Anyone else think the Mac Mini will be over shortly, and replaced with a Mac Pro with very lower specs found in Mac Minis? I can see them dropping the price and having a single GPU thats decent, decent CPU and 8gb Ram with a fusion drive in place of the 2nd GPU. Granted I'd love a Mini Mac Pro thats smaller than the one released today, But to save cost apple could simply put in cheaper components and call it a day.
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.
End of line for Mac mini?
- Thread starter VanCleef2012
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Not a chance IMO. You're not talking about cheaper CPU, you'd be looking at a whole scale redesign of the internals, new motherboard the lot. You'd end up with a much bigger computer than the current mac mini that isn't using that space for anything useful. It would, in short, be a horrible kludge and take away from the desirability of the Mac Pro while at the same time removing all the good points of the Mac Mini. And for no real upside, the Mac Pro chassis isn't designed for user upgrades any more than the Mac Mini is. I guess you'd end up with desktop graphics but if that's a priority on the Mac Mini line Apple could always put high end discrete mobile graphics chips in.
I agree, the Mac Pro is an expensive piece of machinery. To remove the the mac mini would leave a huge gap in the low cost computing market.
What are the benefits of haswell for the mac mini other than power, (for those that don't care about their coned bill)
Will imovie finally be able to run smoothly on a mini?
Will imovie finally be able to run smoothly on a mini?
the new haswell will be a little better.
you may get 0 fw800 and 2 t-bolt ports. this may be the quad cpu
http://ark.intel.com/products/75119/Intel-Core-i7-4702MQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_20-GHz
it is somewhat better looks like 1600 ram 4600 internal gpu graphics may be 20% better then the hd4000. based on past intel gpus it will have 1 or 2 bugs and take 2 or 3 months for a patch to fix it.
my interest is in the i5 base model I want it to be a better gpu maybe there is an i5 to be released that is worth while.
i would love to see this cpu in a mini
http://ark.intel.com/products/75990/Intel-Core-i5-4258U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-2_90-GHz
I just don't see it happening
Unlikely
The mini's meant to provide a more affordable means to the Mac. It'll be limited (relative to the big brothers) but provide a smooth user experience on OS X. They're willing to be you're next purchase will be a more capable(and pricier) Mac product.
So no, I doubt they'd end the mini in the near future.
The mini's meant to provide a more affordable means to the Mac. It'll be limited (relative to the big brothers) but provide a smooth user experience on OS X. They're willing to be you're next purchase will be a more capable(and pricier) Mac product.
So no, I doubt they'd end the mini in the near future.
considering the base mini goes for $ 599, I can't see a MacPro for anything less than 3 or 4 times that. Just because they didn't update the mini yet with Haswell doesn't mean it's gone.
Won't happen, unless there's a version of the Mac Pro with consumer grade processors (core i5/i7), non-ECC memory, and a single GPU. But then why would you need a tower when all of that can already fit inside the current Mini case?
The lowest spec Mac Pro is still going to have server grade components and dual workstation GPU's. Figure around $2000 or slightly less just for the base model with presumably quad-core Xeon processor.
There's plenty of room for the Mini in the product line.
The lowest spec Mac Pro is still going to have server grade components and dual workstation GPU's. Figure around $2000 or slightly less just for the base model with presumably quad-core Xeon processor.
There's plenty of room for the Mini in the product line.
But as they transition their manufacturing from China to here in the US, it would be very cost affective to just throw in cheap internals in a mac pro chassis instead of having 2 different designs being run. The only thing making the Mac Pro expensive is the internals, If you gave it much cheaper internals, the cost could be brought down to the 599-899 range. Imagine same level internals that Mac Minis are know for and just throw them in a new body. The Mac Mini design can't really get any different. I feel it could be replaced by a very cheap version of the Mac pro or a mini Mac Pro.
Encoding with x264 (the AVX 2 optimized version) is probably much faster (≈ 50 percent). The new Mac mini needs room for two long or four shorter 802.11ac antennas. So i think a redesign is inevitable. Cooling was a problem in previous generations, so that a redesign is necessary.
I would not be surprised to see that happen in this year's refresh. High end 2012 Mini owners have been complaining since release about how hot they run. The Mac Pro design would do away with that and would provide Apple with a modular approach to building these machines which should save them money. All they would need is a Mini mainboard with a Z87 or H87 chipset and an 1150 socket and swap the GPU on the video board for a lower priced consumer model--I'll bet even the video circuit board could stay the same. With the the Pro getting scaled down and the Mini having trouble operating the in the existing thermal envelope of the current design, a convergence seems at least plausible at least on the high end of the Mini spectrum.
"Ditto" Someone else last year posted just about the same MacMini Ending
rant, and it didn't happen, and its not going to happen. Do a Search to find that/those threads..
Much simpler solution..... put cooler running Haswell CPU + Chipset into Mini. Lower the temperature of the internal heat sources and system temperature goes down .
No huge redesign effort needed.
The Mac Pro design is for two GPUs. The mini isn't going to get two GPUs. Not two discrete GPUs. Not a discrete GPU + the iGPU. Both of those raise costs and temperature.
Throwing the Mac Pro's 750-850W thermal management system at the Mini's problems is like crack walnuts with a sledge hammer. Utterly gross overkill. It will not bring down costs at all.
Alas we get to the heart of the whole misdirection. Dramatically increase the Mini's volume so can add a discrete GPU. That is primary intent here. Not same mini price point. Not solving the Mini's "runs hot" problem. Expand the volume so now room for another GPU.
Bet not. The mini would get mobile graphics (similar to MBP and/or iMac) The Mac Pro's solutions will not be mobile graphics.
The whole Mini isn't even in the thermal envelope of one of the Mac Pro's top end video cards let alone the whole Mac Pro system.