Dragon Quest VIII is being re-released in Japan for the 3DS and includes some extra things not in the original PS2 game so that will have my attention for at least a month if not a few months.
If the Mac mini were to be updated to Broadwell and Iris 6100, I'm not sure I would be blown away. I wish PCIe SSD was standard and not a CTO even if it was the same price as though you ordered it as a CTO. I don't want to wait 2-3 days. I have a Best Buy right up the road from me that I can just go to and pick up my Mac today if I want a new one.
I spent 10 years procrastinating about getting a new Mac after my PowerMac clone.
I worried about the iMac's screen. I needn't have.
Skylake is the ideal jumping on point with new ports and tech' galore.
Get the entry or 2nd up entry model with decent built in graphics if budget is an issue.
You'll be well served by it. My Core 2 Duo lasted 5 years before I sold it my cousin and the screen is still going strong.
Now have the i7/nv 680 gpu top of the line from a couple of years back.
Sure. I wish I had waited for the retina which came a year later. But that happens sometimes.
This next year will be the time to buy. The mini is always going to lag ages behind because it costs £400 and isn't going to be state of the art relative to. I suspect if will get the Skylake much, much later than e.g.. iMac. Why? Because Apple have form for cripple lagging releases for hardware.
I spent 10 years procrastinating about getting a new Mac after my PowerMac clone.
I worried about the iMac's screen. I needn't have.
Skylake is the ideal jumping on point with new ports and tech' galore.
Yes, I ended up buying the iMac a number of years back, even though I dislike the lack of upgradability. It has served me well and the Mac Pro just wasn't ready yet (brand new, and no updated screen to pair it with.)
Skylake, coupled with TB3 and USB 3.1, does look like it will satisfy for years to come.
Of course, the new memory tech that Intel announced recently does make one wonder if next year's computers take a quantum leap in power just after we purchase Skylake, but that never ends in computing. For most people, Skylake will be the right time to jump onboard the upgrade train.
Of course, the new memory tech that Intel announced recently does make one wonder if next year's computers take a quantum leap in power just after we purchase Skylake, but that never ends in computing.
It's a matter of bottlenecks. Clock speed has outpaced memory for decades at this point. This alleviates a specific bottleneck, but it isn't immediately obvious where we will see improvements. I do expect this to benefit integrated graphics, but I don't know how much of that you'll see with the first generation or what else will improve. I can also tell you that intel has been classically underwhelming compared to their hype. Intel makes a lot of good stuff, but they (and some tech blogs) set unrealistic expectations.
One thing i'll say about the viability of ARM replacing Intel is that few years ago a long day was 300 photos. Today, as an amateur, I shoot 1500 for a day of soccer tournament. For wedding photographers 3000 for a day is not absurdly high. As fast as SSDs, memory and CPUs have gotten it's still as much effort to process a day's worth of photographs as before.
Pick pretty much any computer supported hobby and you see the same story.
ARM hasn't been proven to scale to Core i7 level. Supporting both ARM and Intel is more than a re-compile for many apps.
One thing i'll say about the viability of ARM replacing Intel is that few years ago a long day was 300 photos. Today, as an amateur, I shoot 1500 for a day of soccer tournament. For wedding photographers 3000 for a day is not absurdly high. As fast as SSDs, memory and CPUs have gotten it's still as much effort to process a day's worth of photographs as before.
This is one reason why I laugh at people that say computers are fast enough. They may be if your needs are't growing with the industry's capabilities but if you leverage the latest capabilities computers are in fact rather slow.
Pick pretty much any computer supported hobby and you see the same story.
ARM hasn't been proven to scale to Core i7 level. Supporting both ARM and Intel is more than a re-compile for many apps.
Proven is an interesting concept when every ARM implementation to date has been focused on low power and low clock rates. If no one has attempted to hit i7 performance levels then we really don't know what the capabilities are. That being said 64 bit ARM has everything needed to eventually get there, it is just a matter of investing in the required effort. At some point someone at Apple has to think - hey we can spread our development costs even wider with Mac OS based, ARM powered, machines.
