I'm curious about the internal layout now. I guess iFixit will elucidate in a few days. I imagine that the components now reach to the top of the case and the hard drives are now stacked on each other neatly instead of perpendicular to each other. I bet the graphics card is on an MXM card like the iMacs use. Would be nice if it was, then a possible upgrade later on would be possible for those who like to expand.
That extra $200 gets you an extra 2GB of RAM, the discrete graphics (HD6630M - 480 shader cores at 485MHz, not a slouch at all even if it only has 256MB of its own RAM), and 200MHz on the CPU. Don't ask me why Apple skimped on the graphics memory, but at least it is GDDR5.
Considering this is Apple I'd have to say the extra $200 gives surprising value. Look at it this way that is enough graphics RAM and GPU support for reasonable OpenCL performance. In a nutshell Apple now has a low cost OpenCL machine.
Quote:
Even if you want 8GB, selling 2x 2GB sticks is far easier than selling 2x 1GB sticks, or the 4GB will last you until 8GB kits are even cheaper.
I would call the low-end Mini the 'office' configuration mini - fast enough CPU, graphics perfectly adequate for desktop use, enough RAM for office use.
It doesn't look to bad. However Apple is making it easy to turn up performance by offering up SSD / HD combo machines. This should lead to impressive user experiences.
Quote:
The $799 mini is the Mini for the home user that may wish to play games, or run Windows at the same time in Parallels, etc.
It could be a good business computer too.
What interests me is the quad core server variant. I'd love to see some benchmarking between that quad core model and it's least brother. Mainly I want to know how the Server Mini behaves as a XCode workstation with respect to the model below it. I would imagine for many others that quad core Mini could be a big advantage given the usage of lots of parallel code.
In any event it looks like Apple is going in the right direction with the Mini.
Oh, I know everything else that comes with the $800 price tag. However, at that point, anyone who just wants a desktop computer (and doesn't have a monitor laying around) might as well go with a more powerful low-end iMac. I was excited to see discrete graphics at a $600 price tag... and then not so excited to realize I was wrong. :P
Yep. My 17" iMac will need to be replaced for me to join the Lion party. I was thinking a mini would soften the hit to the credit card, but I'd like the discreet graphics, and then you're very close to an iMac with quad-core CPU, faster GPU, etc.
What's with the 256Mb of VRAM? The machine is awesome with that one exception. Even the crappy old GT120 card for the MacPro had 512Mb....
It's amazing how even with an update surpassing anyone's expectations, people can still find the time to WHINE ABOUT FEATURES that they didn't even expect would happen in the first place.
It wasn't a whine smarta$$, it was a curiosity question. Why a discrete graphics chip with only 256Mb of VRAM? It just seems out of place, considering (as stated) older ones had more and these days most all are coming with 512MB to 1G of VRAM.
So for me to use the mini on my tv in the future as home entertainment system and to watch DVDs with it I need to either:
Use a remote disk on another computer within the home network, or
Rip the DVD on another computer then transfer the file over to the mini, or
Directly connect a USB DVD drive to it.
I support the fact that apple is pushing forward the new technologies and leaving behind the old, but I'm pretty sure DVDs are going to be around for sometime yet, especially for movies and such, killing them now is just a little premature in my opinion, especially on the mini.
While I disagree with the notion that removing optical drives from Mac computers is a good thing, I also disagree that DVD is the future for home entertainment systems. If you have an HDTV and you want the highest quality video, you want Blu-ray, so you're going to be dealing with an external device anyway (since Apple refuses to support Blu-ray). If you're not going to use Blu-ray as a source, you might as well download.
If you'd be so kind as to make your post look like this section, that'd be great.
Quote:
considering (as stated) older ones had more and these days most all are coming with 512MB to 1G of VRAM.
Considering... what? Older what? Older professional desktop models? Sure, well, let's just go back and look at... OH what have we here? A low-end desktop model? One that is roughly one-thirtieth the physical size of, uses one-tenth the power of, and is designed to be nowhere near as fully featured as the professional desktop Mac to which you have erroneously compared the Mac Mini?
Why, I do believe it IS the low-end desktop model. Low-end being the key phrase.
It doesn't look to bad. However Apple is making it easy to turn up performance by offering up SSD / HD combo machines. This should lead to impressive user experiences.
This is the most exciting thing for me, because it means apple understands the utility. I'm hoping we see Macbook Pro's that offer this in the future...since it is what I'm doing in my macbook pro now.
The discrete graphics is a welcome addition... but, according to the Apple store, it's not available on the base model. The base model uses Intel's 3000M. If you want discrete graphics, you're shelling out $800.
