Hands-On With Apple's New 2018 Mac Mini

[Zdigital2015]

This sounds like my visits to in-laws. Walk in door and "oh good you're here, can you have a look at the computer that is in the study..."

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!!! My father-in-law...he didn't ask me for like two weeks and then he said he couldn't get the Wi-Fi to work, it went down hill from there. He felt really bad, it wasn't his fault...even I cannot tell some of these malware website pop-ups from legit stuff on occasion...they have gotten really good.

Long story short, fixed it good as new...but it has renewed the burning fire of hate I have for Windows.

 

[pl1984]

Any, with an eGPU connected using TB3.

Yes, there will be a performance penalty compared to a full PCIe 3x16 slot.

Your response is an example of necessity due to Apple's design decisions (what I said) and not due to customers being unwilling to buy the configuration they need upfront (what you said).

 

[skinned66]

What do you think of Apple's new 2018 Mac mini?

Meh. It's alright. Entry level model is a few hundred dollars too expensive. Surprise.

Was it worth the four-year wait? Let us know in the comments.

Four years? Definitely not.

 

[Sabelonada]

Your response is an example of necessity due to Apple's design decisions (what I said) and not due to customers being unwilling to buy the configuration they need upfront (what you said).

I should have clarified that I was referring to storage and not GPU.

Apple does offer a tower like machine in the Mac Pro.

 

[rumplestiltskin]

All-new design and Jony Ive still insists of making a dinky RAM upgrade into a major hassle requiring disassembly. No, wait...Tim Cook approved it so it's his time to go.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Guess what? A lot of Apple users (especially Pros) got tired of waiting for Apple to put a decent computer.
SO they are either updating their old Mac Towers or building Hackintosh.
It is really sad, that Apple is turning dead ears on its customers.

And as you said it is Apple's ball, though you can see that they are not playing it that smart since last quarter they sold less iphones and computers and the stock price is plummeting. I guess customers are also speaking with their pockets since many are not upgrading as often as they use to due to high prices and bad entry specs.

Selling way less computer at higher prices it goes against its own services business interest, since the more users they have the more they will earn from Services. But I guess greed is more powerful.

I am going to make a preposterous statement not backed in facts at all, just so everyone can point and laugh...you should enjoy this.

I believe Apple ramped up the ASP on devices to try and stave off the eventual correction that would come once the smartphone market became so saturated that unit growth would stagnate, in order to have a cash stockpile large enough to get it through the lean times as well as the possibility of it...wait for it, it's truly nuts...buying back enough stock to entertain the remote possibility of Apple going private. There, I said it...and I could well be 100% completely wrong...as it reeks of what Dell did, there are tons of roadblocks to Apple doing it, but I think it is possible that they could do it.

More knowledgable people feel free to prove me wrong...total bombastic statement, and Tim Cook may just be Scrooge McDuck, content to sit on his cash horde, but what if they are sitting on it for a specific reason?

I await the laughter of the coliseum!

Apple has quite a few decent computers already. I think what you really mean is cheap computers that let cheap, uh thrifty, people make cheap upgrades. Do not hold your breath.

 

[pl1984]

I should have clarified that I was referring to storage and not GPU.

OK. Which model Mini allows me to configure up to four TB of storage?

Apple does offer a tower like machine in the Mac Pro.

Which has essentially the external expansion necessity as the Mini. The only difference being that, in some circumstances, it has more capable parts.

 

[Sabelonada]

OK. Which model Mini allows me to configure up to four TB of storage?


Which has essentially the external expansion necessity as the Mini. The only difference being that, in some circumstances, it has more capable parts.

Moving the goal posts.

The Mac Pro can be upgraded in the CPU, SSD, and video card.

 

[itsthenewdc]

How does a Mac Mini from the current generation paired up with an eGPU compare to a Mac Pro (2013)? I can look at raw specs, but what's the performance hit by using an eGPU? Seeing how the Mac Mini is significantly cheaper and giving you the ability to pick your video card seems like a good deal. Granted, it took 5 years since the Mac Pro.. but after seeing the iMac Pro price, not sure I'm looking forward to the price announcement of the Mac Pro when contemplating multiple computer purchases.

 

[gnasher729]

For the money, these are pretty underpowered. Hate to say it. The best thing about them is that they have 10GbE.