For some apps yes there would be effort involved in recompiles, however everything I've seen seems to indicate that Apple is highly motivated to make this possible with minimal effort.
Proven is an interesting concept when every ARM implementation to date has been focused on low power and low clock rates. If no one has attempted to hit i7 performance levels then we really don't know what the capabilities are.
That's the point. Until someone does it, you really don't know it can scale to i7 performance levels. I'm finding that the ARM is fast enough on the iPad for anything except for the heavy lifting I do on the Mac whether that's hobbies like photography or work.
Saving a couple hundred bucks to double the time it takes to do stuff doesn't strike me as a good trade.
Finally, ARM was supposed to have taken over the server market by now. Pundits were claiming that the 64 bit ARMv8 X-Gene server in 2011 was the canary in the coal mine where Intel server dominance was about to end. Microservers would take 10% of marketshare from Intel. AMD was talking smack about how ARM was a game changer and would roll over Atom in the server market.
But now in 2015 and we have the HP Moonshot as one of the few ARM server offerings actually available and we still don't have an ARM chip in the 20-80 TDP range. Did Ti, AMD, Broadcom, Qualcomm, etc just lose interest? Or did they see real issues that a bigger power supply and heat sink couldn't solve?
I think folks have tried to hit Xeon E3 performance levels with ARM and not met with any sort of reliable success. Broadcom Vulcan was supposed to hit 3 Ghz and be about the same speed as Haswell. Not yet. And if Qualcomm has a server grade ARM SoC it's being kept secret.
Meanwhile Intel has pushed forward with a 8 core2 Ghz Xeon-D SoC at 14nm and a 45W TDP. And X-Gene is where? Back at 2013 Avoton performance level and worse performance per watt. And X-Gene 2 performance is only 50% better so when Denverton hits it'll STILL be back at C2750 performance levels.
This is why I keep rolling my eyes regarding an ARM based Mac. Not to say that Apple doesn't have a low end desktop ARM SoC in a lab somewhere but it just doesn't pay to switch until they can convert the whole OSX ecosystem to ARM. It would be a pain in the ass for almost all OSX developers including Apple. And if Apple did low end we'd have seen them use much cheaper and weaker Intel offerings before.
Maybe when TSMC and company catch up to Intel while Intel repeatedly rams headfirst into the 10nm wall and has to push releases further to the right. 2017 and counting.
LBB - I may even just get a Broadwell 4K iMac with Iris Pro 6200. We'll see. The iMac has grown on me more and more as time has gone on. Thanks for the help.
Finally, ARM was supposed to have taken over the server market by now.
No one was expecting that apart from those silly PR and news / hype. For some of the reason you listed below, such as Atom and Xeon-D.
And there is much more in the Server then CPU. Much like there is much more in the Mobile SoC then the CPU. For exactly the same reason, they have the first mover advantage.
No one was expecting that apart from those silly PR and news / hype. For some of the reason you listed below, such as Atom and Xeon-D.
And there is much more in the Server then CPU. Much like there is much more in the Mobile SoC then the CPU. For exactly the same reason, they have the first mover advantage.
I just re-read that post, and I think that was his point. It's hype until someone can demonstrate a working implementation.
I just re-read that post, and I think that was his point. It's hype until someone can demonstrate a working implementation.
I'm not sure hype is the word here. The problem with an implementation is finding someone with the incentive to make such a chip. At this point I really see Apple as the only possibility here. Will they do it? I really don' know but the concept is very interesting and I'd like to see Intel under pressure in its core businesses. This is also why I'd be happy to see a AMD chip in some of Apples machines.
Hi! Joined this forum just for this thread. Today, Apple updated their 27-inch iMac to Skylake and 5K display and added another variant to its 21-inch iMac which is a 4K beauty (Broadwell, meh). Let's just hope that Apple hasn't forgotten about the Mini we all love so much!
