Haswell Mini

The ivy bridge minis came out 6 months after Ivey bridge chips were released. My guess is that they won't be released until next Christmas. Further, like all computer "stuff" there is always something new "around the corner". Buy when you need/want.

visim91 said:

There are those of you who will insist to just buy what you need now, and to you I say I don't need it never, I just want it and will wait for it.

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I was waiting for the new iMac from February, when it was thought to be released with the new IvyBridge CPUs in May. Then came June, July.... December.

I wouldn't count on new Macs before your wife's birthday. I would certainly have a backup present.

There are three reasons, why I shoul wait:
- better GPU (I know, Intel always says that new generation GPU will be great and it is always dissapointment, but hope is last to die
- less heat generating CPU
- fussion as default

based on what you say you can wait. past history shows no sooner then june.

based or my gut feeling I say buy it from usa amazon you have until jan 31st of 2013 to return it. amazon has holiday return policy going.

majkom said:

There are three reasons, why I shoul wait:
- better GPU (I know, Intel always says that new generation GPU will be great and it is always dissapointment, but hope is last to die
- less heat generating CPU
- fussion as default

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So the same exact reasons can be applied to any Intel upgrades.. By the time Haswell Mini ships, another generation of Intel processors with "better" GPU and faster/more power efficient CPU will be a mere 6 months away.

And I don't believe fusion will be default in next Mini upgrade. It will remain a premium option.

visim91 said:

I'd love to pick up a new baseline Mini for my wife for Christmas, but wouldn't mind waiting till her birthday in August as, in the meantime, I can let her use my iMac to get used to OSX..

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Given my fundamental experience with the computer-woman relationship I can almost guarantee you that your wife won't be impressed from the difference between Ivy and Haswell. Actually I'd suggest that you don't tell her this detail at all and focus more on the aluminium finish of the case or the nice looks of the power chord.

ctyrider said:

So the same exact reasons can be applied to any Intel upgrades.. By the time Haswell Mini ships, another generation of Intel processors with "better" GPU and faster/more power efficient CPU will be a mere 6 months away.

And I don't believe fusion will be default in next Mini upgrade. It will remain a premium option.

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Well, if Fussion stays premium option, apple will live in history with its desktop class... it lives in history now, but it is not so evident... ale its mobiles except dying classic mb pro are SSD default, if they wont upgrade desktop with any form of ssd in future... it would be big mistake made by apple... that is my opinion

and GPU - I will no be waiting for haswell if intel HD was ust decent one... or if apple did use some ati/nvidia in middle mini.. but hd 4000 is crap.. so there is still hope next generation will be better

Given the advances in Haswell wrt to power and GPU performance, its worth waiting for. If they don't release a new one before August, you could always pick up a refurb current model at a discount. There should be plenty around by August.

flopticalcube said:

Given the advances in Haswell wrt to power and GPU performance, its worth waiting for. If they don't release a new one before August, you could always pick up a refurb current model at a discount. There should be plenty around by August.

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This.

Ivy was a minor update, Haswell will be a new generation.

There's a decent chance Haswell minis will be available by August 2013. Based on their desktop release cycles for the past couple years, I suspect they held back the Ivy Bridge mini until they could at least announce the iMac at the same time in order to prevent mini sales from cannibalizing potential iMac sales. According to the rumor mill, the only reason the iMacs were late this year were because of production yield issues with the laminated screen and new casing (because of the new welding process).

The summer is too soon to expect them in my view. They did update the Mini to Ivy Bridge so we know it's extremely likely they will get updated for years to come but further towards the end of the year.

flopticalcube said:

Given the advances in Haswell wrt to power and GPU performance, its worth waiting for. If they don't release a new one before August, you could always pick up a refurb current model at a discount. There should be plenty around by August.

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We will be saying the exact same thing about the next future tech. I heard iPhone 8 is going to be mind blowing

lol @ the gif

On topic: I don't see Apple releasing a new Mini with Haswell during the summer when new 27" iMacs are gonna be available in January with Ivey bridge...

eastamherstbias said:

I heard iPhone 8 is going to be mind blowing

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Considering how dull the 5 is over the 4S, I hope it will be!

eastamherstbias said:

We will be saying the exact same thing about the next future tech. I heard iPhone 8 is going to be mind blowing

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In this instance I disagree because the GPU performance will be so much better and there currently is no discrete option.

Summer very unlikely

Fall/Winter much more likely

If you just wait forever than performance will be infinite and price will be zero...

