Intel Mac mini Disassembly and Details

[chaos86]

FUD is Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. A tactic often used by naysayers to sway opinion to they way they think things should be. So, yeah your definition works OK.

thanks for the explanation, good to know

Since the GMA950 is apparently built into the Northbridge of Intel's current chipset for Core Solo/Duo machines, it's about to become Dell's choice for being the cheapest option.

its about to be the cheapest gpu option in Intel Core machines, but Dell's cheapest machines will still have celerons with the cheaper older crappier intergrated gpus for a while to come. they wont be putting Core chips in the entry level machines for a while now.

 

[theonly]

its about to be the cheapest gpu option in Intel Core machines, but Dell's cheapest machines will still have celerons with the cheaper older crappier intergrated gpus for a while to come. they wont be putting Core chips in the entry level machines for a while now.

Exactly. That's why one will find it difficult to create truly "comparable" BTO systems from the HP/Dell/Gateway companies, even ignoring the mini's form factor. If power consumption and compact size aren't attractive features for you, the mini isn't very interesting--for me, the reduced space and power consumption were selling points for the original Mac mini. It's a balanced approach to processing needs vs. power and space, which (if you don't live in a suburban McMansion) are considerations for a certain segment of the market.

I don't completely understand why those who wanted bigger ("I want it to be the size of my other home theater components"), cheaper ("Why'd they increase the price by $100? I wanted $3xx/$4xx!"), and stronger ("Why didn't they add nVidia's SLI with dual 6800 GPU's with a 2GHz Dual Core CPU?") were so interested in / disappointed by the new mini.

 

[Fabio_gsilva]

Benchmark

123 Mac Mini Site posted some benchmarks comparing the "old Mini" with the new one.

http://www.123macmini.com/news/story/451.html

Check it out!

 

[manu chao]

1) I have all my music, photos and movies on a different mac with external HDs so I would use the living room Mac just to play it all (Front Row streaming). This is exactly how I want it, since I use my "home office iMac" (Intel 20") to organize everything, make playlists, rip music, handle photos and movies and so on. It's great NOT to have it all stored on a living room mac really.

2) It would not be used as a computer at all (well maybe some surfing but that's it). It would be a media player with the possibility of surfing on the net, can't see what else I would do from my sofa.

3) It would be connected to my AV Receiver with optical audio out

4) It would be connected to my (old) TV but to an LCD/Plasma in the near future

In principle that is what thought was Apple's targeted usage (at least for those who put the mini in the living room as an additional computer).

But what of these things could not be done with an iPod and a separate DVD-player?

(One thing that comes to my mind is online radio stations.)

 

[manu chao]

• 720p played the first 40 seconds with no noticable frame drops
• 1080p did skip frames occasionally -- enough to be noticable

I bought the thing anyway and was able to watch the IMAX Deep Sea 3D 720p trailer without noticable frame dropping.

On my 1.67 PowerBook, HD is completely CPU bound (not RAM nor GPU), 480p is the maximum it plays.

However, for those with too much time on their hands, there is a workaround that plays 1080p in an acceptable manner on my Powerbook:
- save the HD content to your disk (e.g. a trailer from Apple)
- import it into iMovie HD
- export as 'Full Quality'
- play in Quicktime

According to Get Info, it does not drop any frames but it looks a bit jerky (720p is not CPU bound, less than 100% load, 1080p is at 100%) maybe it is GPU or GPU memory bound then. Interestingly, 720p and 1080p look equally jerky, which may point to GPU limitations.

(the explanation why this works is left as an exercise to the reader)

 

[Eidorian]

In case this hasn't been mentioned it seems that Apple is going with the smaller SO-DIMM RAM for ALL of its current Intel models. It's a space saving measure and a simplification of parts. Sadly, SO-DIMM's are more expensive to purchase and much harder to upgrade the Mac Mini.

Here's to regular DIMM memory for the Power Mac.