P.S. I'm looking to purchase a Mac Mini Skylake (2016) in March-Early April '16. Cheers!
Hi! Joined this forum just for this thread. Today, Apple updated their 27-inch iMac to Skylake and 5K display and added another variant to its 21-inch iMac which is a 4K beauty (Broadwell, meh).
It isn't Broadwell hat makes these machines poor upgrades. I suspect they went Broadwell to get the better GPUs. The problem is the rest of the configurations. No USB-C is a big mistake, the Fusion drive is pathetic and the other short comings really puts to question these machines value, especially the 21".
Let's just hope that Apple hasn't forgotten about the Mini we all love so much!
Yeah I hope to see something soon. I'd actually like to see APple build as computer keyboard. That is take the Mac Book's CPU and put it into a keyboard. With SkyLake that might be a decent machine.
P.S. I'm looking to purchase a Mac Mini Skylake (2016) in March-Early April '16. Cheers!
P.P.S. The new Trackpad looks good!
I suspect you will be lucky to see a SkyLake Mini by then.
One thing no one wants to talk about is HOW ABSOLUTELY NOT ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY iMacs are. Display Tech is usable for most people beyond CPU tech. It would be so much greener to make a more powerful MacMini. When it becomes obsolete a lot less ends up in landfill than an iMac.
One thing no one wants to talk about is HOW ABSOLUTELY NOT ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY iMacs are. Display Tech is usable for most people beyond CPU tech. It would be so much greener to make a more powerful MacMini. When it becomes obsolete a lot less ends up in landfill than an iMac.
Not to nitpick, but i don't think much of it should end up in a land fill (its highly recyclable). But to be honest, if you keep your iMac 5 years, then use your old iMac as a dumb second screen, doesn't that make it about a 10 year window? And screen technology comes along way in 10 years.
edit: I say 5 years because if a mac mini is good enough, then an iMac is probably good enough after 4-5 years. People who turn computers over faster should sell them not throw them out.
A Skylake mini has to have Iris graphics for me to be interested. I sort of wish the mini got updated but then again if it got updated to Intel HD 6000 and Iris 6100, I wouldn't have been blown away. It would have been long overdue from when the 13" rMBP got updated.
Next year, GPUs are in for a significant shift in power. Might be worth waiting for. Who knows, maybe the Mini might get some crumbs from the table in that regard.
It's about worth updating the Mini this year. Even the iMac got a half baked update.
We're in a port, cpu and gpu transition. 2015 was a non-event with Intel struggling to 'deliver' anything significant. Maybe with AMD's zen and HBM2 gpus, Intel and Nvidia both will compete again for the end consumer.
The best thing about 2015, for me, was the iPad Pro.
For what you'd spend on a Mini...get one of those iPad Pros. And the screen is included.
Otherwise. Maybe wait a bit longer for 'power shift' to shake out in 2016. Ports. Memory. Gpus. Cpus. SSD continues to drop in price.
I'm targeting a 5k iMac for back end of next year. I guess what I'm thinking could be applied to the Mac Pro, Mini...and even the Macbook Pro line.
Next year, GPUs are in for a significant shift in power. Might be worth waiting for. Who knows, maybe the Mini might get some crumbs from the table in that regard.
The last Mini update Apple focused on GPU performance, dropping the quad core machine. A lot of people didn't like that. It would be nice to see a Quad core, SkyLake based machine this year. Sadly it isn't looking good.
It's about worth updating the Mini this year. Even the iMac got a half baked update.
It could be worth it but Apple needs to get with the program. This iMac update is a pretty disgusting example of Apple dragging its feet on new technology. The machine really needed USB-C/Thunderbolt3 ports with this release. Likewise a Mini update should be a total overhaul.
We're in a port, cpu and gpu transition. 2015 was a non-event with Intel struggling to 'deliver' anything significant. Maybe with AMD's zen and HBM2 gpus, Intel and Nvidia both will compete again for the end consumer.
