More Mac Mini Speed Bumps?

[MacRumors]

According to an entirely unconfirmed report, it is reported that Apple may quietly bump the Mac mini's speeds in the coming weeks. The bumps are expected to be up to 1.33GHz and 1.5GHz up from 1.25/1.42 GHz.

If true, may represent a departure from Apple's previous major-update intervals and more of a gradual upgrade cycle.

The Mac mini was recently updated in July.

[mad jew]

Should have been done two months ago. What has Apple got against the mini? Why do they insist on giving it the smallest incremental updates possible. Surely this is suicide from a marketing perspective.

[zap2]

true the added wireless and BT and a lowend user needs that after he needs high ghz what would have been nice would haev been this upgrade and the last mixed in one well know apple has to fix its mistake

[dops7107]

Provided they don't "bump up" the price too (UK-style), then this can only be a good thing. Though quite why they waited i don't know.

[DeSnousa]

I believe they should place a new graphics card, it is the thing which makes the mini unappealing for quite a few.

[MacSA]

I agree......... it definately needs the graphic card the iBook has - thats it's biggest problem.

Sadly, I doubt any of this is true though:

"According to an entirely unconfirmed report" lol

[ScubaDuc]

Originally Posted by mad jew

Should have been done two months ago. What has Apple got against the mini? Why do they insist on giving it the smallest incremental updates possible. Surely this is suicide from a marketing perspective.

I agree, especially considering that such a minor speed bump is no upgrade at all. We all have read about people overclocking their minis to those speeds so it doesn't even require a new chip. Apparently, all is needed it to change a couple of jumper settings...1.42 are stable at 1.5 while 1.25 processors are stable at 1.33.

What kind of update is this????

I have been waiting for a new mini revision since it came out. I already have a DVI monitor and a 5400 rpm drive...All I want is a better video card.... So I just ordered myself a Sonnet 1.8 upgrade for my 867 G4 and a box of ears plug to help me keep my sanity until the intel minis are released next year, hopefully without an integrated (shared) intel video..

[yamabushi]

Originally Posted by Macrumors

If true, may represent a departure from Apple's previous major-update intervals and more of a gradual upgrade cycle.

I would welcome a shift to a more gradual upgrade cycle. It would make rumors less important for purchasing decisions. The right time to buy would be whenever you need it. You would still have to keep alert for updates a couple of weeks away. However, there would be no need to sit on your wallet for months waiting for an update.

I don't think this will be too bad from a marketing perspective since it has always been difficult to sell most users on the benefits of particular internal hardware that they probably know little about. It is much easier to sell to most people on innovative design rather than hardware.

Those people who do know a lot about internal hardware will almost certainly perform effective comparisons on their own anyways. Those who don't know much probably also won't care much - they may just want "fast enough". So either way it is pointless to spend a lot of energy and resources on marketing in regards to internal hardware. Just supply the specs for those who know and reassure those who don't that it is good enough. Just my humble opinion.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Originally Posted by DeSnousa

I believe they should place a new graphics card, it is the thing which makes the mini unappealing for quite a few.

Bingo, but with very poor advancement in G4 apple was forced to using cheap and cheaper video to distinguish between products. Look at the books for a example. Macmini needs the fx5200 64mb chip in it to complete it. Plus those cpu speeds can be accomplished on mini's the past year with slight bumps. A 1.5 G4 along with a fx5200 64mb would make for a solid lil machine. I give our Mini a 4 out of 5 stars for its weak video.

[martinlk]

Originally Posted by Dont Hurt Me

Macmini needs the fx5200 64mb chip in it to complete it.

So true. I have a PowerBook and soon I'll be buying a Mac Mini to replace my stationary PC. It just sucks that my laptop will have more GPU power than my stationary. Give us more GPU power in the Mini! A slightly faster CPU is really not that important to me.

[lickily]

Originally Posted by yamabushi

I would welcome a shift to a more gradual upgrade cycle. It would make rumors less important for purchasing decisions. The right time to buy would be whenever you need it. You would still have to keep alert for updates a couple of weeks away. However, there would be no need to sit on your wallet for months waiting for an update.

