Anyway, it might be better for me to look ahead to next year. Again it's a matter of want vs. need. If I had bought a mini back in 2010 and was using a Core 2 Duo then the 2012 quad-core mini would be perfect. Any quad-core Haswell is a nice jump over Sandy Bridge, right? Dual-core I don't know.
Haswell is defiantly the next CPU. I would like to see support for 64GB and a 512GB SSD option.
I think the biggest potential for making the Mini smaller would be to remove the power supply from the inside of the machine (this would also help with using it as a server, right?)
It makes for a far more flexible machine, one that can be quickly adapted to alternative uses. This is especially the case if it supports standard voltage input to the box, say 12, 24 or 48 VDC. 24 VDC is very common in the industrial world. Even better if it uses a common and freely available connector to get power into that box. Such a box could easily be integrated into everything from a milling machine to a sail boat.
USB 3.1 was finalized in the summer, but Intel likely isn't adding it in for some time, and even if Apple went crazy and decided to push the TB competitor early, the Mini isn't a candidate for debuting this tech. (I do wonder when it will reach the iMac though.)
We do you keep repeating the non sense about TB and USB competing with each other. The ports are so different it is like saying RS232 competed with the parallel port.
I think they add TB2 and the new wifi standard and ship it. They need a low end switcher machine. Unless the TB Display changes colour, I think they stick with silver.
Seriously the low end switch machine is the iPad. I really think the only way to success anymore on the desktop is a higher end machine that isn't a Mac Pro but offers more performance than an iMac. The market for low end desktop hardware hardly exists anymore.
The Mac Mini may be dropped this is a certain rumor I heard from someone who has reliable sources.
I don't even need a rumor to suspect this. Apple basically ignored the machine in the same way they let the Mac Pro slip for years. Now sales are terrible and as such they are reconsidering the market position. In light of the success of the iPad the Mini has become outmoded. The majority of those still interested in desktop machines will want more performance than the Minis box can offer.
I think the biggest potential for making the Mini smaller would be to remove the power supply from the inside of the machine (this would also help with using it as a server, right?)
The old one had a brick. They went away from that design, not toward it. Power bricks are generally not the best power supplies anyway.
Power bricks are like anything else you get what you pay for. Interestingly Apples laptop power bricks suck in the sense that the power cord eventually gets damaged. This isn't a problem on a stationary machine though. Given that I've seen examples of laptop power bricks lasting far longer than some desktop power supplies out there. In the end I'm not sure why Apple discontinued the external supply for the Mini. I do see the internal supply on the Mini as a disadvantage.
All in all if they go with a more powerful machine as a replacement they would likely need an internal power supply anyways. I still see the majority of the desktop market going to bigger machines. The low end market is just dead. Now that doesn't mean Apple agrees, they could easily shrink the machine yet again. We all know Apple loves thin and small. As such I can see the Mini coming in at half its current volume, maybe even less with an external power supply. I say volume here because the shape could change dramatically.
The problem I see is how do you market a low end desktop anymore. Most people going the desktop route have well defined reasons for doing so. Often that means performance.
Anyway, it might be better for me to look ahead to next year. Again it's a matter of want vs. need. If I had bought a mini back in 2010 and was using a Core 2 Duo then the 2012 quad-core mini would be perfect. Any quad-core Haswell is a nice jump over Sandy Bridge, right? Dual-core I don't know.
Haswell is defiantly the next CPU. I would like to see support for 64GB and a 512GB SSD option.
The Haswell CPUs have very little on Sandy Bridge. There are some vector instructions improvements in place but for general computing Haswell is basically a wash performance wise over Sandy Bridge. Haswell wins in low power and GPU improvements. The lower power nature of Haswell "MIGHT" result in higher CPU performance if a significantly higher clock rate can be had. However in most of the chips Intel has on the market now the gains from power savings have gone to enhanced GPU performance.
In the end the only real reason to wait for a Haswell based Mini is the enhanced GPU performance. Of course we don't know what Apple has up its sleeves but the right chip in the Mini could lead to impressively good performance out of the box. Well GPU performance that is.