Intel is starting to look like a has been company. Today it was revealed that TSMC debuted its third 16 mm process. At this point it doesn't look like Intel can get version one of its 14 nm process going.
The best thing about 2015, for me, was the iPad Pro.
The Pro pisses me off because the weird marketing at Apple decides that the Pro means no update to the iPad Air. This is rather pathetic as I was waiting for an Air upgrade. As nice as the IPad Pro is I have no desire to buy one.
For what you'd spend on a Mini...get one of those iPad Pros. And the screen is included.
Maybe but for many uses iOS sucks royally.
Otherwise. Maybe wait a bit longer for 'power shift' to shake out in 2016. Ports. Memory. Gpus. Cpus. SSD continues to drop in price.
Actually Intel has raised prices on a number of its processors. They are trying to right a sinking ship. If trends continue they will make AMD look good.
I'm targeting a 5k iMac for back end of next year. I guess what I'm thinking could be applied to the Mac Pro, Mini...and even the Macbook Pro line.
Lemon Bon Bon.
The best time to buy is when you don't have a choice. You then have to choose from what's available. This is how I ended up with a 13" MBP early this year. Otherwise you point out good reasons not to buy. Those being the fact that we are in a transitional period with new ports standards, RAM standards and other tech coming online. Ideally the next Mini will come with SkyLake, USB-C, DDR-4 and all the other new hardware features.
Apple has hooked me with the 4k iMac and I am very interested in it. I am not sure I'm really interested in the mini anymore because I don't think Apple will provide what I want. I mean are they going to give me Iris 550? Even if they do, I'd rather have a quad core machine and not a dual core.
Apple has hooked me with the 4k iMac and I am very interested in it.
It is an interesting machine but I'd wait for reviews. The concern is the GPU performance with a 4K screen.
I'm also really disappointed with the ports situation, as mention Apple is dragging feet here with respect to USB-C. That may be because support chips aren't ready but frankly I expect more from Apple.
I am not sure I'm really interested in the mini anymore because I don't think Apple will provide what I want.
Considering what has happened to the Mini of late that might be the case. I will note however that for most users today, good GPU performance is more important than lots of x86 cores.
I mean are they going to give me Iris 550? Even if they do, I'd rather have a quad core machine and not a dual core.
Quad core is an important long term bet for people that really use their computers X86 section and in many cases is required for today's software. So I can't dismiss Quad cores. The question is "what does Intel have in its current line up that could go into the Mini"? I'm not sure they have a decent solution.
Comments
If the Mac mini were to be updated to Broadwell and Iris 6100, I'm not sure I would be blown away. I wish PCIe SSD was standard and not a CTO even if it was the same price as though you ordered it as a CTO. I don't want to wait 2-3 days. I have a Best Buy right up the road from me that I can just go to and pick up my Mac today if I want a new one.
Winter.
I spent 10 years procrastinating about getting a new Mac after my PowerMac clone.
I worried about the iMac's screen. I needn't have.
Skylake is the ideal jumping on point with new ports and tech' galore.
Get the entry or 2nd up entry model with decent built in graphics if budget is an issue.
You'll be well served by it. My Core 2 Duo lasted 5 years before I sold it my cousin and the screen is still going strong.
Now have the i7/nv 680 gpu top of the line from a couple of years back.
Sure. I wish I had waited for the retina which came a year later. But that happens sometimes.
This next year will be the time to buy. The mini is always going to lag ages behind because it costs £400 and isn't going to be state of the art relative to. I suspect if will get the Skylake much, much later than e.g.. iMac. Why? Because Apple have form for cripple lagging releases for hardware.
Regards.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Winter.
I spent 10 years procrastinating about getting a new Mac after my PowerMac clone.
I worried about the iMac's screen. I needn't have.
Skylake is the ideal jumping on point with new ports and tech' galore.
Yes, I ended up buying the iMac a number of years back, even though I dislike the lack of upgradability. It has served me well and the Mac Pro just wasn't ready yet (brand new, and no updated screen to pair it with.)
