...especially if you added the BlackMagic eGPU RX Vega 56 on thunderbolt 3 .. wonder how THAT would stack up against the $3999 8 core Trash Can Mack Pro?
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First Mac Mini Benchmark Surfaces Ahead of November 7 Launch
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...especially if you added the BlackMagic eGPU RX Vega 56 on thunderbolt 3 .. wonder how THAT would stack up against the $3999 8 core Trash Can Mack Pro?
Yeah...much as I am pleased with the update, I don't fully understand the rationale for moving from laptop component CPU and GPU in the 2011-2014 minis, to the desktop equivalent in the 2018 mini. Performance seems the same. Is it reduced cost? Or reduced risk of throttling? Something else?
Think of a server farm with only Mac Minis in stacks - like thousands of them. Lots of computing power in very little space and at relatively low cost.
It's small, efficient, and relatively cheap - the best kind of server.
Just commenting on overall value based on price and native usability. IMO all of Apple's computers are pretty nice - this one has a lot to compete with.
That's why Intel has "K" chips, for those who want raw power that no laptop can match.
But those would melt inside Mac Mini. 95W TDP requires excellent thermal solutions to reach its full potential.
The 8 core with upgraded 6-core processor base memory (cause you can upgrade that cheaper yourself) and 1TB SSD lists for 1899. add the Blackmagic eGPU (Radeon RX Vega 56) for $1,199 = $3,100. Add 300 for 32gb of SODIMM and that sir would be a very respectable machine for $3,400 ... Very Tempting ....
It takes that long for intel chips to make meaningful gains.
That's a great Geekbench score for the 2018 i7 Mac Mini. I think the highest score I ever got on my quad-core i7 2012 Mac Mini was around 12,500 or so. I'm very impressed thus far - other than them being a little too pricey.
I did patiently wait several years for Apple to upgrade the Mini from the 2012 version, but earlier this year, I just couldn't wait any longer and so I decided to go the Hackintosh route when the 8th Gen Intel processors came out - as I'm sure many of my fellow MacOS fans did as well.
Yes, there was a bit of work and effort put into the endeavor, but I have to say that I'm very pleased with the results. Other than a couple of glitches upgrading the OS and integrating some of the parts into the system, overall, my Hackintosh mini has been pretty bulletproof in all of it's basic & advanced day-to-day operations. I've easily overclocked the CPU to 5GHz without any issues. These new 8th generation Intel chips can really handle overclocking without any major thermal throttling penalties. The excellent thermal performance I'm seeing with my rig is also hopefully going to be the case with the current Intel B chips that Apple is using in their 2018 Mac Mini's as well - with any serious thermal throttling hopefully kept to a minimum.
The following are the Geekbench scores from my Hackintosh Mac Mini - comparing it to Apple's i7 Mac Mini. Mine is spec'ed out with a 6-core i5 8600K vs the 2018 i7 Mac Mini's 6-core i7 8700B.
Note: My Mini is identified as an iMac 18,3 due to my build getting slightly better performance with that system ID. than if I gone the Mac Mini ID. - though it's still in a mini ITX form factor.
I did patiently wait several years for Apple to upgrade the Mini from the 2012 version, but earlier this year, I just couldn't wait any longer and so I decided to go the Hackintosh route when the 8th Gen Intel processors came out - as I'm sure many of my fellow MacOS fans did as well.
Yes, there was a bit of work and effort put into the endeavor, but I have to say that I'm very pleased with the results. Other than a couple of glitches upgrading the OS and integrating some of the parts into the system, overall, my Hackintosh mini has been pretty bulletproof in all of it's basic & advanced day-to-day operations. I've easily overclocked the CPU to 5GHz without any issues. These new 8th generation Intel chips can really handle overclocking without any major thermal throttling penalties. The excellent thermal performance I'm seeing with my rig is also hopefully going to be the case with the current Intel B chips that Apple is using in their 2018 Mac Mini's as well - with any serious thermal throttling hopefully kept to a minimum.
The following are the Geekbench scores from my Hackintosh Mac Mini - comparing it to Apple's i7 Mac Mini. Mine is spec'ed out with a 6-core i5 8600K vs the 2018 i7 Mac Mini's 6-core i7 8700B.
