareholder.
If you are looking for the fastest single thread performance then you want less cores and a higher clock rate. More cores only helps if you are doing more concurrent things (or if the process you are running can split execution across more threads). Dual core will be fine as long as you get a nice and high clock rate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmz
Oh the people who don't understand real world differences between quad core and dual core. They are fun to watch.
I should clarify that a balance between multi-thread and single thread performance is needed - the newest iMac Retina has the processor that would be the ideal candidate, but the machine itself has two knocks against it:
1. If it is anything like the previous 27" iMac with the i7-4771 CPU, it will make audible noise when pushed. In an critical listening environment, this is not acceptable. Given the higher clock speed with the same lithography and thermal transfer coupling, as well as the GPU to run 14 megapixels of screen, I am betting that it will be worse. A machine with external displays that can be put into a machine room is ideal. That leaves the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro. (The latter being overpriced for what I need it to do - DAW plugins are notoriously difficult to parallelize for GPU compute, making FirePro graphics a handsome expense I don't need.)
2. I don't need a screen that large. My personal preference is to work with multiple 1080p monitors, which I already have.
In summary - it's difficult to spend $500-1500 of money on expensive hardware that doesn't benefit my workflow at all when I have a bottom line to worry about.
Anyway, single thread performance for the real CPU intensive plugins, like running iZoptope Ozone with IRC III on a master bus, as well multithreading for dozens of simultaneous software instruments. Trust me, a session with even 16 high-bandwidth orchestral parts using something like EW/QL Platinum Symphony will bring a dual core (albeit hyper threaded to 4 cores) machine to it's knees in no time, even with a high buffer setting. Bump that up to 32+, combine with a need to record audio at the lowest latency possible (in a perfect world I'd prefer not to take the time to freeze or bounce software instrument parts), and that's pushing quad-core systems as well.
It's an odd combination of performance requirements - and to me, a Haswell Mac Mini with a quad-core i7 on par with the MacBook Pro would be the best compromise of budget, performance, and practical considerations. Of course, in a perfect world, a 12-core CPU running at 4.0GHz would be awesome! But sadly, not on the cards.
New mini is anemic as I dreaded. They eliminated the quad i7 option to protect iMac sales and didn't even give us Iris Pro.
For $1450 the 13" MBA is a better deal than the slightly faster $1200 Mini although the mini is slightly more future proof if you do 16GB RAM (for $1400).
There is no longer a quad i7 option under $1700 (and its really $2100 since it would be silly not to get 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD since it's no longer user upgradeable).
The cpus that Apple uses in the 15" now cost a bit more. The 13" ones cost considerably more, to where I doubted they would stick with $600 on the entry model. They moved what was that one to $700, and then placed another configuration beneath it. As you can see the $700 mini uses internals similar to those in the current 13" macbook pro, just like the old one did at $600. Where they cheaped out was on the one above that. It could have held out at $900 with a quad processor and Iris Pro if its hardware was budgeted similarly to the 2012 model. Without factoring for discounts based on volume, the quad cpu used in the base 15" isn't much more expensive than the ones previously used in the 15" cmbp. The top one is unfortunately a terrible value, especially when you consider that at that price it still requires a keyboard, mouse, and display.
BTW, just ordered 27" rectal display iMac (so good you can see the starfish in 5k display) and mac mini to run samsung 4k display as a dual boot machine. As I see it, if you want the mac OS, you gots no choice!
But if RAM is upgradable, you can sell two sticks of 4 GB each on eBay.
Just chatted to the Apple Store online & a guy called Michael said that the RAM on the new Mac Mini is user upgradeable! I would still want to check instore as I probably should have double checked that I meant the Mac Minis released today.
The base model might replace my Apple TV as it is probably the only way I'll get BBC iPlayer etc to work without having to use another device to 'send' the data first.
Comments
You need two ports because some Thunderbolt devices have only one port, and need to go at the end of the chain. Apple's Firewire adapter is one example.
Ah. Didn't know that. Thx.
And the diff between TB and TB2?
Ah. Didn't know that. Thx.