Yea. The small amount of VRAM isn't optimal, but I'm happy they're at least offering it, even if it's only 256MB of VRAM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hattig
That extra $200 gets you an extra 2GB of RAM, the discrete graphics (HD6630M - 480 shader cores at 485MHz, not a slouch at all even if it only has 256MB of its own RAM), and 200MHz on the CPU. Don't ask me why Apple skimped on the graphics memory, but at least it is GDDR5.
I would call the low-end Mini the 'office' configuration mini - fast enough CPU, graphics perfectly adequate for desktop use, enough RAM for office use.
The $799 mini is the Mini for the home user that may wish to play games, or run Windows at the same time in Parallels, etc.
Agreed. The GPU is a big leap in performance for those who need it.
Though after you get the 799 model, and then if you spring for the i7 processor, you're at $900, which then makes you wonder if you should just get a 21" iMac with a quad core i5 and a 512MB GPU, and a awesome 21" screen (IPS?)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Outsider
The previous mini had this feature too. One of my favorite features of it. Now we just need a twist top to make use of all that extra space from the optical.
Thus ends the life of the Mac Mini as a home-theater PC. Back to a table-top of mismatched remotes...
I agree and am equally sad. I haven't used the Air external disk. Does it work seamlessly? If so, that's fine - we don't watch a ton of DVDs but I really liked a single machine to play DVDs, music, streamed video and stored video.
Our mini is giving up the ghost, I deferred buying the new mini after hearing that a new one was coming the fall (turns out it was summer). And now am wondering whether to buy the old ones as they start disappearing.
Does anyone know if the air external disk works easily? Easily enough for family to use? And can one be shared with multiple computers? May end up buying an air as well if so!
This means you can run an incredibly clean system with a Apple Thunderbolt Display by simply mounting the Mac mini "out of sight out of mind" and hooking the external superdrive and other peripherals to the display. Voila
Thunderbolt is really nice. Even the base $600 dollar Mac mini sitting in front if a TB RAID would make for a fast NAS.
Glad to see the CPU muscle, but Apple's not doing anything more for me on supporting multiple displays. There's always the mac pro but that did not get the expected refresh today. I guess if you want hella monitors you have to get the 27" iMac which has dual Thunderbolt ports, then you could have three 2560x1440 monitors (counting the iMac). Its making me think about going hackintosh; straight PC hardware makes it easy to support two or 3 big monitors. Right now I have a 2009 mac mini driving a Dell u2711 and a generic 1920x1200, and these new models don't give me more.
It should be easy to upgrade the RAM. What about the hard disk? Anyone know does Lion support TRIM?
Comments
That extra $200 gets you an extra 2GB of RAM, the discrete graphics (HD6630M - 480 shader cores at 485MHz, not a slouch at all even if it only has 256MB of its own RAM), and 200MHz on the CPU. Don't ask me why Apple skimped on the graphics memory, but at least it is GDDR5.
Considering this is Apple I'd have to say the extra $200 gives surprising value. Look at it this way that is enough graphics RAM and GPU support for reasonable OpenCL performance. In a nutshell Apple now has a low cost OpenCL machine.
Even if you want 8GB, selling 2x 2GB sticks is far easier than selling 2x 1GB sticks, or the 4GB will last you until 8GB kits are even cheaper.
I would call the low-end Mini the 'office' configuration mini - fast enough CPU, graphics perfectly adequate for desktop use, enough RAM for office use.
It doesn't look to bad. However Apple is making it easy to turn up performance by offering up SSD / HD combo machines. This should lead to impressive user experiences.
The $799 mini is the Mini for the home user that may wish to play games, or run Windows at the same time in Parallels, etc.
It could be a good business computer too.
What interests me is the quad core server variant. I'd love to see some benchmarking between that quad core model and it's least brother. Mainly I want to know how the Server Mini behaves as a XCode workstation with respect to the model below it. I would imagine for many others that quad core Mini could be a big advantage given the usage of lots of parallel code.
In any event it looks like Apple is going in the right direction with the Mini.
Oh, I know everything else that comes with the $800 price tag. However, at that point, anyone who just wants a desktop computer (and doesn't have a monitor laying around) might as well go with a more powerful low-end iMac. I was excited to see discrete graphics at a $600 price tag... and then not so excited to realize I was wrong. :P
Yep. My 17" iMac will need to be replaced for me to join the Lion party. I was thinking a mini would soften the hit to the credit card, but I'd like the discreet graphics, and then you're very close to an iMac with quad-core CPU, faster GPU, etc.
- Jasen.
What's with the 256Mb of VRAM? The machine is awesome with that one exception. Even the crappy old GT120 card for the MacPro had 512Mb....