I agree. Doing PC-like, quiet incremental updates would mean faster technology increases for the end-user (since Apple won't have to hold back putting in new tech until enough new features accumulate to justify an update) and probably better sales for Apple, at least from the hard-core installed base that keeps track of rumors for purchasing decisions. If these users new that small updates could happen at any time, they'd have no reason to delay purchases (and knew that even if an update came out, it would be relatively minor). The company of course could still save the razzle-dazzle changes for big Jobs' keynotes. The only reason I can't seeing them doing this is that since his return Jobs has systematically tried to simplify and rationalize the product line (pro "power" line, consumer "i" line, although as with all things the simple scheme is starting to fall apart with time with the intro of the mini, etc.). This simplifies purchasing decisions for end-users, support provision by the company, and retail inventory logistics. All of that will become incrementally more difficult as more 'minor' update models get introduced. For example, its pretty easy to call and get support for an imac G4 because of the small number of updates covered by that model. Who wants a return to the 'yikes', 'sawtooth' confusion of years past?

[lickily]

Originally Posted by martinlk

So true. I have a PowerBook and soon I'll be buying a Mac Mini to replace my stationary PC. It just sucks that my laptop will have more GPU power than my stationary. Give us more GPU power in the Mini! A slightly faster CPU is really not that important to me.

My wishes in order of importance for the next mini update:

a) videocard
b) faster hard drive
c) processor

The videocard is most important for futureproofing the mini, since its not upgradeable and CoreImage support will extend the life of the mini. The slow hard drive seems to be one of the biggest overall speed bottlenecks for the system and the only reason this isn't on top of the list is this can be user upgradeable either by installing a new internal drive or hooking up an external 7200RPM FW drive (>20% speed increases). A processor boost isn't likely to do much without the other changes, but is probably the simplest to do from a design perspective at Apple's end (assuming its not G4 to G5).

On a side note, with the iBook having the radeon 9550 (32Mb) and the emac with a 9600 (64Mb), what do you think would be the most likely upgrade. I've read that the mini more or less shares the innards of the iBook and the 9550 is supposed to be coreimage compatible. Performance wise would it be better to have a 32Mb 9550 or a 64Mb 9200?

[wdlove]

Originally Posted by MacSA

I agree......... it definitely needs the graphic card the iBook has - thats it's biggest problem.

Sadly, I doubt any of this is true though:

"According to an entirely unconfirmed report" lol

Of course, this is exactly why the report is placed on page two. A reason for the update would be the coming holiday season.

[RobHague]

Now if only they could bump up the graphics to something that supports Core Image. Had it not been for the poor video performance of the Mini i might have considered one when i was in the market for a Mac originally.

Heck, you buy a MacMini, you cant even run @ 1680x1050 of the lowest end Cinema Display can you (or maybe ive read wrong). Apple should at least produce a lower cost (15" 17"?) widescreen display to compliment the Mini.

[GulGnu]

I agree to some extent about the need for a CoreImage compliant gfx card, but only to some extent I have really been pleasantly surprised about how well my Mac Mini w/ 1 GB of RAM runs World of Warcraft, so the gfx situation is not quite as dire as some make it out to be.

[wdlove]

Originally Posted by RobHague

Now if only they could bump up the graphics to something that supports Core Image. Had it not been for the poor video performance of the Mini i might have considered one when i was in the market for a Mac originally.

Heck, you buy a MacMini, you cant even run @ 1680x1050 of the lowest end Cinema Display can you (or maybe ive read wrong). Apple should at least produce a lower cost (15" 17"?) widescreen display to compliment the Mini.

I was at my local Apple Store yesterday. They had a Mac mini hooked up to a 20" LCD. It looked and performed very well. I know someone that owns that setup, they are very pleased.

[G5Unit]

Well isn't the GeForce Fx 5200 a little dated? I think they should stick in a 9600. Then up the graphics in the emac to 128mb.