And the diff between TB and TB2?
The primary is how bandwidth on the cable is divided. Thunderbolt 1 dedicates 50% to video and 50% to data. Thunderbolt 2 allows variable allocation so the data channel can take advantage of unused bandwidth on the video channel.
Thunderbolt 1 devices can be plugged into a Thunderbolt 2 port.
By the way, mini display port monitors are another example of a device that can only go on the end of a thunderbolt daisy chain.
And the world smiles!
Loving the new hardware AND price cut. Now it's as cheap as the G4 mini was!
Part of it is that they configured for a different price range. I'm not surprised by how it shook out. As I mentioned before on here, the price increase on cpus was the steepest at the low end with the $600 model. They actually implemented something similar to what was in the $600 model in the $700 model. By that I mean they followed the 13" macbook pro. The recommended customer price as per intel's listing increased around $130 there from one generation to the next, thus the price increase there. On the low end they sort of borrowed from the Air.
Well this will make Wizard happy, can you upgrade the memory yourself or is it soldered on like the MacBooks.
About time.
The Wizard will have no excuse this time.
As close to a 'mid range' 'mini-tower' as he's going to get.
Decent price drop and spec boost.
Wonder if it will drive a 4k display...
Lemon Bon Bon.
You guys forget many of his words. Wizard hates dual core anything. I'll look into the details later. It sounds okay, not astounding. Iris graphics may however be a better balance than a quad core + Intel HD 5000, but they are Iris, not Iris Pro. They are much slower than Iris Pro. I see no reason why it wouldn't drive a 4k display. If they neglected to add TB2 which carries displayport 1.2, that would be ridiculous.
Comparing the Acer C720 Chromebook, with its 1.4GHz Celeron processor to the new Mac Mini with its 1.4GHz Haswell i5 is equivalent to comparing
this electric car:
to this Abrams tank:
and concluding the electric car must be just as good as they both have a similar top speed.
See what the Abrams is doing to the Mustang? Well just imagine the Mac Mini tank mauling the electric car Chromebook underneath.
Oh the humanity!
The differences between the electric car and the tank are gigantic compared to a Celeron and an i5, especially for somebody just doing office work. Who needs an i5 to do office work and watch videos streamed via the internet? The bus speeds are now so quick on the low end chips that HD videos look great. Numerous reports from C720 users say they can have ten tabs open before even noticing a slowdown in performance if at all. Many people say they can stream two video sources at once and have good performance.
The i5 is a great chip and will do things faster than a Celeron at 1.4 GHz but how much more will an i5 at 1.4 GHz do? Video games aren't my thing. About the only thing an i5 might do for me that can't be done with a Celeron 1.4 is to make videos faster. For those rare occasions I could deal with slower rendering. The new Celeron 1.4 GHz is as fast or faster than my old 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo according to benchmarks I've looked up. With the faster bus speeds a C720 plays video better than my 2008 Mac Book. If I could live with the rendering speed of the old Core 2 Duo I can live with the speed of the 1.4 GHz Celeron for $199 which includes a screen, keyboard, and track pad.
1.537,00 € / 2.000 $
Not bad?
Yes, they've gutted this line of computers. I never totally understood why Apple had the Mac Mini in their lineup; it seemed like a way for folks to bypass the more expensive solutions they sold. And now this. I was absolutely waiting on this announcement before buying. The price of the last generation higher end Mac Mini and server Mac Mini's will be at a premium for a while. Too bad, it was all about the bottom line, just like retaining the 16GB iPhone.
I've been hoping for a Mini update for months and now it finally looks like it's time to upgrade my 2008 Macbook Core 2 Duo.
Though, would I see any real world difference between a 3 ghz quad core i7 and a duo core i7? I like to play simulation games, do photo editing, watch HD streaming movies on my 27" LED Cinema Display, maybe video editing in Final Cut. Too bad we don't get the option!
And it looks like there is no user upgradable RAM, so if you buy 8GB, you are stuck with that for the rest of the computer's life, right? If so, LAME!