 

[theonly]

coreimage quality?

I'm curious about the image quality of the GMA950. I finally got to play with the Core Duo mini (stock config) at my local Apple store.

I was able to play 1080p h.264 clips from the Quicktime site, though I did see some frame-dropping (perhaps due to the 512MB of RAM). 720p clips, as already established, played beautifully. Everything I tried seemed notably snappier than my own 1.42GHz G4 mini, of course.

I did see a weird blurring of the widgets during the ripple effect in Dashboard. (Steps to reproduce: drag the Dictionary or any other widget with text off the 'shelf' into the Dashboard, watch the 'ripple.') Until the ripple/bobbing effect ends, the text on the widget is blurred. As soon as the eye-candy effects are finished, the widget looks perfectly normal and sharp. I walked to an iMac 17" and an iMac 20" to compare, and there is no such blurring of the text during the effect. It just looks like the normal widget, surrounded by the ripple and appearing to bob up and down on a water surface.

Has anyone else observed this in-store or at home?

 

[JJC80]

thanks for the explanation, good to know



its about to be the cheapest gpu option in Intel Core machines, but Dell's cheapest machines will still have celerons with the cheaper older crappier intergrated gpus for a while to come. they wont be putting Core chips in the entry level machines for a while now.

your right, Dell just introduced two more top models of their inspiron notebooks with core duos on Tuesday. they have the GMA 950 as the standard option, but can be upgraded with ATI.

 

[zelet]

I used a Mac Mini (Duo w/ 512) in the Apple store today and realize that it feels just as hoochi as the old one. Although, it launches things a little bit faster the interface responsiveness is slow. I know its subjective - but using that next to the 17" iMac Intel was depressing and made me realize that I don't want a Mini.

They might be good machines for something - but I can't figure out what. I suppose a media center? Although, I tried to do something while it was playing a trailer and the whole thing pretty much froze up. Spinning beach-balls were everywhere any time you launched anything or did anything specific. It didn't do an iPhoto slide show with transitions very well either - and those pictures are deliberately small pictures to improve iPhoto's performance.

I did all the same stuff on the 17" iMac and never had those problems.

Just thought I would post my subjective review.

zelet


edit: Let people know which model it was.

 

[miniConvert]

But which Mac mini? From what we're seeing the Solo and the Duo are very different beasts. There's RAM to factor in as well, of course.

 

[nagromme]

I used a Mac Mini (Duo w/ 512) in the Apple store today and realize that it feels just as hoochi as the old one. Although, it launches things a little bit faster the interface responsiveness is slow.

I just back from totally the opposite experience. I tried 6 or 8 apps and found everything to be quick and responsive. Huge pictures with huge transitions were lightning fast, and never a beachball to be seen.

Was someone rendering a DVD in the background or something on the one you tried?

I checked the new Mini out at Microcenter, looking for ways to test OpenGL. It had no 3D games on it, but I ran OpenGL screensavers, 3D transitions in Keynote, and also Front Row. All ran as smooth as glass at 1600x1050. And yes, the Core Image ripple effect is present

I plan to go back and try UT2004 sometime since I always carry UT04 on my iPod.

PS, I like Front Row a LOT better in person. It struck me as a "nice little extra" on paper--since I do play iTunes and DVDs on my PowerBook and have wanted a remote--but I REALLY like it now that I've tried it. Big, simple, always-available (like Dashboard) and the remote is great.

PPS, if the remote isn't on display, hit Command-Esc for Front Row, then navigate with arrows and Return.

PPS, Microcenter was PACKED with Windows people who had no clue about Macs but were having fun learning. The rest of the store wasn't nearly as crowded. I overheard some kids looking at Doom 3, saying they thought there were only 20 games ever made for Mac, and being impressed to find out it wasn't true. The Mac Mini and the 20" iMac seemed to be the big crowd pleasers.