As for SSDs the Mini needs the same blades Apple is using in the rest of its lineup. That means compact PCI Express connected SSDs. As for 64GB of RAM in the Mini, that would currently be a tight squeeze. Honestly though I expect to see soldered in RAM in the future.
I was being sarcastic in regards to marv's post because if he has reliable sources about the mini, I had lunch with Phil Schiller this evening.
What I mean is, suppose Apple released a quad-core mini with the i7-4702HQ or MQ with the Intel HD 4600 graphics, how much better would that be over the Intel HD 3000 in my i5-2410M (or maybe it's i5-2415M)?
I was being sarcastic in regards to marv's post because if he has reliable sources about the mini, I had lunch with Phil Schiller this evening.
What I mean is, suppose Apple released a quad-core mini with the i7-4702HQ or MQ with the Intel HD 4600 graphics, how much better would that be over the Intel HD 3000 in my i5-2410M (or maybe it's i5-2415M)?
Not much, really though how many here needs more power then a Core2Duo. The person with the best CPU benchmarks win.
Power bricks are like anything else you get what you pay for. Interestingly Apples laptop power bricks suck in the sense that the power cord eventually gets damaged. This isn't a problem on a stationary machine though. Given that I've seen examples of laptop power bricks lasting far longer than some desktop power supplies out there. In the end I'm not sure why Apple discontinued the external supply for the Mini. I do see the internal supply on the Mini as a disadvantage.
All in all if they go with a more powerful machine as a replacement they would likely need an internal power supply anyways. I still see the majority of the desktop market going to bigger machines. The low end market is just dead. Now that doesn't mean Apple agrees, they could easily shrink the machine yet again. We all know Apple loves thin and small. As such I can see the Mini coming in at half its current volume, maybe even less with an external power supply. I say volume here because the shape could change dramatically.
The problem I see is how do you market a low end desktop anymore. Most people going the desktop route have well defined reasons for doing so. Often that means performance.
There are a lot of choices related to stationary machines that puzzle me. In terms of the mini specifically, I would be surprised if they reversed direction on some of those design choices. It certainly makes a decent Xcode machine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Relic
Not much, really though how many here needs more power then a Core2Duo. The person with the best CPU benchmarks win.
That's why I've been paying attention to ARM, much like I mentioned. I'm still not used to the style of Objective-C though. The shear amount of abstraction annoys me. I like its ability to cut some of the branching by passing back nil when necessary, but beyond that it annoys me if I'm not sure how it translates to binary or machine instructions. I'm also irritated that iOS lacks OpenCL, given that everything I'm working on at the moment could take advantage of it.
I could be mis-remembering this, but I think the power supply was pulled into the Mini back when the Xserve and Mac Pro were server competitors.
Now that Xserve is toast and almost nobody buys $3000. cylindrical machines for a server room, it makes sense to push the Mini hard as a flexible server solution.
Sonnet's already taken the lead with this. A user-replaceable power supply would only make it better.
We do you keep repeating the non sense about TB and USB competing with each other. The ports are so different it is like saying RS232 competed with the parallel port.
On the Mac, they're not necessarily competitive. On the PC side, USB 3.1 and TB2 will definitely compete.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Seriously the low end switch machine is the iPad. I really think the only way to success anymore on the desktop is a higher end machine that isn't a Mac Pro but offers more performance than an iMac. The market for low end desktop hardware hardly exists anymore.
True, but I doubt Apple's going to stop trying to sell low-end users both a Mac and an iPad.
And in the midst of the current economic uncertainty, you don't abandon your low-end solution.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
So how do you know that?
Because the Pro comes out in December, and Apple's probably not releasing it during the Christmas-New Years window.
As I've said before, I think the Mini will be silently updated along with the Pro's introduction.
On the Mac, they're not necessarily competitive. On the PC side, USB 3.1 and TB2 will definitely compete.
Actually on the PC they compete even less from what I can see.
True, but I doubt Apple's going to stop trying to sell low-end users both a Mac and an iPad. And in the midst of the current economic uncertainty, you don't abandon your low-end solution.