[BlizzardBomb]

Originally Posted by G5Unit

Well isn't the GeForce Fx 5200 a little dated? I think they should stick in a 9600. Then up the graphics in the emac to 128mb.

eMac is pretty pointless. You can buy a Mac Mini + Dell CRT and it would cost less than an eMac.

[MacSA]

Originally Posted by BlizzardBomb

eMac is pretty pointless. You can buy a Mac Mini + Dell CRT and it would cost less than an eMac.

The eMac has a MUCH better graphics card, bigger and just as importantly faster hard drive, more USB/Firewire ports and an audio in port. You can also add wireless after you buy the eMac - and install more memory. The eMac is NOT pointless.

[spaceballl]

Yah let's bump up the clock speed 10% and throw ina 9650 graphics card and then we're talking...

[SiliconAddict]

Originally Posted by mad jew

Should have been done two months ago. What has Apple got against the mini? Why do they insist on giving it the smallest incremental updates possible. Surely this is suicide from a marketing perspective.

You obviously haven't been watching the PowerBook.

[SiliconAddict]

Speed bump, smeed bump. Where is my updated GPU? Since I got my 24" widescreen I've been eyeing the mini but too many reviews ( The most recent I read was from anandtech.) are saying that 32MB of VRAM makes things sluggish on 1920 x 1200 which is the native res of the screen. Quote from anan's article:

Despite what I had originally expected, the on-board Radeon 9200 is a bit of a performance limitation. I had the Mac mini hooked up to a 23" Cinema Display running its native resolution of 1920 x 1200 and was wondering why Exposé and a handful of other animations were choppy. After tinkering with resolutions, I found out why. At resolutions above 1280 x 960, the Radeon 9200's 32MB of local frame buffer isn't enough to handle Exposé of even just four windows - swapping to main memory, and thus reducing the smoothness of the Exposé effects. At 1024 x 768, it's great and it's even fine at 1280 x 960, but once you start going above and beyond that, you start running out of video memory real quickly. I am concerned about performance under OS X Tiger, simply because with more being stored in video memory (e.g. font caches), you'll run out of video memory even quicker. Granted, what I'm discussing right now isn't a reduction in actual performance, but rather a reduction in the smoothness of animations - which to a first-time OS X user can be a huge turn off.

I know what is happening. Apple is in a holding pattern for most of their hardware that will get updated next year. Its been widely speculated that one of the first x86 Macs out of the gate will be the Mini. If that is the case I don't expect a GPU/VRAM upgrade until Spring. Oh the pain. The pain of it all.

[SiliconAddict]

Originally Posted by spaceballl

Yah let's bump up the clock speed 10% and throw ina 9650 graphics card and then we're talking...

The clock speed is fine as it is. Drop a better GPU in there and a 5400 RPM drive across the board (With an option for a 7200) and watch "Teh snappy" come to the Mini. The CPU isn't the biggest bottleneck for this $500-$800 system.

[lickily]

Originally Posted by SiliconAddict

The clock speed is fine as it is. Drop a better GPU in there and a 5400 RPM drive across the board (With an option for a 7200) and watch "Teh snappy" come to the Mini. The CPU isn't the biggest bottleneck for this $500-$800 system.

The mini (along with the emac) are Apple's lowest margin products. That being said, I guess the mini gets the warmed-over parts from the its progenitor the ibook. Apple probably just left the radeon 9200 in the mini to use up all the leftover inventory. Once that's done (hopefully it has been), they'll probably get better volume discounts from buying 9550s for the mini & ibook rather than staying with 2 different GPUs. Remember, Apple loves to milk us.

[BRLawyer]

Originally Posted by MacSA

The eMac has a MUCH better graphics card, bigger and just as importantly faster hard drive, more USB/Firewire ports and an audio in port. You can also add wireless after you buy the eMac - and install more memory. The eMac is NOT pointless.

I am pretty sure the eMac has been EOL'ed already...it doesn't really fit into Apple's strategy for the Edu market anymore...