 

[macEfan]

wow, the little mac mini certainly uses lots of power! 110 watts. Nice info on those sites.

 

[StealthRider]

As compared to the G5's 700+ watts, that's not too much

 

[danr_97070]

It was snappy for me...

I used a Mac Mini (Duo w/ 512) in the Apple store today and realize that it feels just as hoochi as the old one. Although, it launches things a little bit faster the interface responsiveness is slow. I know its subjective - but using that next to the 17" iMac Intel was depressing and made me realize that I don't want a Mini.

They might be good machines for something - but I can't figure out what. I suppose a media center?

I was at the Apple Store today playing with the new Mac Mini with 1Gbytes of RAM and the responsiveness/performance was just fine; I was ready to buy one after testing it out...

What do you mean you can't figure out what it's good for?! Hasn't
Apple already positioned this machine as a media center device
for hooking up directly to your TV.

Seems pretty clear to me what it's going to be used for.

Also, as Apple starts to sell HD videos via the iTunes store (don't you
think that's what their new data centre is for?), you'll want one of these
hooked up to your HDTV.

Is there any other way right now to rent and view HD quality movies? I
think it's pretty clear/obvious where Apple will be going with this in
the not-too-distant future.

 

[powerbook911]

I used a Mac Mini (Duo w/ 512) in the Apple store today and realize that it feels just as hoochi as the old one.

It's the memory. These Intel machines need a lot of it!

 

[zelet]

Well, I trust nagromme's opinion. There must have been something wrong with the machine because our experiences were completely different. It might have been the 512 of RAM. It could have been messed with before I got there. Either way, I was blown away by the performance of the Intel iMacs. I might have to sell my display and just get one of those.

 

[nagromme]

I'll go back and check the RAM specs (I didn't even notice if it was Duo and Solo). I doubt it was upgraded beyond 512 but I can check in a day or two.

My understanding was that Intel binaries use a little more RAM than PPC binaries, plus the GPU cuts into a Mini's RAM a little, but that RAM usage isn't HUGELY different unless you're using Rosetta.

I would expect the Mini and iMac to perform pretty similarly except for intensive OpenGL, and extended HD reads (because the Mini uses a laptop drive). I know beachballs are often caused by HD reads, so maybe that's a factor. Maybe something else was going on with that machine at the time. Spotlight indexing? Something running in another account?

My standards may be low since I'm used to G4 on a daily basis, but I really wasn't experiencing delays. Something to investigate then.

 

[tom_s]

It's interesting that the Open GL results on the mini are so much higher than on the iMac... though "spinning squares" is probably not the fullest extent to which people use their Macs' 3D capabilities.

In the Xbench FAQ section I've read is this interesting sentence: "Extremely high scores (over 200), appear to be due to particular machines that don't have hardware OpenGL support drawing "nothing" very quickly".

Could this bug have something to do with the good OpenGL performance of the intel Mac Mini?

 

[Shadow]

As compared to the G5's 700+ watts, that's not too much

Was that the iMac or PowerMac?

 

[lvnmacs]

I just back from totally the opposite experience. I tried 6 or 8 apps and found everything to be quick and responsive. Huge pictures with huge transitions were lightning fast, and never a beachball to be seen.

.

Thank you for the info, Unfortunatley there are no Intel MacMinis in sight over at my local Apple Store. And I was a little worried about the previous review. My Core Duo MacMini is in order and will be here on the 8th mmmmmmmmmm.......

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Just over at Macworld they had a bunch of benches posted on the new Mini, The UT2K4 scores took a hit and the chart was comparing the 1.25/1.4 to the new solo and dual cores. Never mentioned the 1.5 G4 with the 64mb 9200 which i guess would have 16 fps. About 15 fps to 10 on single core and 12 on dual core. Mixed bag of benches. Ill admit i have ran this game on my womans machine 1.4 with everything turned off and it was just playable. Now it wont be at 10 or 12 frames. I think the 1.5 G4 model with 64 mb 9200 makes a nice little computer.