You abandon rather quickly if sales suck. The vast majority of all Mac desktop sales go to the iMac. Everything else has been in decline.
Because the Pro comes out in December, and Apple's probably not releasing it during the Christmas-New Years window.
As I've said before, I think the Mini will be silently updated along with the Pro's introduction.
Well you can think that and hope that but you can't state it as fact.
There are a lot of choices related to stationary machines that puzzle me. In terms of the mini specifically, I would be surprised if they reversed direction on some of those design choices. It certainly makes a decent Xcode machine.
The Mini is pretty popular with developers and does a good job for smaller projects. XCode however can make good use of lots of hardware threads, so I think many developers are tempted buy faster hardware. The Mini could certainly leverage an SSD and a design supporting Apple a fast SSD blades would be rally nice.
This is a throw back, but I remember back when I got my Mac Plus and one of the compilers from an odd company I can't remember now. In any event bugs galore in the compiler and libraries.
That's why I've been paying attention to ARM, much like I mentioned. I'm still not used to the style of Objective-C though. The shear amount of abstraction annoys me.
There is at least some ability to make use of C++. The verbosity does bother me also. Worst the way the GUI works just bugs the hell out of me. I find it very unnatural, I'd rather use Python and tkinter .
I like its ability to cut some of the branching by passing back nil when necessary, but beyond that it annoys me if I'm not sure how it translates to binary or machine instructions. I'm also irritated that iOS lacks OpenCL, given that everything I'm working on at the moment could take advantage of it.
Actually I'm not sure what's up with OpenCL on iOS. Obviously it wouldn't be of much use on the early devices but the new hardware should support compute on the GPUs plus they should be able to run OpenCL against the CPU vector units. I have to wonder when this will debut, I've not heard even a rumor.
Actually I'm not sure what's up with OpenCL on iOS. Obviously it wouldn't be of much use on the early devices but the new hardware should support compute on the GPUs plus they should be able to run OpenCL against the CPU vector units. I have to wonder when this will debut, I've not heard even a rumor.
I hate to say this but if you want to mess around with OpenCL on a mobile device, the Nexus 7 makes a neat little development platform. Creating an OpenCL-enabled Android App with PGCL is quite easy to get started with and actually a lot of fun, if I do say so myself. What you learn there can then be transferred to iOS when the time comes. I use Eclipse in the ADT bundle, Android NDK, as you'll be using C++ for OpenCL (see why I said your knowledge will be transferable to iOS) and a 64BIT Linux distro. Since I use all of this on my Macbook Air I just install Ubuntu 13.10 in a Virtual Machine using the free VirtualBox.
Just a silly suggestion as a Nexus 7 won't break the bank, the Android development kit is free and you'll be able to start sooner then later with learning how to use OpenCL on a multi-Core CPU/GPU ARM mobile device.
I want my soup can Mac mini with four USB 3.0 ports maybe a 3.1, at least 1 TB2 port maybe 2, PCIe flash storage, 8 GB RAM minimum but 16 GB is better, and Iris graphics. $699
I hate to say this but if you want to mess around with OpenCL on a mobile device, the Nexus 7 makes a neat little development platform. Creating an OpenCL-enabled Android App with PGCL is quite easy to get started with and actually a lot of fun, if I do say so myself. What you learn there can then be transferred to iOS when the time comes. I use Eclipse in the ADT bundle, Android NDK, as you'll be using C++ for OpenCL (see why I said your knowledge will be transferable to iOS) and a 64BIT Linux distro. Since I use all of this on my Macbook Air I just install Ubuntu 13.10 in a Virtual Machine using the free VirtualBox.
Just a silly suggestion as a Nexus 7 won't break the bank, the Android development kit is free and you'll be able to start sooner then later with learning how to use OpenCL on a multi-Core CPU/GPU ARM mobile device.
Bleh.. Ubuntu is the diet pepsi of linux. It's one calorie linux. I hadn't really looked into Android though. Know a good book on OpenCL?
