Apple's New M1 Chip Brings 6K Display Support to Mac Mini and Base 13-Inch MacBook Pro For the First Time

[whooleytoo]

It’s rather underwhelming to be honest. And even with this Apple Silicon transition, it‘d be a slow, steady transition for Mac to be iOS device. With its “3x GPU improvement” would it be able to run elite PC games? Or chugging into PS5 performance? It’d be 10 years before that happens.

I’ve been waiting for Apple Arcade to be a fully matured games store that’s able to match at least PS4 performance. Still can’t see that happens anytime soon.

The mission of Apple Silicon is clear, the best industry-leading performance per watt. That’s pretty much the keyword.

Hard to know how the CPU & GPU perform, but if it has just 8GB unified memory (RAM & VRAM) I wouldn't expect much from it. TBH, I'm not sure I'd use any Mac with just 8GB any more, never mind 8GB with some of that used for video. Then add in things like Rosetta 2 which are likely to have a RAM overhead if you're using any Intel apps/games (It's especially unlikely that Intel Mac games are going to be ported).

 

[AgentElliot007]

"Pair your $699 Mac mini with our $5,000 display. If you're feeling really lucky, splurge $1,000 on the stand too."

Seriously, that’s the most laughable aspect of today without an announcement of a lower-priced Apple display. The mere suggestion is comical to me.

 

[Kcetech1]

A Mac Mini behind a TV as a presentation/advertising tool. Sure, that makes plenty of sense. A Mac Mini behind a $5K-$6K 32" monitor as a presentation/advertising tool... that makes a lot less than plenty of sense. Closer to no sense at all imo.

It only works as a marketing bullet that highlights the power of the silicon. From a practical standpoint it's not very.

Makes even less sense when you can use an older mac mini or some cheap itx computer to broadcast out to multiple tv's over chromecasts, raspberry pi's etc as recievers. New mac mini falls out of that because of its 2 display limitation.

I was looking to maybe update some digital signage with a new AS mac mini today. But alas I ordered a micro itx box that can drive 6 displays and not need to fight.

 

[Simmias]

"Pair your $699 Mac mini with our $5,000 display. If you're feeling really lucky, splurge $1,000 on the stand too."

Already did exactly this back in January (with Blackmagic eGPU). It’s been a dream come true and made working from home a daily pleasure.

 

[BWhaler]

A new $1,200 display should have been the one more thing today.

It’s stunning to me Apple is OK with their computers being hooked up to junk monitors.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

A Mac Mini behind a TV as a presentation/advertising tool. Sure, that makes plenty of sense. A Mac Mini behind a $5K-$6K 32" monitor as a presentation/advertising tool... that makes a lot less than plenty of sense. Closer to no sense at all imo.

It only works as a marketing bullet that highlights the power of the silicon. From a practical standpoint it's not very.

It depends on the resolution of the TV. Because of how long these things gets used, this is pretty good future proofing.

 

[KPOM]

Given how fast prices decline, prob more a future "nice to have" capability...

Though mainstream displays seem to have stagnated at 4K. There are very few 5K displays on the market besides the LG UltraFine and some weird 21:9 displays.

 

[arvinsim]

6K is not overkill for anyone. What is overkill though is the price tag for average user as most of the tech is not needed.
Not to mention the ******** stand that is $1k.

Reduce certain features, bring the price down and most prosumers will be more than happy to get 6K display. Just like 5K on iMac was awesome so is the 6K.

Sure, the iMac 5k display is awesome.

But then again, it cannot be bought separately.

 

[thePhil907]

Cool but how about a consumer-grade monitor, for the consumer-grade laptop?

 

[PatriotInvasion]

6k is total overkill. 4k offers more than enough pixels for the average Mac user.

It's not about total pixels. It's about pixel density and HiDPI. A standard 3840x2160px 4K display forces you to choose between 1080px HiDPI at 2X which makes UI elements look comically large or run it in native 4K (3840x2160) with everything feeling too small.

The 6K Pro Display XDR I believe runs at 3008x1692px at 2X Retina. Sounds amazing to me. But, not $6,000 amazing.

 

[PatriotInvasion]

Apple could slap the 5K iMac display in an aluminum enclosure, put an Apple logo on the back, and collect $1,299 from a few million people. I don't know why they don't want to do this.

Even if not for us, for the poor junior developer or marketing person they hire in Cupertino. I'm guessing they issue that person a MacBook Pro, but what on earth do they dock into for the day when they get to the office? If the answer is a big plastic LG display, it's a travesty and embarrassment to Apple Park lol.

 

[Ulfric]

Interesting

https://twitter.com/x/status/1326251953622540295

 

[Doomtomb]

6K is not overkill for anyone. What is overkill though is the price tag for average user as most of the tech is not needed.
Not to mention the ******** stand that is $1k.

Reduce certain features, bring the price down and most prosumers will be more than happy to get 6K display. Just like 5K on iMac was awesome so is the 6K.

5K has totally spoiled any <4K displays for me. So to will 6K 😆

 

[yurc]

Maybe Apple reluctantly making affordable standalone display because of fear cannibalize iMac sales? When mini is option, some people (including me) are prefer headless computer.