Note: My Mini is identified as an iMac 18,3 due to my build getting slightly better performance with that system ID. than if I gone the Mac Mini ID. - though it's still in a mini ITX form factor.
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The black magic eGPU is a nicely constructed device, but overpriced. You can get a Sonnet eGPU 650 and a Vega 64 for a few hundred less.
The Blackmagic 580 eGPU is quiet but throttled to below 580 performance for a greater cost than separate components, too, so I expect Black magic's Vega 56 offering to also be throttled for silence.
If what you want is a quiet eGPU, however, then it might be your best bet.
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I just don’t get this computer. The old mini made sense; it was a budget way to get into MacOS and a space-saving design. With the new mini, even if you get the base model, it’s $800, a whopping 60% increase, and since 128GB is a joke for a desktop, you need external storage. Once you add external storage, though, you’ve kind of lost the point of having a little computer in the first place, which is to minimize space. And your system is now more expensive too. Now it’s an $850 computer or more ... with integrated graphics. What if your goal was not budget but power, though? Then you buy an eGPU and it’s even more expensive and now even less of a small, compact system. Honestly, if Apple didn’t want to make a budget system anymore and wanted a powerful system, they should have just made a mini tower that permits a graphics card. This computer is not an ideal compact computer nor a powerful computer, it just sits uncomfortably somewhere in between.
It will likely have better cooling than a regular macbook pro, so should be able to sustain higher CPU performance for longer than an equivalently specced Macbook Pro. You're also getting way more ports of course. But yeah, the smaller form factor comes at the cost of only being able to house mobile processors.
Counterpoint; in 4 or 5 years a little extra speed might be nice, but the only MacMini being sold is the exact same one for the exact same price.
Bingo! That's the key. If it can handle my encodes for hours on end i'll be VERY happy.
I think it's been repositioned as a pro-sumer level desktop. Nothing on it's home page speaks to low cost or an being a budget entry into the Mac ecosystem.
A mini tower has been talked about for ages since the demise of G4 type towers. I suspect we'll never see one. Any tower will be a full-fledge one probably in the form of the Mac Pro.
You DO realize, of course, that the MacBook Air is NOT meant for people who need large amounts of compute-power or I/O (but the 2 TB3 ports actually do supply the latter!); but rather want a computer that is:
1. A Mac.
2. Is extremely light.
"This computer is not an ideal compact computer nor a powerful computer, it just sits uncomfortably somewhere in between"
I think it's a hell of an ideal compact and flexible computer. Small size. Built-in power supply. Decent performance. Low entry price.
Loads of fast and flexible I/O in the base unit: Four Thunderbolt 3 ports each supporting 40 Gb/sec rates, three USB-A 3 ports, supports three 4K or two 5K displays, HDMI 2.0, Bluetooth 5.0, WiFi, and an option for 10Gbit ethernet. And decent performance out of the box.
Need more performance? Easy. Pay extra for what you actually need, be it CPU, memory, or storage.
And the best thing? It runs macOS. So it plays and syncs well with your other macOS and iOS devices. And it's well-supported.
Looking for the next prime number? Or do you need to decrypt Top Secret messages from foreign adversaries? There are probably better options out there.
My problem with the MacBook Air is that it really needed to graduate to the 4-core 15w U-Series (i5-8265U or i7-8565U) as 90% of its competition has over the past 14 months (820U, 8550U). The Whiskey Lake CPUs cost virtually the same and would have made for a more compelling value proposition. The Thunderbolt 3 actually makes the dual-core CPU more puzzling of a choice since 10Gbps USB-C Gen 2 would have sufficed for most users with a 5w dual-core CPU, but I digress.
If you had thousands of mac minis in stacks you would require a team of technicians which their job would be to go around troubleshoot hardware due to lack of remote management. Things like like plug and unplug things - figure out why a particular mac mini is not turning on in a certain rack, not to mention how do they know that they are looking at the correct mac mini among the thousands? They all look the same and there is no ability for a remote administrator to light up a UID on one.
This is kind of what I was think about as the "sweet spot" for general-purpose use.