I'm looking to get at least a 512GB PCIe flash drive, 16GB RAM, 3.0 ghz i7, which comes out to be $1699. Maybe it would be cheaper to sell my MacBook, Cinema Display, Wireless mouse and keyboard and just get an iMac Retina, which will be much more powerful, no?
New mini is anemic as I dreaded. They eliminated the quad i7 option to protect iMac sales and didn't even give us Iris Pro.
For $1450 the 13" MBA is a better deal than the slightly faster $1200 Mini although the mini is slightly more future proof if you do 16GB RAM (for $1400).
There is no longer a quad i7 option under $1700 (and its really $2100 since it would be silly not to get 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD since it's no longer user upgradeable).
The Air cannot drive 2 (maybe 3) external displays.
If you are planning to run a VM in VMware Fusion or in Parallels, and/or do serious video and/or photo editing as well as gaming, definitely get 16GB of RAM. If RAM is soldered on, you should plan ahead; otherwise, get the 8 GB and see if yo are satisfied with the performance, and upgrade later if you need to.
You can't get 8 GB in one slot if you are getting 8 GB from Apple. But if RAM is upgradable, you can sell two sticks of 4 GB each on eBay.
I've been hoping for a Mini update for months and now it finally looks like it's time to upgrade my 2008 Macbook Core 2 Duo.
Though, would I see any real world difference between a 3 ghz quad core i7 and a duo core i7? I like to play simulation games, do photo editing, watch HD streaming movies on my 27" LED Cinema Display, maybe video editing in Final Cut. Too bad we don't get the option!
And it looks like there is no user upgradable RAM, so if you buy 8GB, you are stuck with that for the rest of the computer's life, right? If so, LAME!
I'm looking to get at least a 512GB PCIe flash drive, 16GB RAM, 3.0 ghz i7, which comes out to be $1699. Maybe it would be cheaper to sell my MacBook, Cinema Display, Wireless mouse and keyboard and just get an iMac Retina, which will be much more powerful, no?
You might be better off buying old stock of the quad core i7 version, and spending $450 on a third party 1TB SSD, and 16GB of third party RAM.
Fusion Drive makes a HUGE difference. Definitely get it. There's absolutely no point in my book to get a large SSD.
If you are planning to run a VM in VMware Fusion or in Parallels, and/or do serious video and/or photo editing as well as gaming, definitely get 16GB of RAM. If RAM is soldered on, you should plan ahead; otherwise, get the 8 GB and see if yo are satisfied with the performance, and upgrade later if you need to.
You can't get 8 GB in one slot if you are getting 8 GB from Apple. But if RAM is upgradable, you can sell two sticks of 4 GB each on eBay.
The price of SSD has dropped significantly. I've gotten a 1TB Samsung SSD for $375, that is slightly more expensive than a Fusion drive. Keep in mind the Fusion drive is really SSD and spindle drive together. More chances of failure if one goes bad and performance not as good as a single SSD.
Apple seems to draw a clear line now between the iMac performance and the Mac Mini performance. The retina iMac will come down in price within the next few years, just like the retina MackBool Pro has. I won't be surprised if the 21" model will start at $1399 and the 27" model will start at $1799 within two years.
The new mini is only available with a dual core processor. My old mini is a quad core i7. I suspect my old mini is faster than these new minis.
That's what I thought. Unless you pay to custom build with an upgraded processor, isn't this a step down from the previous models? Weren't the October, 2012 models a 2.3GHz Quad Core i7 for $799 and a 2.5GHz Dual Core i5 for $599?
Now we have 2.8GHz dual core i5 for $999, a 2.6GHz dual core i5 for $699 and a 1.4GHz dual core i3 for $499. As I understand it, the i3 doesn't multi-thread at all. Is this really progress? What am I missing?
I'm happy as a shareholder. This looks like higher profit margins to me. As s power user, I'm upset. However, I would much rather be a happy shareholder than an unhappy shareholder.
If you are looking for the fastest single thread performance then you want less cores and a higher clock rate. More cores only helps if you are doing more concurrent things (or if the process you are running can split execution across more threads). Dual core will be fine as long as you get a nice and high clock rate.