It's amazing how even with an update surpassing anyone's expectations, people can still find the time to WHINE ABOUT FEATURES that they didn't even expect would happen in the first place.
http://ark.intel.com/products/53449/...Cache-2_30-GHz)
+1
So for me to use the mini on my tv in the future as home entertainment system and to watch DVDs with it I need to either:
Use a remote disk on another computer within the home network, or
Rip the DVD on another computer then transfer the file over to the mini, or
Directly connect a USB DVD drive to it.
I support the fact that apple is pushing forward the new technologies and leaving behind the old, but I'm pretty sure DVDs are going to be around for sometime yet, especially for movies and such, killing them now is just a little premature in my opinion, especially on the mini.
While I disagree with the notion that removing optical drives from Mac computers is a good thing, I also disagree that DVD is the future for home entertainment systems. If you have an HDTV and you want the highest quality video, you want Blu-ray, so you're going to be dealing with an external device anyway (since Apple refuses to support Blu-ray). If you're not going to use Blu-ray as a source, you might as well download.
It wasn't a whine,
If you'd be so kind as to make your post look like this section, that'd be great.
considering (as stated) older ones had more and these days most all are coming with 512MB to 1G of VRAM.
Considering... what? Older what? Older professional desktop models? Sure, well, let's just go back and look at... OH what have we here? A low-end desktop model? One that is roughly one-thirtieth the physical size of, uses one-tenth the power of, and is designed to be nowhere near as fully featured as the professional desktop Mac to which you have erroneously compared the Mac Mini?
Why, I do believe it IS the low-end desktop model. Low-end being the key phrase.
It doesn't look to bad. However Apple is making it easy to turn up performance by offering up SSD / HD combo machines. This should lead to impressive user experiences.
This is the most exciting thing for me, because it means apple understands the utility. I'm hoping we see Macbook Pro's that offer this in the future...since it is what I'm doing in my macbook pro now.
The discrete graphics is a welcome addition... but, according to the Apple store, it's not available on the base model. The base model uses Intel's 3000M. If you want discrete graphics, you're shelling out $800.
Yea. The small amount of VRAM isn't optimal, but I'm happy they're at least offering it, even if it's only 256MB of VRAM
That extra $200 gets you an extra 2GB of RAM, the discrete graphics (HD6630M - 480 shader cores at 485MHz, not a slouch at all even if it only has 256MB of its own RAM), and 200MHz on the CPU. Don't ask me why Apple skimped on the graphics memory, but at least it is GDDR5.
I would call the low-end Mini the 'office' configuration mini - fast enough CPU, graphics perfectly adequate for desktop use, enough RAM for office use.
The $799 mini is the Mini for the home user that may wish to play games, or run Windows at the same time in Parallels, etc.
Agreed. The GPU is a big leap in performance for those who need it.
Though after you get the 799 model, and then if you spring for the i7 processor, you're at $900, which then makes you wonder if you should just get a 21" iMac with a quad core i5 and a 512MB GPU, and a awesome 21" screen (IPS?)
The previous mini had this feature too. One of my favorite features of it. Now we just need a twist top to make use of all that extra space from the optical.
Didn't know that. Still cool though, heh.
Thus ends the life of the Mac Mini as a home-theater PC. Back to a table-top of mismatched remotes...
I agree and am equally sad. I haven't used the Air external disk. Does it work seamlessly? If so, that's fine - we don't watch a ton of DVDs but I really liked a single machine to play DVDs, music, streamed video and stored video.
Our mini is giving up the ghost, I deferred buying the new mini after hearing that a new one was coming the fall (turns out it was summer). And now am wondering whether to buy the old ones as they start disappearing.
Does anyone know if the air external disk works easily? Easily enough for family to use? And can one be shared with multiple computers? May end up buying an air as well if so!
Why do think it's not a good home-theater computer?
not having a dvd player makes it a less useful home-theater computer. but not fatal if air superdrive works well.
This means you can run an incredibly clean system with a Apple Thunderbolt Display by simply mounting the Mac mini "out of sight out of mind" and hooking the external superdrive and other peripherals to the display. Voila
Thunderbolt is really nice. Even the base $600 dollar Mac mini sitting in front if a TB RAID would make for a fast NAS.
It should be easy to upgrade the RAM. What about the hard disk? Anyone know does Lion support TRIM?
not having a dvd player makes it a less useful home-theater computer. but not fatal if air superdrive works well.
Air superdrive? Why couldn't you just plug it in the back of the Mini?
Right now I have a 2009 mac mini driving a Dell u2711 and a generic 1920x1200, and these new models don't give me more.
The Thunderbolt port lets you daisy chain monitors...
Air superdrive? Why couldn't you just plug it in the back of the Mini?
Uh, that's exactly what he's talking about.