It beats every iMac except the iMac Pros. It draws even with the 6 core MacBook Pro and beats everything else. DDR-4 RAM, fastest SSD drive you can buy for any money. Indeed, pretty underpowered.
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The purpose of the original mini, as I understood it, was to create an affordable MacOS machine that would spread the adoption of Macs. With the 60% price hike, it no longer serves that function. Speaking as someone who was in that original demographic and was interested in buying a new Mac in that same price range, no, it was definitely not worth the four-year wait.

Everyone was complaining about the previous Mac Mini.

 

[pl1984]

Moving the goal posts.

Yes, that's exactly what you did when you stated:

"I should have clarified that I was referring to storage and not GPU."

I was merely responding to your "clarification".

The Mac Pro can be upgraded in the CPU, SSD, and video card.

Really? Aside from using cannibalized D300/D500/D700 GPUs what other GPUs can I install in the Mac Pro?
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It beats every iMac except the iMac Pros. It draws even with the 6 core MacBook Pro and beats everything else. DDR-4 RAM, fastest SSD drive you can buy for any money. Indeed, pretty underpowered.

Not really, fast SSDs have been available from other vendors for some time.

 

[Sabelonada]

Yes, that's exactly what you did when you stated:

"I should have clarified that I was referring to storage and not GPU."

I was merely responding to your "clarification".


Really? Aside from using cannibalized D300/D500/D700 GPUs what other GPUs can I install in the Mac Pro?

That's not the question you asked. There are options, internal, which you said didn't exist.

You apparently don't like SFF computers and feel there is no demand. The fact that there are a variety from a number of vendors seems to indicate otherwise. In the SFF market, what better option is there?

No one has provided a single example outside of the Hades Canyon NUC. Even then, it has less CPU and no 10GB Ethernet option. Also, it is limited to 32 GB of memory.

In the SFF class, the Mac mini offers the most flexibility and best CPU performance.

Comparing to a tower is absurd, it's NOT A TOWER. It was never designed to be.

And from your playbook, provide an example of a 4TB NVMe M2 SSD card I can buy.

 

[pl1984]

How does a Mac Mini from the current generation paired up with an eGPU compare to a Mac Pro (2013)? I can look at raw specs, but what's the performance hit by using an eGPU? Seeing how the Mac Mini is significantly cheaper and giving you the ability to pick your video card seems like a good deal. Granted, it took 5 years since the Mac Pro.. but after seeing the iMac Pro price, not sure I'm looking forward to the price announcement of the Mac Pro when contemplating multiple computer purchases.

Given the age of the 2013 Mac Pro GPUs I suspect an eGPU would be faster. But it would depend on which eGPU card and the task. Perhaps a more appropriate question would be how does an eGPU compare to a GPU which can be installed in the 4,1 / 5.1 Mac Pro?

 

[palebluedot]

No such thing as a stupid question.
The Mac format is HFS+ or APFS; while your Surface will be NTFS, or some version of FAT32. Thus, unless you have the software to read/write across these formats, you are done right there. I'm sure that someone makes an application that will allow this to happen; but I have no idea who would do it for the Surface.

Then, as long as your applications on the Mac side, save the file in a format that can be read by the Windows side (ie. *.doc, *.pdf, *.xlsm, etc) you should be good to go.

Why not just use a NAS or network share. Or use Synergy. I have a Mac Mini and a PC on my desk. I can drag and drop files between them using Synergy (and also allows me to share a keyboard and mouse between the two machines).
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I realise this is a stupid question, but does a Mac mini work with, say, a Surface laptop, provided you have cables to connect them? I might be wildly off, but I assume that would be the easiest way for a PC user like me to access macOS.

Why not just use a NAS or network share. Or use Synergy. I have a Mac Mini and a PC on my desk. I can drag and drop files between them using Synergy (and also allows me to share a keyboard and mouse between the two machines).

 

[pl1984]

That's not the question you asked.

The question I asked was:

"Which configuration Mac Mini includes any GPU configuration other than the Intel UHD Graphics 630?"

In response to your statement:

"Or people being unwilling to buy the configuration they need upfront."

You then moved the goal posts (oops, "clarified") with:

"I should have clarified that I was referring to storage and not GPU."

To which I responded to your clarification with:

"OK. Which model Mini allows me to configure up to four TB of storage?"

There are options, internal, which you said didn't exist.

Based on your "clarification" I'll ask again: What Mini configuration provides for four TB of storage?

You apparently don't like SFF computers and feel there is no demand. The fact that there are a variety from a number of vendors seems to indicate otherwise. In the SFF market, what better option is there?

