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2018 mini 3.2ghz I7 temps?

Ifti said:
Maybe a silly question - but where exactly is the air INTAKE on the new Mac Mini?
I see the exhaust is around the back, but the only place for intake would be around the bottom removeable plate - although this is snapped into place providing little cool air entry space.

Those seeing high temps, have you tried running the MM without the bottom plate in place - and maybe a couple of rubber feet holding the MM up a few mm from your desk - or better still, run the MM vertically with the plate removed?
Would be interesting to see how much of a difference this would make?
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On the 2011 model, it sucks air in via a slim gap all around the bottom plastic cover. I guess it is the same on the 2018 as well. Possibly some air also gets sucked in through the ports on the back?
Notably, the fan on the 2011 mini is much louder if you remove the bottom cover - so it actually adds quite a lot of sound damping.
 
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Unlike the sheet-metal PC boxes, the MM is an integrated system where thermal performance depends on airflow passages being left as-designed. Opening a bigger hole (e.g. by removing cover) may get more air into part of the computer but disrupt flow to where it most needs to go. I suggest you don't mess with it.
 
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zandorf said:
Unlike the sheet-metal PC boxes, the MM is an integrated system where thermal performance depends on airflow passages being left as-designed. Opening a bigger hole (e.g. by removing cover) may get more air into part of the computer but disrupt flow to where it most needs to go. I suggest you don't mess with it.
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Good point!
 
M_Scout said:
Some more testing:

https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...tling-and-performance-in-the-2018-i7-mac-mini
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That is useful info. I wish they had done a single threaded test to see what the max clock possible is. I have noticed that on either an iMac or a 2011 Mac mini, I never observe the single core max boost, even when the processor is cool and the fan is not maxed. It seems to be a macOS thing.

I also wish they had mentioned the clock speed achieved with the i3 under stress. It has no turbo facility, so in theory will be pegged at 3.6Ghz, but I wonder if, under stress, it will throttle below this value, since it is notable that the 6-core i7 drops to 3.3Ghz.

So then it becomes a question of whether 6 (or 12) threads are better than 4.

Regardless, this does make me much more suspicious of the marketing claims from intel and Apple. Stating that the i7 has single core turbo boost of 4.6 GHz (and specs indicating maximum 6 core boost of 4.3Ghz), is pretty much irrelevant if a heavily threaded workload only can maintain 3.3-3.5 GHz...

It is also making me think that a lower wattage mobile CPU (MBPro style, 45Watt) paired with the 2018 Mac mini cooling would have given much greater performance headroom.
 
Spectrum said:
That is useful info. I wish they had done a single threaded test to see what the max clock possible is.
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This, I wish to know how it behaves with 1-2 cores utilized out of 6

Spectrum said:
Regardless, this does make me much more suspicious of the marketing claims from intel and Apple. Stating that the i7 has single core turbo boost of 4.6 GHz
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Turbo frequency only depict the maximum allowed frequency, wont go beyond that no matter if you use liquid nitrogen

Spectrum said:
It is also making me think that a lower wattage mobile CPU (MBPro style, 45Watt) paired with the 2018 Mac mini cooling would have given much greater performance headroom.
Click to expand...

Na check the turbo when all the core are in use, it would be lower, unless i9 option was used but that would be expensive.
 
PJivan said:
This, I wish to know how it behaves with 1-2 cores utilized out of 6



Turbo frequency only depict the maximum allowed frequency, wont go beyond that no matter if you use liquid nitrogen



Na check the turbo when all the core are in use, it would be lower, unless i9 option was used but that would be expensive.
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Yes, but on my 2011 Mac mini, I never see the single core max turbo (2.9Ghz) being reached with any workload. It seems that a single job is being spread across all cores in activity monitor (giving instead the 4 core max turbo of 2.6Ghz). Then when I add more threads, the speed drops down even more. In theory the all core turbo speed for a 2011 Mac mini is 2.6Ghz, but That is the best I see with a single thread. 4 or 8 threads makes it drop to a stable 2.1Ghz, even before the temperature gets high.