Skylake, coupled with TB3 and USB 3.1, does look like it will satisfy for years to come.
Of course, the new memory tech that Intel announced recently does make one wonder if next year's computers take a quantum leap in power just after we purchase Skylake, but that never ends in computing. For most people, Skylake will be the right time to jump onboard the upgrade train.
Of course, the new memory tech that Intel announced recently does make one wonder if next year's computers take a quantum leap in power just after we purchase Skylake, but that never ends in computing.
It's a matter of bottlenecks. Clock speed has outpaced memory for decades at this point. This alleviates a specific bottleneck, but it isn't immediately obvious where we will see improvements. I do expect this to benefit integrated graphics, but I don't know how much of that you'll see with the first generation or what else will improve. I can also tell you that intel has been classically underwhelming compared to their hype. Intel makes a lot of good stuff, but they (and some tech blogs) set unrealistic expectations.
One thing i'll say about the viability of ARM replacing Intel is that few years ago a long day was 300 photos. Today, as an amateur, I shoot 1500 for a day of soccer tournament. For wedding photographers 3000 for a day is not absurdly high. As fast as SSDs, memory and CPUs have gotten it's still as much effort to process a day's worth of photographs as before.
Pick pretty much any computer supported hobby and you see the same story.
ARM hasn't been proven to scale to Core i7 level. Supporting both ARM and Intel is more than a re-compile for many apps.
For some apps yes there would be effort involved in recompiles, however everything I've seen seems to indicate that Apple is highly motivated to make this possible with minimal effort.
Proven is an interesting concept when every ARM implementation to date has been focused on low power and low clock rates. If no one has attempted to hit i7 performance levels then we really don't know what the capabilities are.
That's the point. Until someone does it, you really don't know it can scale to i7 performance levels. I'm finding that the ARM is fast enough on the iPad for anything except for the heavy lifting I do on the Mac whether that's hobbies like photography or work.
Saving a couple hundred bucks to double the time it takes to do stuff doesn't strike me as a good trade.
Finally, ARM was supposed to have taken over the server market by now. Pundits were claiming that the 64 bit ARMv8 X-Gene server in 2011 was the canary in the coal mine where Intel server dominance was about to end. Microservers would take 10% of marketshare from Intel. AMD was talking smack about how ARM was a game changer and would roll over Atom in the server market.
But now in 2015 and we have the HP Moonshot as one of the few ARM server offerings actually available and we still don't have an ARM chip in the 20-80 TDP range. Did Ti, AMD, Broadcom, Qualcomm, etc just lose interest? Or did they see real issues that a bigger power supply and heat sink couldn't solve?
I think folks have tried to hit Xeon E3 performance levels with ARM and not met with any sort of reliable success. Broadcom Vulcan was supposed to hit 3 Ghz and be about the same speed as Haswell. Not yet. And if Qualcomm has a server grade ARM SoC it's being kept secret.
Meanwhile Intel has pushed forward with a 8 core 2 Ghz Xeon-D SoC at 14nm and a 45W TDP. And X-Gene is where? Back at 2013 Avoton performance level and worse performance per watt. And X-Gene 2 performance is only 50% better so when Denverton hits it'll STILL be back at C2750 performance levels.
This is why I keep rolling my eyes regarding an ARM based Mac. Not to say that Apple doesn't have a low end desktop ARM SoC in a lab somewhere but it just doesn't pay to switch until they can convert the whole OSX ecosystem to ARM. It would be a pain in the ass for almost all OSX developers including Apple. And if Apple did low end we'd have seen them use much cheaper and weaker Intel offerings before.
Maybe when TSMC and company catch up to Intel while Intel repeatedly rams headfirst into the 10nm wall and has to push releases further to the right. 2017 and counting.
No one was expecting that apart from those silly PR and news / hype. For some of the reason you listed below, such as Atom and Xeon-D.