(edit) just checked and that is with only 512 of memory. 1 Gig or more would help a lot.

 

[Lord Albrecht]

just checked and that is with only 512 of memory. 1 Gig or more would help a lot.

http://www.macworld.com/2006/03/firstlooks/minibenchmarks/index.php

"All systems were running Mac OS X 10.4.5 with 1GB of RAM, with processor performance set to Highest in the Energy Saver preference pane when applicable."

Another point of interest :

"Some quick tests with minimum settings show that the both the Intel and PowerPC minis can achieve faster frame rates, but (at least with UT 2004) the PowerPC maintains its lead."

Apple doesn't seem to like OS X gamers who are on a budget. Guess this leaves me with not much of a choice but to look at other alternatives...

 

[nagromme]

"Some quick tests with minimum settings show that the both the Intel and PowerPC minis can achieve faster frame rates, but (at least with UT 2004) the PowerPC maintains its lead."

Even if the PPC keeps the lead, the new Mini could still be playable. Just jow MUCH faster do things get if you lower detail? Fast enough to be fun?

Notice Macworld's results only show the new Minis lagging behind the old G4s "by a couple of frames per second." And those results show UT2004 pretty much being unplayable on the G4 Mini too. Which I KNOW is not the case if you set your detail low enough, since I've found UT2004 playable (except for huge botmatches) on much SLOWER Macs than the Mini.

Also, big botmatches are what kill a low-end Mac's UT04 framerate--and that's CPU-dependent (all the AI). I wouldn't be surprised if the new Mac Mini could handle adding a lot of bots even BETTER than the old Mini, which could more than compensate for a tighter GPU bottleneck, once details were lowered.

Also encouraging from MW:

"A separate quick test with Nanosaur from Pangea software, tested with the Good settings at 16-bit, 1024-by-768 resolution, show the Intel Macs with an edge. Here’s something to note: The Intel minis didn’t suffer much of a hit at higher settings in Nanosaur, but the higher settings weren’t even available on the PowerPC minis, as those buttons were grayed out."

I assume they mean Nanosaur II, since Nanosuar I is SO old. (Was it even carbonized?) BTW the Nanosaur II Universal Binary came out in January, and may not have been ready in time for Apple to arrange to bundle it. ALL of the consumer Intel Macs simply come with Big Bang Board games currently, while the iMac G5 had two pretty slick 3D games, Nanosaur 2 and Marble Blast Gold. That may change: I wonder if 3D games will be bundled with Intel Macs again in future (at least the iMac, but it sounds like the Mini can handle these titles too), now that Universal options are appearing.

This is all speculation. I hope to have some informal hands-on results on this question today or tomorrow... I live half a block away from a display of Intel Macs

 

[zelet]

Okay guys,

I just got back from my second apple store and tried 3 different Mac Mini's with dual 1.66GHz and 512 of RAM. There weren't any other configurations at the store.

This time around the speed was better but still pretty dissappointing. I think the bottle neck is the HDD (5400 laptop drive) and total lack of memory. I had about 5 apps open. Safari, Firefox (compiled for Intel), Mail, iPhoto, and Word and I had 5 MB of memory free - which means the thing was swapping to the HDD like CRAZY and there was no memory left for the GPU.

I tried to play a HD movie at 720 from Apples site and it completely choked when I had safari, mail, and firefox open. Again, it was most likely from the HDD and the memory.

In conclusion, I would either SERIOUSLY pimp the RAM in the Mini (probably 2GB) because of the GPU or just get an iMac that did all those things I just mentioned with grace and no hiccups.

 

[Tupring]

Yes. Most, if not all, PC laptops have the chips soldered onto the motherboard. There has only been one Apple laptop I'm aware of with a socketed chip and that was one of their old G3 models.

Yeah, the Wallstreet G3 but also the PowerBook 1400.