It looks like the new core i7 processors in the 2018 Mac mini are also unable to ever reach anything even close to their max advertised turbo. As such...it seems disingenuous for Apple to market the processor as up to 4.6Ghz, When that may never be possible in the computer/cooling system that Apple designed.

If the real world max turbo that the i5 and the i7 reach is similar...then that is patently false advertising by Apple. A clear distinction in their product pages between these models is the difference in max turbo (4.6 vs 4.1 GHz).

Any of the 2018 minis are clearly going to be faster than the 2011 quad core i7. But I do think that the 2018 i7 is going to largely be a wasted upgrade, and I now wish I'd chosen the base 256 SSD i5 with external storage (and add an eGPU), rather than deciding that since I was going with the i7 upgrade I may as well add the 1TB drive too. I almost doubled the base i5 price with those two upgrades.
 
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Spectrum said:
Yes, but on my 2011 Mac mini, I never see the single core max turbo (2.9Ghz) being reached with any workload. It seems that a single job is being spread across all cores in activity monitor (giving instead the 4 core max turbo of 2.6Ghz). Then when I add more threads, the speed drops down even more. In theory the all core turbo speed for a 2011 Mac mini is 2.6Ghz, but That is the best I see with a single thread. 4 or 8 threads makes it drop to a stable 2.1Ghz, even before the temperature gets high.

It looks like the new core i7 processors in the 2018 Mac mini are also unable to ever reach anything even close to their max advertised turbo. As such...it seems disingenuous for Apple to market the processor as up to 4.6Ghz, When that may never be possible in the computer/cooling system that Apple designed.

If the real world max turbo that the i5 and the i7 reach is similar...then that is patently false advertising by Apple. A clear distinction in their product pages between these models is the difference in max turbo (4.6 vs 4.1 GHz).

Any of the 2018 minis are clearly going to be faster than the 2011 quad core i7. But I do think that the 2018 i7 is going to largely be a wasted upgrade, and I now wish I'd chosen the base 256 SSD i5 with external storage (and add an eGPU), rather than deciding that since I was going with the i7 upgrade I may as well add the 1TB drive too. I almost doubled the base i5 price with those two upgrades.
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If you talk in terms of performance per dollars top of the line it rarely is a good choice, same if you compare a GTX 2080 TI with a 2070 or even worst with a 580, but it still be faster.

If you want to recover some performance and you don't care about warranty you can use liquid metal and you should gain 6-7C, I wish apple used it in the first place, machines should be able to apply it with no risk of damage, maybe it' too expensive.
 
PJivan said:
If you talk in terms of performance per dollars top of the line it rarely is a good choice, same if you compare a GTX 2080 TI with a 2070 or even worst with a 580, but it still be faster.

If you want to recover some performance and you don't care about warranty you can use liquid metal and you should gain 6-7C, I wish apple used it in the first place, machines should be able to apply it with no risk of damage, maybe it' too expensive.
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I'd just like to know what the top - achievable - turbo speeds are on the i3, i5 and i7 under single threaded and multi threaded workloads. They should be what is then advertised and circulated across the community, since they are the real capabilities of the system. Up to users then what to purchase.

What I do know is that my 2016 4K iMac happily sits at 3.7Ghz with a full 4 core turbo (with an 8-thread job). This is only .1Ghz below the max rating for this i7 processor. So compared to that (observered) the performance of the new Mac mini seems rather poor. I would have though cooling in a 21 inch 4K iMac to be similar to that in the new Mac mini. So I am left to conclude that the choice of 8th gen desktop chip in the mini, is not as good as the 5th gen in the 2016 4K iMac (5775R).

Note. When pushed, I don't even here the fan come on in the 21 inch iMac, and temp stays below 80 degrees.
 
Even the i7-8700K will only turbo at max frequency on all cores if overclocked. By default it only turbo two of the six cores, if I remember correctly.