Bleh.. Ubuntu is the diet pepsi of linux. It's one calorie linux. I hadn't really looked into Android though. Know a good book on OpenCL?
Haha, yea I know what you mean but it runs quite well in Virtualbox and includes everything you'll need in it's depositories to setup up a quick development environment. Android developers use Ubuntu as their development platform of choice so it's almost push button when it comes to creating your environment. I personally use Debian and CentOS. These are a must have; Heterogeneous Computing with OpenCL, 2nd Edition and OpenCL Parallel Programming Development Cookbook.
Haha, yea I know what you mean but it runs quite well in Virtualbox and includes everything you'll need in it's depositories to setup up a quick development environment. Android developers use Ubuntu as their development platform of choice so it's almost push button when it comes to creating your environment. I personally use Debian and CentOS. These are a must have; Heterogeneous Computing with OpenCL, 2nd Edition and OpenCL Parallel Programming Development Cookbook.
I'm not sure if you caught the Austin Powers reference. I like Debian. I considered Fedora simply because it supports a number of 3d packages, although installing them on Fedora is extremely annoying. It also has some stable color management libraries because of that. I'm going to order that first book.
I'm not sure if you caught the Austin Powers reference. I like Debian. I considered Fedora simply because it supports a number of 3d packages, although installing them on Fedora is extremely annoying. It also has some stable color management libraries because of that. I'm going to order that first book.
If you like Fedora, you should really look into CentOS, It's almost identical to Redhat. There are some pretty good apps for Fedora that installs all of those pesky things like multimedia codecs, drivers, etc., try "easylife".
If you like Fedora, you should really look into CentOS, It's almost identical to Redhat. There are some pretty good apps for Fedora that installs all of those pesky things like multimedia codecs, drivers, etc., try "easylife".
I hadn't previously considered Virtualbox. What do you like specifically about CentOS?
Comments
Oh I completely believe you.
---
Anyway, it might be better for me to look ahead to next year. Again it's a matter of want vs. need. If I had bought a mini back in 2010 and was using a Core 2 Duo then the 2012 quad-core mini would be perfect. Any quad-core Haswell is a nice jump over Sandy Bridge, right? Dual-core I don't know.
Haswell is defiantly the next CPU. I would like to see support for 64GB and a 512GB SSD option.
So how do you know that?
I don't even need a rumor to suspect this. Apple basically ignored the machine in the same way they let the Mac Pro slip for years. Now sales are terrible and as such they are reconsidering the market position. In light of the success of the iPad the Mini has become outmoded. The majority of those still interested in desktop machines will want more performance than the Minis box can offer.
Power bricks are like anything else you get what you pay for. Interestingly Apples laptop power bricks suck in the sense that the power cord eventually gets damaged. This isn't a problem on a stationary machine though. Given that I've seen examples of laptop power bricks lasting far longer than some desktop power supplies out there. In the end I'm not sure why Apple discontinued the external supply for the Mini. I do see the internal supply on the Mini as a disadvantage.
All in all if they go with a more powerful machine as a replacement they would likely need an internal power supply anyways. I still see the majority of the desktop market going to bigger machines. The low end market is just dead. Now that doesn't mean Apple agrees, they could easily shrink the machine yet again. We all know Apple loves thin and small. As such I can see the Mini coming in at half its current volume, maybe even less with an external power supply. I say volume here because the shape could change dramatically.
The problem I see is how do you market a low end desktop anymore. Most people going the desktop route have well defined reasons for doing so. Often that means performance.
The Haswell CPUs have very little on Sandy Bridge. There are some vector instructions improvements in place but for general computing Haswell is basically a wash performance wise over Sandy Bridge. Haswell wins in low power and GPU improvements. The lower power nature of Haswell "MIGHT" result in higher CPU performance if a significantly higher clock rate can be had. However in most of the chips Intel has on the market now the gains from power savings have gone to enhanced GPU performance.
In the end the only real reason to wait for a Haswell based Mini is the enhanced GPU performance. Of course we don't know what Apple has up its sleeves but the right chip in the Mini could lead to impressively good performance out of the box. Well GPU performance that is.
