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Mac Mini 799 Base gaming benchmarks

Y

YellowDart

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 29, 2011
5
0
Hi All-

I got a $799 base mac mini listed here:

4gb memory
2.5 i5
6630M
500gb 5200rpm hdd

Looking to replace a 2 year old windows desktop that has an original i5, Nvidia GTS 250 that is mostly used for gaming. The reason I am switching to mac is because I started iOS development on my old old old macbook air and looking for a desktop.

I installed windows 7 with bootcamp for some of these tests (the futuremark tests) and installed two steam games in osx, team fortress 2 and left 4 dead 2. These games are about 2-3 years old but are still played today.

3dMark Vantage: 3142 - default settings
3dMark 11: 902 - default settings
l4d2: 20-25 FPS steady with max settings at 1920x1080
tf2: 25-30 FPS steady with max settings at 1920x1080

For comparison my desktop got about 2x these settings. If anyone was wondering, these are "okay" numbers for gaming and will get by for the causal gamer. Personally, I am going to upgrade to a iMac with the 27 inch screen and hope that plays out a little better, but I am still doing research on it.

Thanks!

Yellow Dart
 
Vermifuge

Vermifuge

macrumors 68020
Mar 7, 2009
2,067
1,589
YellowDart said:
Hi All-

I got a $799 base mac mini listed here:

4gb memory
2.5 i5
6630M
500gb 5200rpm hdd

Looking to replace a 2 year old windows desktop that has an original i5, Nvidia GTS 250 that is mostly used for gaming. The reason I am switching to mac is because I started iOS development on my old old old macbook air and looking for a desktop.

I installed windows 7 with bootcamp for some of these tests (the futuremark tests) and installed two steam games in osx, team fortress 2 and left 4 dead 2. These games are about 2-3 years old but are still played today.

3dMark Vantage: 3142 - default settings
3dMark 11: 902 - default settings
l4d2: 20-25 FPS steady with max settings at 1920x1080
tf2: 25-30 FPS steady with max settings at 1920x1080

For comparison my desktop got about 2x these settings. If anyone was wondering, these are "okay" numbers for gaming and will get by for the causal gamer. Personally, I am going to upgrade to a iMac with the 27 inch screen and hope that plays out a little better, but I am still doing research on it.

Thanks!

Yellow Dart
Click to expand...

I only have access to the trial but my i7 Dual core system didn't score much better. I got

P3281 3D marks in Vantage .

There may yet be some driver issues
 
J

JamSandwich

macrumors regular
May 19, 2006
127
3
If you're up to it, I'd be interested to see how those games perform in Windows, as well.

Mine may arrive today (if UPS rings the doorbell... apparently it's well hidden)... good performance with moderate detail at a resolution that looks OK on my TV (720p) is suitable for my needs in terms of gaming. So I'm not too worried...
 
Akula971

Akula971

macrumors regular
Aug 25, 2006
164
0
Perfidious Albion
mmm.....

YellowDart said:
Hi All-

l4d2: 20-25 FPS steady with max settings at 1920x1080
tf2: 25-30 FPS steady with max settings at 1920x1080

Yellow Dart
Click to expand...

When you say max setting, is that with 8xMSAA and 8xanisotropic, shaders set to max too? I play a lot L4D2 and my HD4870 in a Mac Pro manages about a constant 60fps in OS X.
 
Tucom

Tucom

Cancelled
Jul 29, 2006
1,252
310
Yeah MSAA can kill framerates and honestly isn't that necessary, it's just "fake" resolution to smoothen out the jaggies but at 1080P I think it's just adding unecessary slow down to the performance.



What about keeping the Mac Mini and the gaming PC?
 
Y

YellowDart

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 29, 2011
5
0
As for the max settings, yes everything was maxed. I noticed more that I play it though there are about 3-4 times per round the fps will drop to about 10fps.

As for keeping both the mac mini and the gaming PC... long story short, it is in the kitchen and the gaming pc has been deemed an eye sore. the mac mini is okay, but the wife really wants me to upgrade to the iMac ;-)
 
D

DarwinOSX

macrumors 68000
Nov 3, 2009
1,637
185
Thats a dog slow hard drive. Apple could have put a 7200 rpm drive in but they like to keep noise and vibration down plus give people reason to buy an iMac instead.
 