If Apple/Intel don't fix the 2012 Mini, with only 6 months till Haswell is in production, the 2013 Mini will be rushed to market in summer with new and hopefully a working GPU in Haswell (HD5000?). I returned my 2012, bought a 2011 Mini/Radeon, and patiently waiting to see if Apple gets this one right.

The fix will be out soon in my opinion and also I don't feel they will release the Haswell Mini so quickly before the next Retina MacBook Pro.

I think the Mini will be out in September 2013. Earlier than before but later than the 2011 model.

Don't count on a Haswell before 2014. The average time between main architectures in the Mini is 500+ days. Only speedbumps come in between. So apple might skip Hasswell in the Mini's and upgrade when Rockwell (14nm Hasswell) is ready.

And haswell is not less hot than Ivy, it runs HOTTER. It has 40% more transistors on the same 22nm process, so the die is much larger and can run much hotter. It might have some nifty low-power idle modes, but these are already not bad on the Sandy's and Ivy's.

paulrbeers said:

The ivy bridge minis came out 6 months after Ivey bridge chips were released. My guess is that they won't be released until next Christmas. Further, like all computer "stuff" there is always something new "around the corner". Buy when you need/want.

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You're right it was out late. I just disagree on reasoning for this. In the past Apple hasn't released minis before the equivalent imacs. They often lag a bit, but the imacs definitely held them up. Note how minis were available immediately as soon as imacs were announced.

blanka said:

Don't count on a Haswell before 2014. The average time between main architectures in the Mini is 500+ days. Only speedbumps come in between. So apple might skip Hasswell in the Mini's and upgrade when Rockwell (14nm Hasswell) is ready.

And haswell is not less hot than Ivy, it runs HOTTER. It has 40% more transistors on the same 22nm process, so the die is much larger and can run much hotter. It might have some nifty low-power idle modes, but these are already not bad on the Sandy's and Ivy's.

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There isn't any good reason for Apple to skip Haswell on the mini, especially when they'd have to test most of those parts for the macbook pros anyway. The most recent time this happened was when the mini held on to Core2duo when Apple wanted to stick with the NVidia 320m rather than Intel's graphics. They skipped nehalem until Sandy and the HD3000. With the HD4000 Apple removed the discrete card option. They would doing the line an extreme disservice if they ignored Haswell, as it addresses the weak gpu options. Your comment on temperatures is also ignoring a lot of detail. You're right that much of it will be power management, but there's no reason to believe they'll be left without an option that can run in the mini when intel has been increasingly focused on providing low power options.

I'm not interested in coulds: sure Apple could put haswell in the mini. But they have introduced new architectures in the Mini always in 400-500 days. Never sooner. So they will milk out ivy for at least total 2013. If by then Rockwell is ready, they will skip Haswell.

thekev said:

You're right it was out late. I just disagree on reasoning for this. In the past Apple hasn't released minis before the equivalent imacs. They often lag a bit, but the imacs definitely held them up. Note how minis were available immediately as soon as imacs were announced.

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While the iMac may have held up the mini to some extent in this round, the Sandy Bridge based Mac Mini's didn't come out until July in 2011 and Sandy Bridge was released in Jan of 2011 so again the Mini's tend to lag about 6 months behind. The Mini is always the last Mac computer to get updated.

paulrbeers said:

While the iMac may have held up the mini to some extent in this round, the Sandy Bridge based Mac Mini's didn't come out until July in 2011 and Sandy Bridge was released in Jan of 2011 so again the Mini's tend to lag about 6 months behind. The Mini is always the last Mac computer to get updated.

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It once again came out just a bit after the imac. This year they only delayed until the imac announcement. Given that they share parts with the notebooks, they take second priority. Their volume is lower and margins are probably not as high. Apparently they came out more than a month after the imac last year. Also it was actually just shy of 5 months. The base mini cpu officially launched 5-31-12. The minis launched 10-23-12. It could have been sooner if the imac was getting a standard refresh. Looking at the ipad event where the desktops were tacked on, it's likely that the original plan was to have them ready to ship by that time.

blanka said:

I'm not interested in coulds: sure Apple could put haswell in the mini. But they have introduced new architectures in the Mini always in 400-500 days. Never sooner. So they will milk out ivy for at least total 2013. If by then Rockwell is ready, they will skip Haswell.

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They're calling it Broadwell now. I think the minis get pushed aside for convenience reasons, but your idea of skipping one to grab the next generation as it heads out the door is loopy. It's never the first thing to be upgraded. Skipping Haswell could push it to the middle of 2014 or later depending on intel's schedule. I wouldn't count on them them to get things out any faster. If you recall they lost quite a bit on the Sandy Bridge recall and have been playing it safe ever since.