And there is much more in the Server then CPU. Much like there is much more in the Mobile SoC then the CPU. For exactly the same reason, they have the first mover advantage.
No one was expecting that apart from those silly PR and news / hype. For some of the reason you listed below, such as Atom and Xeon-D.
And there is much more in the Server then CPU. Much like there is much more in the Mobile SoC then the CPU. For exactly the same reason, they have the first mover advantage.
I just re-read that post, and I think that was his point. It's hype until someone can demonstrate a working implementation.
I'm not sure hype is the word here. The problem with an implementation is finding someone with the incentive to make such a chip. At this point I really see Apple as the only possibility here. Will they do it? I really don' know but the concept is very interesting and I'd like to see Intel under pressure in its core businesses. This is also why I'd be happy to see a AMD chip in some of Apples machines.
Hi! Joined this forum just for this thread. Today, Apple updated their 27-inch iMac to Skylake and 5K display and added another variant to its 21-inch iMac which is a 4K beauty (Broadwell, meh). Let's just hope that Apple hasn't forgotten about the Mini we all love so much!
P.S. I'm looking to purchase a Mac Mini Skylake (2016) in March-Early April '16. Cheers!
P.P.S. The new Trackpad looks good!
I suspect you will be lucky to see a SkyLake Mini by then.
One thing no one wants to talk about is HOW ABSOLUTELY NOT ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY iMacs are. Display Tech is usable for most people beyond CPU tech. It would be so much greener to make a more powerful MacMini. When it becomes obsolete a lot less ends up in landfill than an iMac.
One thing no one wants to talk about is HOW ABSOLUTELY NOT ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY iMacs are. Display Tech is usable for most people beyond CPU tech. It would be so much greener to make a more powerful MacMini. When it becomes obsolete a lot less ends up in landfill than an iMac.
Not to nitpick, but i don't think much of it should end up in a land fill (its highly recyclable). But to be honest, if you keep your iMac 5 years, then use your old iMac as a dumb second screen, doesn't that make it about a 10 year window? And screen technology comes along way in 10 years.
edit: I say 5 years because if a mac mini is good enough, then an iMac is probably good enough after 4-5 years. People who turn computers over faster should sell them not throw them out.
Next year, GPUs are in for a significant shift in power. Might be worth waiting for. Who knows, maybe the Mini might get some crumbs from the table in that regard.
It's about worth updating the Mini this year. Even the iMac got a half baked update.
We're in a port, cpu and gpu transition. 2015 was a non-event with Intel struggling to 'deliver' anything significant. Maybe with AMD's zen and HBM2 gpus, Intel and Nvidia both will compete again for the end consumer.
The best thing about 2015, for me, was the iPad Pro.
For what you'd spend on a Mini...get one of those iPad Pros. And the screen is included.
Otherwise. Maybe wait a bit longer for 'power shift' to shake out in 2016. Ports. Memory. Gpus. Cpus. SSD continues to drop in price.
I'm targeting a 5k iMac for back end of next year. I guess what I'm thinking could be applied to the Mac Pro, Mini...and even the Macbook Pro line.
Lemon Bon Bon.
The best time to buy is when you don't have a choice. You then have to choose from what's available. This is how I ended up with a 13" MBP early this year. Otherwise you point out good reasons not to buy. Those being the fact that we are in a transitional period with new ports standards, RAM standards and other tech coming online. Ideally the next Mini will come with SkyLake, USB-C, DDR-4 and all the other new hardware features.
I'm also really disappointed with the ports situation, as mention Apple is dragging feet here with respect to USB-C. That may be because support chips aren't ready but frankly I expect more from Apple. Considering what has happened to the Mini of late that might be the case. I will note however that for most users today, good GPU performance is more important than lots of x86 cores. Quad core is an important long term bet for people that really use their computers X86 section and in many cases is required for today's software. So I can't dismiss Quad cores. The question is "what does Intel have in its current line up that could go into the Mini"? I'm not sure they have a decent solution.