Akula971

Akula971

macrumors regular
Aug 25, 2006
164
0
Perfidious Albion
Frame rate at 1920x1200-not maxed out?

Does the frame rate with the AA and stuff turned down but still at 1920x1200 increase much on Left 4 dead 2?
 
redscull

redscull

macrumors 6502a
Jul 1, 2010
849
832
Texas
Mac gaming is "held back" by the fact that the mini and iMac use laptop video cards, not the beasts that dekstop gaming PCs will typically use. So relatively speaking, a just-released top-of-the-line iMac will offer gaming performance similar to a 1-yr-old, budget-at-the-time gaming PC.

From a hard-core gaming perspective, the upgraded mini's 6630M is pretty dismal compared to the iMac's 6970M which itself is on par with current $160 (low-budget) desktop cards.
 
Y

YellowDart

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 29, 2011
5
0
Hi All-

Just an update. I tried the games on windows as requested and found that windows with directx was getting almost double the framerates as macosx with the same settings (50-60fps).

I also noticed both OS's would have some slow downs where the fps would drop to 10-15 fps every ~3 minutes. Finding this weird I did some research and found they were paging to the hard drive. Normally, this wouldnt be a huge problem but I also found the 5400 RPM drive would only transfer at about 20 megabytes per second.

I ran over to frys (like walmart of electronics) and picked up a solid state drive and 8gb of ram. The SSD was $200 and the ram was $70. With these upgrades the machine is noticeably faster in loading and no longer has the shuttering issues from paging. The upgrade itself for the SSD took me about 20 minutes and was only 6 screws and no seals. Just remove the fan, the cover and replace... didnt even have to move the motherboard. Very Very easy.

Thanks
Yellow Dart
 
X

xheathen

macrumors 6502
Aug 5, 2010
300
17
I wonder if a 7200 RPM HDD like a Scorpio would keep those same paging issues from happening.
 
Vermifuge

Vermifuge

macrumors 68020
Mar 7, 2009
2,067
1,589
xheathen said:
I wonder if a 7200 RPM HDD like a Scorpio would keep those same paging issues from happening.
Click to expand...

I have the BTO 7200 RPM drive and i experience the paging issues from time to time.

mini i7 dual core / 8gb ram
 
X

xheathen

macrumors 6502
Aug 5, 2010
300
17
Ah damn... I guess the best route to go really is to either spend the $ on a SSD, or get the 2010 lower server cable and just add a smaller SSD to house the OS.
 
Vermifuge

Vermifuge

macrumors 68020
Mar 7, 2009
2,067
1,589
xheathen said:
Ah damn... I guess the best route to go really is to either spend the $ on a SSD, or get the 2010 lower server cable and just add a smaller SSD to house the OS.
Click to expand...

This is a 1.0 OS on fresh hardware. I wouldn't do anything drastic just yet. 7.1 or 7.2 may yet fix many of these issues. and a firmware update could very well be in the works.
 
M

MacinJosh

macrumors 6502a
Jan 29, 2006
676
55
Finland
I would be interested in knowing how the OP's Mini would stack up against my Mac Pro if it had a 5770,5870,6870 in it.

Could anyone enlighten me? I just have a garbage 7300GT and will update next year.
 
M

MacinJosh

macrumors 6502a
Jan 29, 2006
676
55
Finland
Akula971 said:
Head over to Barefeats and check out the FPS.
http://www.barefeats.com/wst10g6.html
There is no way that a stripped down mobile GPU is going to do better than a dedicated card such as the 5870. But it all depends on what level of gaming or graphics performance you are looking for?
Click to expand...

Thanks. That was interesting. So the Mini will be limited to a degree. I just want to run games at FullHD at High Quality. Games like Civ5, WoW, SC2, upcoming D3. Not a HC gamer by any means.
 