As for SSDs the Mini needs the same blades Apple is using in the rest of its lineup. That means compact PCI Express connected SSDs. As for 64GB of RAM in the Mini, that would currently be a tight squeeze. Honestly though I expect to see soldered in RAM in the future.
What I mean is, suppose Apple released a quad-core mini with the i7-4702HQ or MQ with the Intel HD 4600 graphics, how much better would that be over the Intel HD 3000 in my i5-2410M (or maybe it's i5-2415M)?
I was being sarcastic in regards to marv's post because if he has reliable sources about the mini, I had lunch with Phil Schiller this evening.
What I mean is, suppose Apple released a quad-core mini with the i7-4702HQ or MQ with the Intel HD 4600 graphics, how much better would that be over the Intel HD 3000 in my i5-2410M (or maybe it's i5-2415M)?
Not much, really though how many here needs more power then a Core2Duo. The person with the best CPU benchmarks win.
Power bricks are like anything else you get what you pay for. Interestingly Apples laptop power bricks suck in the sense that the power cord eventually gets damaged. This isn't a problem on a stationary machine though. Given that I've seen examples of laptop power bricks lasting far longer than some desktop power supplies out there. In the end I'm not sure why Apple discontinued the external supply for the Mini. I do see the internal supply on the Mini as a disadvantage.
All in all if they go with a more powerful machine as a replacement they would likely need an internal power supply anyways. I still see the majority of the desktop market going to bigger machines. The low end market is just dead. Now that doesn't mean Apple agrees, they could easily shrink the machine yet again. We all know Apple loves thin and small. As such I can see the Mini coming in at half its current volume, maybe even less with an external power supply. I say volume here because the shape could change dramatically.
The problem I see is how do you market a low end desktop anymore. Most people going the desktop route have well defined reasons for doing so. Often that means performance.
There are a lot of choices related to stationary machines that puzzle me. In terms of the mini specifically, I would be surprised if they reversed direction on some of those design choices. It certainly makes a decent Xcode machine.
Not much, really though how many here needs more power then a Core2Duo. The person with the best CPU benchmarks win.
That's why I've been paying attention to ARM, much like I mentioned. I'm still not used to the style of Objective-C though. The shear amount of abstraction annoys me. I like its ability to cut some of the branching by passing back nil when necessary, but beyond that it annoys me if I'm not sure how it translates to binary or machine instructions. I'm also irritated that iOS lacks OpenCL, given that everything I'm working on at the moment could take advantage of it.
I could be mis-remembering this, but I think the power supply was pulled into the Mini back when the Xserve and Mac Pro were server competitors.
Now that Xserve is toast and almost nobody buys $3000. cylindrical machines for a server room, it makes sense to push the Mini hard as a flexible server solution.
Sonnet's already taken the lead with this. A user-replaceable power supply would only make it better.
We do you keep repeating the non sense about TB and USB competing with each other. The ports are so different it is like saying RS232 competed with the parallel port.
On the Mac, they're not necessarily competitive. On the PC side, USB 3.1 and TB2 will definitely compete.
Seriously the low end switch machine is the iPad. I really think the only way to success anymore on the desktop is a higher end machine that isn't a Mac Pro but offers more performance than an iMac. The market for low end desktop hardware hardly exists anymore.
True, but I doubt Apple's going to stop trying to sell low-end users both a Mac and an iPad.
And in the midst of the current economic uncertainty, you don't abandon your low-end solution.
So how do you know that?
Because the Pro comes out in December, and Apple's probably not releasing it during the Christmas-New Years window.
As I've said before, I think the Mini will be silently updated along with the Pro's introduction.
Well you can think that and hope that but you can't state it as fact.
This is a throw back, but I remember back when I got my Mac Plus and one of the compilers from an odd company I can't remember now. In any event bugs galore in the compiler and libraries. There is at least some ability to make use of C++. The verbosity does bother me also. Worst the way the GUI works just bugs the hell out of me. I find it very unnatural, I'd rather use Python and tkinter .