No one has provided a single example outside of the Hades Canyon NUC. Even then, it has less CPU and no 10GB Ethernet option. Also, it is limited to 32 GB of memory.

I have nothing against SFF computers (or the Mini for that matter as I own two 2012 models).

In the SFF class, the Mac mini offers the most flexibility and best CPU performance.

Comparing to a tower is absurd, it's NOT A TOWER. It was never designed to be.

Who's comparing it to a tower?

 

[AdamNC]

I am wondering if I could hook it up to my 49 inch LG 4K tv and use that as my monitor? Any ideas?

 

[Sabelonada]

Who's comparing it to a tower?

My Z440 system easily handles additional storage, GPUs, and networking without the need for Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt appears to be a solution to limitations of Apple's own making.

 

[pl1984]

I asked for where anyone was comparing the two.

 

[imgroot]

I am wondering if I could hook it up to my 49 inch LG 4K tv and use that as my monitor? Any ideas?

You can hook up any display/monitor you want via HDMI; getting the resolution you want/expect without any scaling is what you really want to know. Answer: depends on what you expect

Mini's HDMI max resolution is 4096-by-2160. That's 4K.

 

[LeeW]

Was it worth a 4 year wait? Probably not. But I can live with it, it will last me 5 years unless they put it back into a regular cycle of updates at which point I may upgrade again. I really prefer to work with macOS and for now at least will pay the Apple tax. But if it came down to it I could easily switch to Windows if needed, it wouldn't hold me back at the end of day.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Which configuration Mac Mini includes any GPU configuration other than the Intel UHD Graphics 630?

Well, the maximum number of PCIe lanes any dGPU solution the mini was going to get would be x8 as Apple was going to put either the storage and one Thunderbolt 3 controller on the CPU or two TB3 controllers and run the SSD through the PCH, so the $$$ savings you would see would be the eGPU enclosure (minimum $200) and maybe about $125 off price of a 555x or 560x dGPU built-in versus a separate Radeon RX580 PCIe card.

I would have expected any dGPU option for the mini to be at least $100-$150 premium above the UHD 630 models as currently priced.

It would be built-in, so I guess that is something, not much...but something.

 

[rizzo41999]

The Mini has the same T2 chip that has been giving issues in other Mac models (Bridge OS errors). I would recommend holding out on buying a new Mini until it's evident that there aren't any issues with the T2 in the Mini.

What do you think of Fallout 76?

 

[Porco]

I am AMAZED that no one seems to have noticed the missing SD Card Reader, present in the 2012 and 2014 models. What am I to do to backup my Raspberry Pi Debian OS if I can't push the SD Card into my mini for a backup? Oh.... ok, there's a $300 after-market dock for that!

USB SD readers are really very cheap. I agree it would nice if Apple had kept it, but no-one needs to spend more than an extra $10-$15 or so.

Here’s a nice cheap one:
https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-microSDHC-Reader-TS-RDF5K-Black/dp/B009D79VH4/

 

[palebluedot]

An unreported change...this machine no longer passes 192KHz. audio through the optical output. Maxes out at 96KHz.

Sigh.
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ep my current Mac Mini as my primary, but it's nice to have a computer that screams for literally a fraction of the cost of this one.

I recommend you use Synergy. I have a Mac Mini as my primary Mac/iChat/email computer and also a gaming PC on my desk. I have two monitors and share a keyboard, mouse, and drag and drop files between them with Synergy. It really is the best of all worlds.

 

[theluggage]

With the mini, as long as that Figure 8 is not proprietary, you could buy a second one for an alternate location and place the mini in a Messenger bag if you prefer not to roll with a MBP or an iPad just won't cut it.

Sure - the built in PSU is a significant selling point vs. power bricks (I mean, its not such a bigdeal if you don't plan on carrying it around, but its still less clutter). However, every external box you have to add to the Mini diminishes that advantage.

Now, the HC NUC isn't the only alternative to the Mini, and its certainly not better in every respect - but (a) you can easily and economically fit it with two, huge internal SSDs and (b) the Vega M on-package graphics will lift a lot of people out of the requirement for an eGPU (which come in 2 varieties: expensive and huge with internal PSU, or, expensive and smaller with a huge power brick). Or, you can get a small-form-factor system with space for a regular GPU and expandable storage which may be substantially bigger than the Mini but will be a single box with a single mains cord.