It's normal to always want more especially if the turbo speed is shown and no explanation is given to how and when that number can/might be reached.

Bottom line, these new mini are pretty amazing for what they are and match or surpras the current Mac Pro.

Personally I'm very happy with what Apple released and think that the eGPU is a great invention too. Now just need to get those enclosure prices down a bit...
 
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nampramos said:
Even the i7-8700K will only turbo at max frequency on all cores if overclocked. By default it only turbo two of the six cores, if I remember correctly.
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Yes - I understand this exactly. Max speed scales with active cores. I have no probelm with that at all.

The 2011 mac mini is rated for max turbo of 2.9 for one core, 2.8 for 2 cores, and 2.6 for 3-4 cores. My point is that I never see these speeds being hit. The max I ever see (briefly) is 2.7 Ghz for a single-threaded task, and normally it plateaus at 2.6Ghz. 4 core tasks max out at 2.1Ghz (even before the cooling system kicks in).

So, to me, advertising a max turbo of 2.9 Ghz (or 4.6 Ghz for the new mini) is false advertising.
This does not take away from the fact that the 2018 minis are very good (and will speed up my general tasks 2x, or more). I just think there are some smoke and mirrors in use regarding the way things are advertised.

It is one thing for Intel to advertise the max specs of their processors (when bought without a system). It is another for a vendor to advertise those same speeds when they cannot be achieved in the system that they have designed.

EDIT: The core i9 in the MBPro is near-identical in speed specs to the core i7 in the 2018 mac mini. The big difference is the TDP of 45W versus 65W.

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/core_i9/i9-8950hk
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/core_i7/i7-8700

Now (aside from my other comments about whether max turbos can ever be hit in Apple/macOS systems), the question is: How would the i9-8950HK perform if paired with the 2018 mini cooling system? I assume it is larger and much more capable...so assuming some power limit is not being breached (which it might be)... the added cooling should stop it throttling as much.
 
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ondert said:
Just bumped into this; The guy claims he has applied liquid metal as thermal paste for his i7 Mac Mini and it highly worked.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqLMkbLl2sL/
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Well nothing strange, it's the best thermal paste you can use unless you leak it on the motherboard, then you short it.
[doublepost=1542283603][/doublepost]
Spectrum said:
Yes - I understand this exactly. Mac speed scales with active cores. I have no probelm with that at all.

The 2011 mac mini is rated for max turbo of 2.9 for one core, 2.8 for 2 cores, and 2.6 for 3-4 cores. My point is that I never see these speeds being hit. The max I ever see (briefly) is 2.7 Ghz for a single-threaded task, and normally it plateaus at 2.6Ghz. 4 core tasks max out at 2.1Ghz (even before the cooling system kicks in).

So, to me, advertising a max turbo of 2.9 Ghz (or 4.6 Ghz for the new mini) is false advertising.
This does not take away from the fact that the 2018 minis are very good (and will speed up my general tasks 2x, or more). I just think there are some smoke and mirrors in use regarding the way things are advertised.

It is one thing for Intel to advertise the max specs of their processors (when bought without a system). It is another for a vendor to advertise those same speeds when they cannot be achieved in the system that they have designed.

EDIT: The core i9 in the MBPro is near-identical in speed specs to the core i7 in the 2018 mac mini. The big difference is the TDP of 45W versus 65W.

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/core_i9/i9-8950hk
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/core_i7/i7-8700

Now (aside from my other comments about whether max turbos can ever be hit in Apple/macOS systems), the question is: How would the i9-8950HK perform if paired with the 2018 mini cooling system? I assume it is larger and much more capable...so assuming some power limit is not being breached (which it might be)... the added cooling should stop it throttling as much.
Click to expand...

it does reach it, just for very few seconds, I saw few screenshot here and there.
 
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Spectrum said:
I'd just like to know what the top - achievable - turbo speeds are on the i3, i5 and i7 under single threaded and multi threaded workloads. They should be what is then advertised and circulated across the community, since they are the real capabilities of the system. Up to users then what to purchase.

