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8 mac mini refurbs listed. New mini coming?

philipma1957

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 13, 2010
6,451
326
Howell, New Jersey
I wish, i'd drop $$ for the top end mbp specs in a mini

...If we always held our breath, we'd be dead.
 
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I agree.

I know it's against their business model, but I do wish they would update the Mac mini with greater frequency. At least GPU update. I've reached a juncture where I need/want more horsepower than I'm willing to spend on a same spec notebook from Apple. I'd be at $2500 give or take.
I've been seriously contemplating a Mac mini screwed to the back of a monitor, but now seeing what I get for the price I'm actually leaning toward a Mini-ITX board, memory and CPU in Ivy Bridge when it comes out. I just priced out a couple options this morning before work and it came out to about $300-350 before monitor.


I'm thinking hackintosh/windows 7 might be the next choice for me after this January, but we shall see how it shapes up after New Years. I'm hoping Ivy Bridge desktop components are out by the end of January. Still, if I could get a loaded Mac mini w/ 6770m for $800 I would probably choose that just to alleviate the hassle factor of going back to hackintosh.

EDIT:After having slept on it, and then spec'ing out the addition of graphics for a mini-itx hackintosh my price climbed to around $600+, and I still haven't worked out where I would put the big honking power supply. Unless the Ivy Bridge GPU really gives a decent boost to performance that I think I can live with it's looking like next refresh I will be getting a loaded Mac mini.
 
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the 2009 minis had a refresh in oct with the same c2d just better clock speeds. 2.66 2.53 and 2.26.

sandy bridge minis refresh may come in jan with an external brick psu option for a quad with a good gpu. this is easy to do and I think a lot of people would want it. I read the specs of the ivy mobile cpus and they don't solve the discrete gpu issue. the internal psu can't do more then 85 watts and it is 90 percent efficient. too much heat and not enough power for a quad core and a discrete GPU



seems to me the 15 inch macbook quad 2.2 with the 6750 m 512mb ddr5 can work in a mini that has an external psu of 110 watts. If A BTO came out with that for a mini it would sell.

if the base mini had an i5 2.60ghz it would sell


http://ark.intel.com/products/50072/Intel-Core-i5-2540M-Processor-(3M-Cache-2_60-GHz)

add 4gb ram not 2gb.


easy refresh.

I did a lot of testing with t-bolt and ssd's will be add-on via cases like lace's little big disk. So using hdds as part of the apple upgrade path will not be something apple awaits to do..
trapped internal drives don't exist in any t-bolt computer. simple add-on fix.

My guess is apple is going to do a refresh in Jan or Feb.
 
philipma1957 said:
seems to me the 15 inch macbook quad 2.2 with the 6750 m 512mb ddr5 can work in a mini that has an external psu of 110 watts. If A BTO came out with that for a mini it would sell.

if the base mini had an i5 2.60ghz it would sell


http://ark.intel.com/products/50072/Intel-Core-i5-2540M-Processor-(3M-Cache-2_60-GHz)

add 4gb ram not 2gb.


easy refresh.
Click to expand...
I generally agree with you, however, won't shuch a powerful mini 'steal' from the sales of the higher end platform iMac? Also, having an internal psu is actually a convenience as one would need a cheap power cable instead of apple's expensive external psu.
 
TrollToddington said:
I generally agree with you, however, won't shuch a powerful mini 'steal' from the sales of the higher end platform iMac? Also, having an internal psu is actually a convenience as one would need a cheap power cable instead of apple's expensive external psu.
Click to expand...

apple is looking to turn the iMac in to a smart tv. see the story on macrumors front page.

I had this in mind I used a when i used a 27 inch iMac as a wall mounted tv in my kitchen. if this happens it will help the mini. here is a link to my iMac that sold on ebay last month. it was a tv/dvr/computer for my kitchen for 17 months. note to mods this was sold last month and in no way is an attempt to sell an iMac. it is for information that relates to your front page story;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/15069263991...X:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1559.l2649#ht_2241wt_1183


here is the story on iMac tv's

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/12/0...o-potentially-offer-television-functionality/

my reasoning that this is good for minis is simple many people don't want the tv stuck to the computer. also iMacs cost money a 32 or 46 iMac would be expensive.
 
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I've always used Minis hooked to HDTVs as HTPCs. No need for a tv with builtin computer.
I left the desktop years ago and never liked/used laptops. I like my iPad2 tho.
 
gigaguy said:
I've always used Minis hooked to HDTVs as HTPCs. No need for a tv with builtin computer.
I left the desktop years ago and never liked/used laptops. I like my iPad2 tho.
Click to expand...

I have done both I prefer doing (1 mini +1 tv ).


If I had a boatload of cash and apple was selling 46 inch iMacs I would want one. Just need the boat and the cash!
 
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