Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Had M1 Mac Pro Ready to Ship Months Ago, Mac Mini Redesign Unlikely
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
What would be neat would be putting the essence of Mac mini into a 'Mac nano' form factor. A small, dense cube (perhaps with a mirror logo and slightly rounded corners, to give a subtle difference to the look of the Apple Design Award).
Could maybe be more functional – for adding a full Mac to any display – in such a design than a version built in to a keyboard… 🤔
THIS Extreme Modular . Modular Boards with Ultra or Extreme chipset with fixed ram,
Would love to see Apple bring something like that back. I was hoping the Mac Studio would have that form factor although it probably makes more sense for the mini.
I maintain that if Apple is going to make a tower, the scenarios they are going to go after are:
* Cinematic - Hollywood render farm capable graphics processing.
* Processing extremely large big-data sets for deep science applications.
* Advanced ML and AI processing.
Doubling the Ultra probably isn't enough for this. They'd need to develop a new backplane that could 10x or 20x and give insane memory bandwidth. I believe the next Pro will completely move the goalposts on what "workstation" means. Starting price, $10,999.
Fingers crossed.
* Cinematic - Hollywood render farm capable graphics processing.
* Processing extremely large big-data sets for deep science applications.
* Advanced ML and AI processing.
Doubling the Ultra probably isn't enough for this. They'd need to develop a new backplane that could 10x or 20x and give insane memory bandwidth. I believe the next Pro will completely move the goalposts on what "workstation" means. Starting price, $10,999.
Fingers crossed.
With the M1, it seems like they should be able to make the Mini about the size of an iPhone now!
If it comes clad in black leather then it better have the boots and whip to go with it.
Reminds me of those killstreaks in Unreal Tournament back in the day. Would make great startup sounds too.
There is room.
Throwing a M2 Max into a Mini is more misdirection than lack of headroom.
The M2 Pro Mini would be around $1499-1599 ( if upgrade the Ethernet, e.g, 10GbE, closer to the $1599. Also pending inflation adjustments by Apple. ) If put the the 'plain' M2 and the M2 Pro in the same Mini case then have two group ranges of options right there. There is zero rational need to also put a 'Max' option in there at all.
M2 binned (over GPU cores . Could add a CPU core option as with the initial M1 MBA if pressing for a lower entry price point. ) for options in range 1 and "plain" Mini.
M2 Pro binned ( over CPU and GPU cores. e.g. there are three options for the MBP 14" )
$400-500 is a big enough headroom/differentiation gap. Leave the Max out and there is a gap. The gap on the MBA and MBP isn't that high. The gap between the 21' and 27' iMac was in approximately that same range and the sky didn't fall. The gap is mainly in GPUs. Folks who need more GPU cores would gladly move up to the Studio. And Folks who have far more lower value priority on GPU cores will shift toward Mini Pro.
Putting a M2 Pro into the current Mini case makes very good rational sense. Thermally it fits. If Apple is holding onto the classic case for the plain M2 also then it makes even more sense ( probably a bit overkill thermally window but better for a desktop , than under with the M2 MBA. ) . Shared chassis tooling costs over a broader product range would make both more cost effective. ( can get different paint jobs so the Pro variant can be in the "cool kids" club. )
You mean the Mac Mini that also houses the Intel i5? I think it could handle a little more heat than the M-series chips have put out so far.
He said that the Ultra was the last of the M1 series of chips. That led to speculation about the M2 series.
No, he’s throwing things at the wall in hopes something will stick, none of it is “educated”
That’s not entirely true. The CPU cores are a bit better, albeit slightly. The increased clock speed contributes to most of that.
BUT
The bigger difference is GPU and RAM.
RAM limit increased 50%. If the M2 Pro and up follow, that will be big on 2x Ultra, 4x Ultra, etc.
And GPU. 10 cores on base model could mean 20 on pro, 40 on Max, 80 on Ultra, 160 on Ultra x2, etc.
That’s a big, big jump. I mean, 2 M1 Ultras would be big. 4x even more so. And then, these bumps multiply as you scale, could make the ASi Mac Pro beat the Intel in every way, even with enormous graphic cards and everything.
They may have skipped M1 because the Mac Pro would have lost in some areas to a 2019 Intel model, especially in max RAM and graphics.
They called apple apologist for a reason.
I worked for GM for 12 years, Apple now reminds me of the old GM before the bailout. In 1993 GM had the $60000 Cadillac Allante and Buick Regatta and I ask one of the GM executives who can afford a $60000 automobile and his response was, his wife can, of course he most likely made $300000 a year or more. At that same trade show a new company call KIA introduced their first automobile and people laughed at it, the rest is history.
I still have my 2019 MacBook Pro I used for the Mac User groups that is now gone do to the Pandemic. When I can buy a Chromebook Acer 714 with a Intel 12 Gen i5 with thunderbolt 4, touch screen, USI pen built in for only $725 for mobile use and can Build a Gaming Tower for Half the price of the new Mac Pro towers and has tons of software I think Apple needs to reevaluate some of the decisions over the last 5 years. Yes I think Apple makes some of the best hardware on the market, but I think they doing what GM did and over priced their products, just like GM thought are we are big and people won't buy another brand. KIA now sell 2.8 million cars because they are affordable to the consumer.
I still have my 2019 MacBook Pro I used for the Mac User groups that is now gone do to the Pandemic. When I can buy a Chromebook Acer 714 with a Intel 12 Gen i5 with thunderbolt 4, touch screen, USI pen built in for only $725 for mobile use and can Build a Gaming Tower for Half the price of the new Mac Pro towers and has tons of software I think Apple needs to reevaluate some of the decisions over the last 5 years. Yes I think Apple makes some of the best hardware on the market, but I think they doing what GM did and over priced their products, just like GM thought are we are big and people won't buy another brand. KIA now sell 2.8 million cars because they are affordable to the consumer.
That’s not what I got at all. They had the machine ready for months. They‘ll put an M2 in it instead of an M1, not just a rebrand.
Gurman 'expects' versus Gurman was told by a Apple source should be reported into two different categories. Too often it seems that these are being muddled together on Macrumors.
Using the current case would let the M2 SoC get unleashed thermally though. MBA throttles on sustained full blast computations. Long enough wall clock time at full blast the MBP 13" has longer limit. The "every thinner" design politburo unleashed on the Mini's case likely would have brought painted into the thermal corner with them (like the other places they have gone).