Actually I'm not sure what's up with OpenCL on iOS. Obviously it wouldn't be of much use on the early devices but the new hardware should support compute on the GPUs plus they should be able to run OpenCL against the CPU vector units. I have to wonder when this will debut, I've not heard even a rumor.
Again wishful thinking.
Actually I'm not sure what's up with OpenCL on iOS. Obviously it wouldn't be of much use on the early devices but the new hardware should support compute on the GPUs plus they should be able to run OpenCL against the CPU vector units. I have to wonder when this will debut, I've not heard even a rumor.
I hate to say this but if you want to mess around with OpenCL on a mobile device, the Nexus 7 makes a neat little development platform. Creating an OpenCL-enabled Android App with PGCL is quite easy to get started with and actually a lot of fun, if I do say so myself. What you learn there can then be transferred to iOS when the time comes. I use Eclipse in the ADT bundle, Android NDK, as you'll be using C++ for OpenCL (see why I said your knowledge will be transferable to iOS) and a 64BIT Linux distro. Since I use all of this on my Macbook Air I just install Ubuntu 13.10 in a Virtual Machine using the free VirtualBox.
Just a silly suggestion as a Nexus 7 won't break the bank, the Android development kit is free and you'll be able to start sooner then later with learning how to use OpenCL on a multi-Core CPU/GPU ARM mobile device.
I hate to say this but if you want to mess around with OpenCL on a mobile device, the Nexus 7 makes a neat little development platform. Creating an OpenCL-enabled Android App with PGCL is quite easy to get started with and actually a lot of fun, if I do say so myself. What you learn there can then be transferred to iOS when the time comes. I use Eclipse in the ADT bundle, Android NDK, as you'll be using C++ for OpenCL (see why I said your knowledge will be transferable to iOS) and a 64BIT Linux distro. Since I use all of this on my Macbook Air I just install Ubuntu 13.10 in a Virtual Machine using the free VirtualBox.
Just a silly suggestion as a Nexus 7 won't break the bank, the Android development kit is free and you'll be able to start sooner then later with learning how to use OpenCL on a multi-Core CPU/GPU ARM mobile device.
Bleh.. Ubuntu is the diet pepsi of linux. It's one calorie linux. I hadn't really looked into Android though. Know a good book on OpenCL?
Bleh.. Ubuntu is the diet pepsi of linux. It's one calorie linux. I hadn't really looked into Android though. Know a good book on OpenCL?
Haha, yea I know what you mean but it runs quite well in Virtualbox and includes everything you'll need in it's depositories to setup up a quick development environment. Android developers use Ubuntu as their development platform of choice so it's almost push button when it comes to creating your environment. I personally use Debian and CentOS. These are a must have; Heterogeneous Computing with OpenCL, 2nd Edition and OpenCL Parallel Programming Development Cookbook.
Haha, yea I know what you mean but it runs quite well in Virtualbox and includes everything you'll need in it's depositories to setup up a quick development environment. Android developers use Ubuntu as their development platform of choice so it's almost push button when it comes to creating your environment. I personally use Debian and CentOS. These are a must have; Heterogeneous Computing with OpenCL, 2nd Edition and OpenCL Parallel Programming Development Cookbook.
I'm not sure if you caught the Austin Powers reference. I like Debian. I considered Fedora simply because it supports a number of 3d packages, although installing them on Fedora is extremely annoying. It also has some stable color management libraries because of that. I'm going to order that first book.
I'm not sure if you caught the Austin Powers reference. I like Debian. I considered Fedora simply because it supports a number of 3d packages, although installing them on Fedora is extremely annoying. It also has some stable color management libraries because of that. I'm going to order that first book.
If you like Fedora, you should really look into CentOS, It's almost identical to Redhat. There are some pretty good apps for Fedora that installs all of those pesky things like multimedia codecs, drivers, etc., try "easylife".
If you like Fedora, you should really look into CentOS, It's almost identical to Redhat. There are some pretty good apps for Fedora that installs all of those pesky things like multimedia codecs, drivers, etc., try "easylife".
I hadn't previously considered Virtualbox. What do you like specifically about CentOS?