What I do know is that my 2016 4K iMac happily sits at 3.7Ghz with a full 4 core turbo (with an 8-thread job). This is only .1Ghz below the max rating for this i7 processor. So compared to that (observered) the performance of the new Mac mini seems rather poor. I would have though cooling in a 21 inch 4K iMac to be similar to that in the new Mac mini. So I am left to conclude that the choice of 8th gen desktop chip in the mini, is not as good as the 5th gen in the 2016 4K iMac (5775R).

Note. When pushed, I don't even here the fan come on in the 21 inch iMac, and temp stays below 80 degrees.
Click to expand...

You are choosing to focus on a single metric of two very complex systems to conclude that a chip from 3 generations ago is better than the current.

It is accurate to say that chip performance for normal day-to-day use plateaued a while ago, but that does not mean the new mini isn't faster than your iMac. I know Geekbench isn't the greatest metric either, but looking there shows the new i7 mini destroying the 2015 i7 21" iMac.

I know people love looking for flaws in new Apple products (yellow screens, battery life, thermal throttling, etc), but I think it is pretty clear the 2018 mini is a pretty awesome machine that performs very highly.
 
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archer75 said:
Aside from video encoding my mini spends all day at 4.3ghz no matter what I do.
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Have you tried turning Turbo Boost off?
As far as I know, the only known way to turn Turbo Boost off in macOS is by using Adam Strzelecki's kernel extension (kext):
https://github.com/nanoant/DisableTurboBoost.kext
There's also a commercial GUI that implements the above kext:
https://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/
https://github.com/rugarciap/Turbo-Boost-Switcher
 
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What's a computer? said:
Have you tried turning Turbo Boost off?
As far as I know, the only known way to turn Turbo Boost off in macOS is by using Adam Strzelecki's kernel extension (kext):
https://github.com/nanoant/DisableTurboBoost.kext
There's also a commercial GUI that implements the above kext:
https://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/
https://github.com/rugarciap/Turbo-Boost-Switcher
Click to expand...
Why would I want to turn turbo boost off? It's working as intended. I certainly don't want to reduce my clock speed.
 
archer75 said:
Why would I want to turn turbo boost off? It's working as intended. I certainly don't want to reduce my clock speed.
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Different users' intentions vary – for many people, 3.2GHz is more than enough for everyday tasks.
A lot of the commenters on this thread are looking for practical solutions. For them, it might be useful to be able to push the pedal to the floor only when it's needed. "One size does not fit all." If I tried to cover a range of possible different use cases, it would result in a very long post, so I'll stop right there for now. :)
Whether sticking to 3.2GHz is enough to actually reduce power consumption/heat output is doubtful. But I'm here to hear other people's experiences and ideas and learn from them.
archer75 said:
spends all day at 4.3ghz no matter what I do.
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(my emphasis added) raised the question of what you had tried in order to try to reduce the clock frequency. If nothing, fair enough!
 
What's a computer? said:
Different users' intentions vary – for many people, 3.2GHz is more than enough for everyday tasks.
A lot of the commenters on this thread are looking for practical solutions. For them, it might be useful to be able to push the pedal to the floor only when it's needed. "One size does not fit all." If I tried to cover a range of possible different use cases, it would result in a very long post, so I'll stop right there for now. :)
Whether sticking to 3.2GHz is enough to actually reduce power consumption/heat output is doubtful. But I'm here to hear other people's experiences and ideas and learn from them.
(my emphasis added) raised the question of what you had tried in order to try to reduce the clock frequency. If nothing, fair enough!
Click to expand...
I didn't quite understand the intent of your post so I was a bit lost.
The CPU is fine at regulating itself so i'm not worried about it. Even under full load it's still happy to offer some boost which is what I want. The more the better! I'm not concerned about power consumption. Here in the northwest electricity is clean and cheap. And aside from encoding the CPU, even at 4.3ghz, runs cool.
 
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