 

[KPOM]

Apple could slap the 5K iMac display in an aluminum enclosure, put an Apple logo on the back, and collect $1,299 from a few million people. I don't know why they don't want to do this.

Even if not for us, for the poor junior developer or marketing person they hire in Cupertino. I'm guessing they issue that person a MacBook Pro, but what on earth do they dock into for the day when they get to the office? If the answer is a big plastic LG display, it's a travesty and embarrassment to Apple Park lol.

They marketed the LG Ultrafine 5K for 3+ years which was essentially the same display as the 5K iMac for $1299. They didn’t get many buyers. I have one of those monitors and it’s great, but apparently not many people agree with me that it’s worth $1299.

 

[jimthing]

How many LG 5K3K displays can each of these three machines have?
(6K figures are all well and good, but many more users own the much cheaper LG 5K's.)

 

[amartinez1660]

A new $1,200 display should have been the one more thing today.

It’s stunning to me Apple is OK with their computers being hooked up to junk monitors.

Totally true.
Make it a round $1000 like the good old TB or Cinema Displays from before and I’m changing all my TB Displays that I’m still running to this day (they are still color flawless, 100% full brightness and mint condition).
Actually, fine, $1200 all things included is still a VERY fair price (if it has all the speakers, camera, ports, TB daisy chaining, etc that they had).

 

[macdos]

From what I can remember when Apple released the updated Mac Mini (2018) it's configuration fully spec'd out was around $4,000. And that could only be configured with Intel UHD 630 graphics. This new Mac Mini announced today is only around $1,700 fully spec'd out. To me Apple just makes a price up in their head's and says that's it. Pretty much a slap in the face to us who wanted the most powerful Mac Mini back in 2018.

Add 6 x $200 for an additional 6 x 8 GB of RAM and also some for another TB3 port, and you get the same total.

 

[69Mustang]

It depends on the resolution of the TV. Because of how long these things gets used, this is pretty good future proofing.

Honestly, I'm not sure how you get future proofing from that scenario. You could buy a new Mac Mini and a 4K TV as a display every year for 5 years and still come out cheaper than buying that 6K monitor once. You could even pair that Mac Mini with a brand new 4K TV for the next 19 years and still come out cheaper than buying that $6000 monitor once. Good 4K TV's are exceedingly inexpensive. A $6000 monitor as a presentation device simply makes no sense. There are far more sensible solutions in that scenario you presented.

 

[theorist9]

6k is total overkill. 4k offers more than enough pixels for the average Mac user.

Nope. Any OS after High Sierra doesn't have subpixel rendering, which means you need retina pixel density (~220 ppi on a monitor) for text to look sharp. [Yes, you can implement it in Terminal in Mojave, but the result still isn't as good as in High Sierra.] There's a whole discussion thread on MacRumors about this. That means if you want a 27" external monitor, you need 5k.

Apple itself recognizes this -- every Mac monitor they offer, both the stand-alone 6k, and the built-ins in the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac, is ~220 ppi (the old lower-grade MBA, no longer offered, was sub-retina). Because my external monitor is 4k, I've stuck with High Sierra for that reason.

So, again, if you want a 27" monitor that has a resolution sufficient to meet the standards Apple has sent even for average users, you need 5k.

 

[iLog.Genius]

All these performance numbers don't really mean much until we get real world usage. The Intel 13" MacBook Pro with USB-C is said to be able to power two 4K monitors, which technically it can, but to what point? My 13" MacBook Pro can't even run ONE 4K monitor at 3008x1692 (middle option) without being sluggish and choppy and that's just basic tasks, never mind trying multitask.

 

[MorePixels]

6k is total overkill. 4k offers more than enough pixels for the average Mac user.

there is never enough.... MorePixels!!!!

 

[amartinez1660]

Nope. Any OS after High Sierra doesn't have subpixel rendering, which means you need retina pixel density (~220 ppi on a monitor) for text to look sharp. [Yes, you can implement it in Terminal in Mojave, but the result still isn't as good as in High Sierra.] There's a whole discussion thread on MacRumors about this. That means if you want a 27" external monitor, you need 5k.

Apple itself recognizes this -- every Mac monitor they offer, both the stand-alone 6k, and the built-ins in the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac, is ~220 ppi (the old lower-grade MBA, no longer offered, was sub-retina). Because my external monitor is 4k, I've stuck with High Sierra for that reason.

So, again, if you want a 27" monitor that has a resolution sufficient to meet the standards Apple has sent even for average users, you need 5k.

Didn’t totally know about this subpixel rendering being completely disabled. Is it for performance reasons or something to be gained substantially by this?

I’m using a couple of 27” old TB displays (which are 2.5k) and the main iMac 5k display. The iMac is beautifully sharp but the other two don’t strike me as bad either. At default viewing distances and text size, the screen real state is the same and the experience mostly the same. Granted, I’m looking 80% of the time the main screen.

 

[Mr. Dee]

If you are willing to spend that kinda money on a display, might as well buy the Mac Pro itself.

 

[Average Pro]

who buys a cheap Mac mini and spends 5 grand on a 6k display??

come on.

Clearly you have not seen what youths (and some adults) do to their 4-cylinder* Asian imports that far outweighs your question.
*Does not apply to the Acura NSX, Subaru WRX, Nissan GT-R