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Soldered RAM? Don't care. Show me the benchmarks
- Thread starter ZipZilla
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I expect the $499 entry level mini to suck. But I can't imagine the $699 mid-level Mini is going to be a horrendously slow machine. Until we have benchmarks, nobody knows. It's 2 less cores, but what apps utilize those extra cores?
I think the extra cores were for people who live in northern regions. They would only work in the winter to heat up the house. I think they should have just used an single core Atom CPU.
One thing is for sure: Apple views us as pro freeloaders and has fisher priced the mini. They've decided it's time for us to pay some more Apple tax.
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LOL! Yes. Put a 1ghz Celeron in it!
The new 2014 i7 Mac Mini should benchmark for about the same as a MacBook Air with i7, which benchmarks for around what the 2012 i7 Quad Mac Mini did. So CPU should come out about the same, even with less cores. You'll see GPU gains over the 2012 Mini for sure, Iris is a decent performer.
All in all, it's a reasonable upgrade, just not the large leap it could have been. The lack of user accessibility/replacing RAM not withstanding, naturally, as that's a deal breaker in and of itself for some.
All in all, it's a reasonable upgrade, just not the large leap it could have been. The lack of user accessibility/replacing RAM not withstanding, naturally, as that's a deal breaker in and of itself for some.
The 2014 Mac Mini is more like a screen-less MacBook Air, but with the option for 2 drives and Iris graphics on the higher models. The MacBook Pros use more powerful/higher TDP CPUs, as far as I'm aware.
I checked Geekbench and the 2012 Mac mini i5 uses 3210m which is the same as 2012 Macbook pro i5 and the scores are similar too.
The 2012 quad mini has the same cpu's as the 2012 macbook pro retina. The current mac book air do not come close to the quad i7 in those machines.
This update cpu wise is a major step backward. Apple is counting on most people not noticing as the general public do not know a thing about cpus, dual or quad core etc.
In comparison, they will. Dig around on the forum, people have posted processor comparisons, the new models win out by a little on single-core tasks, while the 2012 models completely dominate on multi-core.
Edit: Or just scroll up
That is true, 90% of Apples core market know nothing about specs and usually don't care.
At this point probably all to some extend.
Enter Grand Central Dispatch (damn, the name alone is amazing, it's pretty lovely tech, too)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Dispatch
Glassed Silver:mac
I don't think so. I have a 2011 quad-core i7 Mini (2.0GHz) and it's about 25% faster than my 2013 MBA i7. I think the 2012 quad-core Mini would be quite a bit faster.
If you need CPU power, the best value is the 2012 i7. You can add RAM in less than a few minutes.
I think you are completely correct. The majority of the market Apple attract with the mini mostly will not care, or need, to add to the RAM the box they get has. They will just use it - and it will work fine for them.
Thanks. The problem is, the GPU in the new minis is (much) better, than in the old ones. Or is it maybe better to wait until, I don't know ... next year, until Broadwell comes out and the Mac minis get a refresh with better intel GPU?