Some 1 1/2 years down the road, Apple ought to have upgraded chipset options too. They continue to half ass updates like the old days.
Yes, a boost in CPU with improved graphics that come with that from intel is more than warranted.
It’s either that the accountants at Apple are in charge or they are lazy. This is the most modest “update” possible, it’s the equivalent of another SKU offering of the same thing. Mac users need better updates instead of repackaging the same darned model and pretending it is an update.
It's an update to a better CPU and GPU with double the capacity at the same price point. Stop complaining!
What CPU/GPU update are you talking about? "Nothing else appears to have changed in the Mac mini other than the default flash storage."
I suppose people are wanting the xMac? (I'd like that too!). Otherwise, this *is* the new Mac mini Pro. It has the pro-coloring, some pro parts inside. I wish there were more of a Mac Pro lite... something more in-between. But, as someone else mentioned, the Mac mini is every bit as pro as any MacBook Pro, and isn't too far off from the iMac Pro.
The only thing the Mac Mini needs is a BTO option for a discrete GPU or at least Intel Iris Pro.
Yeah, that would be nice as a BTO, for sure.
wizard69 said: At least in my case the answer is pretty simple, a Mini pro needs a decent external GPU and free M2 storage slots. It doesn’t have to be big and it doesn’t have multiple slots. It just needs to be useful to Engineers and such that need good graphical performance and deal with large files.
Just add an eGPU and a Samsung T5. Or, if you really need more speed on that external storage, OWC has some nice options.
Still extremely disappointed with Apple in regards to Mac mini. It is supposed to be the low cost option, the switchers paradise, the Mac for "the rest of us." ... The last decent mini was the Quad Core i7 Mac mini server.
Unfortunately (for you, or fortunately in my case), the mini isn't aimed at that market anymore. I do wish Apple had something more like that, so in that regard, I agree. However, my 6-core i7 mini begs to differ that the last decent one was that Quad-core. If it were, I'd have bought one of those instead.
Does anyone here have the previous Mac mini? What do you use it for? I currently run a decent hackintosh, but would like to return to the Mac at some point, I just can't justify the price point for the older hardware and lack of GPU options.
Do you mean the previous version of this new updated mini... ie. 2018 Mac mini? Yes, I have the 6-core i7 version to which I've added a Blackmagic eGPU and a Samsung T5 SSD. I ***LOVE*** it! While I could fantasize about some other machine Apple could make that I'd like even more, this thing is pretty great.
My only gripe with it is that Apple could have made it a bit bigger and handled the cooling aspect better. If you run it full-out, it gets kinda noisy (and I'd worry about longevity in that case). Even under relatively low load, it can get more noisy than I'm happy with. However, if you get 'Turbo Boost Switcher Pro' and just turn Turbo Boost off, it runs nicely quiet unless you really push it, and I just don't need that extra performance edge most of the time. (It has SIX cores, TWELVE virtual cores I can throw at stuff.)
Isn't that an oxymoron... a Mac Mini Pro. What would be the point of a non-pro Mac Mini that is pro in name only.
What I would like to see is a lowering of the entry point of the Mac Pro to an Intel i5 or i7 perhaps - maybe we could call it the Mac Pro Mini (LOL). But it would still have the ugradability and configurability pro goodness that some of us poorer professional crave.
What we all really want is would be call "Mac".
Not a book - we don't need portable.
Not an i - we don't want to chuck the display when we upgrade.
Not a pro - don't need all that server class stuff at premium prices.
Its just a Mac - its got an expansion slot for a video card, upgradeable memory, a couple drive bays, and a decent choice of the latest processors.
yeloshak said: What we all really want is would be call "Mac".
Not a book - we don't need portable.
Not an i - we don't want to chuck the display when we upgrade.
Not a pro - don't need all that server class stuff at premium prices.
Its just a Mac - its got an expansion slot for a video card, upgradeable memory, a couple drive bays, and a decent choice of the latest processors.
I totally agree. This is the fabled xMac, basically.
The closest thing Apple has to that, seems to be the Mac mini with an eGPU and external storage. I'm pretty happy with mine, but it isn't quite what you're describing there. And, it probably costs a bit more money than you'd hope to put it all together. But, it accomplishes that purpose pretty well.
I suppose people are wanting the xMac? (I'd like that too!). Otherwise, this *is* the new Mac mini Pro. It has the pro-coloring, some pro parts inside. I wish there were more of a Mac Pro lite... something more in-between. But, as someone else mentioned, the Mac mini is every bit as pro as any MacBook Pro, and isn't too far off from the iMac Pro.
The only thing the Mac Mini needs is a BTO option for a discrete GPU or at least Intel Iris Pro.
Yeah, that would be nice as a BTO, for sure.
wizard69 said: At least in my case the answer is pretty simple, a Mini pro needs a decent external GPU and free M2 storage slots. It doesn’t have to be big and it doesn’t have multiple slots. It just needs to be useful to Engineers and such that need good graphical performance and deal with large files.