Akula971

Akula971

macrumors regular
Aug 25, 2006
164
0
Perfidious Albion
HC gamer

I've toyed with the idea of selling my MacPro 2008 model and getting a 2011 MacMini. But by the time you've shelled out for the CoreI5 or I7, the extra ram, the SSD, you could have bought a 5870 or better and still had change left. So I'm sticking with my MacPro and 4870 until the mini can push out 60FPS at 1920x1200. The only thing I hate about running the Pro is the power consumption. If the machine is on constantly through the day, every day, my electricity bills go up considerably. So I have my 2010 mini running mostly. 20w vs 220w.
 
D

dh2005

macrumors 6502a
Jan 25, 2010
907
0
Interesting thread. Thanks, everyone.


I'm gonna sit tight a while longer. This new Mini - with its genuinely 'okay' graphics card - is a step in the right direction, but I need just that little more clout.

If the next Mini has something that performs, say, somewhere akin to the 6970M, I'd buy one immediately. That sort of gaming power, combined with the tiny form-factor and the HDMI socket, would make it the ideal 'living room' computer for someone like me.


Fingers crossed, for six months from now.
 
M

Mr.C

macrumors 603
Apr 3, 2011
5,444
1,437
London, UK.
dh2005 said:
Interesting thread. Thanks, everyone.


I'm gonna sit tight a while longer. This new Mini - with its genuinely 'okay' graphics card - is a step in the right direction, but I need just that little more clout.

If the next Mini has something that performs, say, somewhere akin to the 6970M, I'd buy one immediately. That sort of gaming power, combined with the tiny form-factor and the HDMI socket, would make it the ideal 'living room' computer for someone like me.


Fingers crossed, for six months from now.
Click to expand...

It's not going to be 6 months from now. The new Mini's just came out so it will be at least until next Summer before news ones are released possible even later.

To be honest whilst the Mini and it's 6630M GPU is no match for higher end cards in iMacs and Windows PC's it's no slouch either. I just got mine set up yesterday and was playing Portal 2 with all settings on high and it was running very smoothly. For some reason Lion didn't want to co-operate with my demo of Star Craft 2 or trial of World Of Warcraft, not sure why. I've deleted them and in the next day or two download them again as they are compatible with Lion and I will report how I get on.

I'm planning on buying a few more Mac native games as well as installing Windows 7 under Bootcamp. I think the 6630M does a pretty good job. That said up coming games like Battlefied 3, Diablo 3, Deus Ex:Human Revolution may struggle as they will recommend GPU's with 512MB but they should run well on medium to low settings. I gues for me it's not as big a deal as I do most of my gaming on the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as the iPad. :)
 
D

dh2005

macrumors 6502a
Jan 25, 2010
907
0
Mr.C said:
It's not going to be 6 months from now. The new Mini's just came out so it will be at least until next Summer before news ones are released possible even later.

To be honest whilst the Mini and it's 6630M GPU is no match for higher end cards in iMacs and Windows PC's it's no slouch either. I just got mine set up yesterday and was playing Portal 2 with all settings on high and it was running very smoothly. For some reason Lion didn't want to co-operate with my demo of Star Craft 2 or trial of World Of Warcraft, not sure why. I've deleted them and in the next day or two download them again as they are compatible with Lion and I will report how I get on.

I'm planning on buying a few more Mac native games as well as installing Windows 7 under Bootcamp. I think the 6630M does a pretty good job. That said up coming games like Battlefied 3, Diablo 3, Deus Ex:Human Revolution may struggle as they will recommend GPU's with 512MB but they should run well on medium to low settings. I gues for me it's not as big a deal as I do most of my gaming on the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as the iPad. :)
Click to expand...


Thank you for your insights.


The average turnaround on the Mini is just under nine months. The last cycle was conspicuously long, without doubt, but the two previous refreshes came after less than eight. I have the feeling that February/March 2012 won't be so wide of the mark... but we'll see.

Punters have been asking for a gaming Mini for a while, and I think Apple are beginning to listen. If the 6630M model sells well, I reckon we might see a more feisty card in the next lineup.

At least, I hope so!
 
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