Oh the people who don't understand real world differences between quad core and dual core. They are fun to watch.
I should clarify that a balance between multi-thread and single thread performance is needed - the newest iMac Retina has the processor that would be the ideal candidate, but the machine itself has two knocks against it:
1. If it is anything like the previous 27" iMac with the i7-4771 CPU, it will make audible noise when pushed. In an critical listening environment, this is not acceptable. Given the higher clock speed with the same lithography and thermal transfer coupling, as well as the GPU to run 14 megapixels of screen, I am betting that it will be worse. A machine with external displays that can be put into a machine room is ideal. That leaves the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro. (The latter being overpriced for what I need it to do - DAW plugins are notoriously difficult to parallelize for GPU compute, making FirePro graphics a handsome expense I don't need.)
2. I don't need a screen that large. My personal preference is to work with multiple 1080p monitors, which I already have.
In summary - it's difficult to spend $500-1500 of money on expensive hardware that doesn't benefit my workflow at all when I have a bottom line to worry about.
Anyway, single thread performance for the real CPU intensive plugins, like running iZoptope Ozone with IRC III on a master bus, as well multithreading for dozens of simultaneous software instruments. Trust me, a session with even 16 high-bandwidth orchestral parts using something like EW/QL Platinum Symphony will bring a dual core (albeit hyper threaded to 4 cores) machine to it's knees in no time, even with a high buffer setting. Bump that up to 32+, combine with a need to record audio at the lowest latency possible (in a perfect world I'd prefer not to take the time to freeze or bounce software instrument parts), and that's pushing quad-core systems as well.
It's an odd combination of performance requirements - and to me, a Haswell Mac Mini with a quad-core i7 on par with the MacBook Pro would be the best compromise of budget, performance, and practical considerations. Of course, in a perfect world, a 12-core CPU running at 4.0GHz would be awesome! But sadly, not on the cards.
Sorry if I blinded anybody with science...
Sorry if I blinded anybody with science...
More people should post Thomas Dolby references.
Quote:
New mini is anemic as I dreaded. They eliminated the quad i7 option to protect iMac sales and didn't even give us Iris Pro.
For $1450 the 13" MBA is a better deal than the slightly faster $1200 Mini although the mini is slightly more future proof if you do 16GB RAM (for $1400).
There is no longer a quad i7 option under $1700 (and its really $2100 since it would be silly not to get 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD since it's no longer user upgradeable).
The cpus that Apple uses in the 15" now cost a bit more. The 13" ones cost considerably more, to where I doubted they would stick with $600 on the entry model. They moved what was that one to $700, and then placed another configuration beneath it. As you can see the $700 mini uses internals similar to those in the current 13" macbook pro, just like the old one did at $600. Where they cheaped out was on the one above that. It could have held out at $900 with a quad processor and Iris Pro if its hardware was budgeted similarly to the 2012 model. Without factoring for discounts based on volume, the quad cpu used in the base 15" isn't much more expensive than the ones previously used in the 15" cmbp. The top one is unfortunately a terrible value, especially when you consider that at that price it still requires a keyboard, mouse, and display.
You might be better off buying old stock of the quad core i7 version, and spending $450 on a third party 1TB SSD, and 16GB of third party RAM.
Where are we going to find new previous version Mac Minis with the quad i7? And where are you quoting your SSDs?
The Ebay's!
To the ebays!
BTW, just ordered 27" rectal display iMac (so good you can see the starfish in 5k display) and mac mini to run samsung 4k display as a dual boot machine. As I see it, if you want the mac OS, you gots no choice!
But if RAM is upgradable, you can sell two sticks of 4 GB each on eBay.
Just chatted to the Apple Store online & a guy called Michael said that the RAM on the new Mac Mini is user upgradeable! I would still want to check instore as I probably should have double checked that I meant the Mac Minis released today.
The base model might replace my Apple TV as it is probably the only way I'll get BBC iPlayer etc to work without having to use another device to 'send' the data first.