Just add an eGPU and a Samsung T5. Or, if you really need more speed on that external storage, OWC has some nice options.
Still extremely disappointed with Apple in regards to Mac mini. It is supposed to be the low cost option, the switchers paradise, the Mac for "the rest of us." ... The last decent mini was the Quad Core i7 Mac mini server.
Unfortunately (for you, or fortunately in my case), the mini isn't aimed at that market anymore. I do wish Apple had something more like that, so in that regard, I agree. However, my 6-core i7 mini begs to differ that the last decent one was that Quad-core. If it were, I'd have bought one of those instead.
Does anyone here have the previous Mac mini? What do you use it for? I currently run a decent hackintosh, but would like to return to the Mac at some point, I just can't justify the price point for the older hardware and lack of GPU options.
Do you mean the previous version of this new updated mini... ie. 2018 Mac mini? Yes, I have the 6-core i7 version to which I've added a Blackmagic eGPU and a Samsung T5 SSD. I ***LOVE*** it! While I could fantasize about some other machine Apple could make that I'd like even more, this thing is pretty great.
My only gripe with it is that Apple could have made it a bit bigger and handled the cooling aspect better. If you run it full-out, it gets kinda noisy (and I'd worry about longevity in that case). Even under relatively low load, it can get more noisy than I'm happy with. However, if you get 'Turbo Boost Switcher Pro' and just turn Turbo Boost off, it runs nicely quiet unless you really push it, and I just don't need that extra performance edge most of the time. (It has SIX cores, TWELVE virtual cores I can throw at stuff.)
If you had a 2020 Mac Mini with the i7 processor and 64 GB of RAM would you need an eGPU to run a single 27” 2560 x 1440 monitor? Also would the Intel graphics be able to handle Photoshop and Lightroom without any performance issues?
pulseimages said: If you had a 2020 Mac Mini with the i7 processor and 64 GB of RAM would you need an eGPU to run a single 27” 2560 x 1440 monitor? Also would the Intel graphics be able to handle Photoshop and Lightroom without any performance issues?
Sent you a direct response, but I just don't know enough about those two apps and how they might use the GPU. I generally don't think of apps like that as being GPU-hungry like 3D, games, or certain kinds of video production. But, being Adobe, who knows? I'd guess they'd be able to run, it's just a matter of how boosted, if they utilize GPU.
That monitor resolution doesn't sound like an issue. It's typically more an issue when you approach 4k or 5k or multiple of them. But, I suppose the higher the rez, the more a powerful GPU helps keep things nice and smooth. But, I think even iGPUs do that fine these days for something like that.
And, you can always add an eGPU if you weren't happy with the iGPU performance. I still think the mini is a solid machine assuming you don't need what the latest iMac offers. It's still near the fastest (in i7 config) non-Pro Mac.
Comments
"Nothing else appears to have changed in the Mac mini other than the default flash storage."
I wish there were more of a Mac Pro lite... something more in-between. But, as someone else mentioned, the Mac mini is every bit as pro as any MacBook Pro, and isn't too far off from the iMac Pro.
Yeah, that would be nice as a BTO, for sure.
Just add an eGPU and a Samsung T5. Or, if you really need more speed on that external storage, OWC has some nice options.
Unfortunately (for you, or fortunately in my case), the mini isn't aimed at that market anymore. I do wish Apple had something more like that, so in that regard, I agree. However, my 6-core i7 mini begs to differ that the last decent one was that Quad-core. If it were, I'd have bought one of those instead.
Do you mean the previous version of this new updated mini... ie. 2018 Mac mini? Yes, I have the 6-core i7 version to which I've added a Blackmagic eGPU and a Samsung T5 SSD. I ***LOVE*** it! While I could fantasize about some other machine Apple could make that I'd like even more, this thing is pretty great.
My only gripe with it is that Apple could have made it a bit bigger and handled the cooling aspect better. If you run it full-out, it gets kinda noisy (and I'd worry about longevity in that case). Even under relatively low load, it can get more noisy than I'm happy with. However, if you get 'Turbo Boost Switcher Pro' and just turn Turbo Boost off, it runs nicely quiet unless you really push it, and I just don't need that extra performance edge most of the time. (It has SIX cores, TWELVE virtual cores I can throw at stuff.)
The closest thing Apple has to that, seems to be the Mac mini with an eGPU and external storage. I'm pretty happy with mine, but it isn't quite what you're describing there. And, it probably costs a bit more money than you'd hope to put it all together. But, it accomplishes that purpose pretty well.
That monitor resolution doesn't sound like an issue. It's typically more an issue when you approach 4k or 5k or multiple of them. But, I suppose the higher the rez, the more a powerful GPU helps keep things nice and smooth. But, I think even iGPUs do that fine these days for something like that.
And, you can always add an eGPU if you weren't happy with the iGPU performance. I still think the mini is a solid machine assuming you don't need what the latest iMac offers. It's still near the fastest (in i7 config) non-Pro Mac.