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Intergrated graphics-Mac Mini
- Thread starter LoganT
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The PowerPC G4 based Mac Minis having dedicated graphics was most certainly a selling point. Hopefully the next revision of the Mac Mini gets a dedicated graphics card or at least a X3100 integrated video card. 
Its possible - and if they do it with the Macbook, and bring all the specs into line, the bulk prices will go down
I guess, arguably, some of the earlier PPC Macs did. Nothing recently, though. Pretty much everything in the G4 and G5 era as well as most/all of the G3 era used ATI or Nvidia chips.
Perhaps Apple cut a deal with Intel when they made the move over. You use our integrated graphics chips, we'll cut you a deal on processors or something like that.
Did integrated graphics exist for any of the PPC platforms? ATI and NVIDIA were the only solution available for the PPC mini.
Personally, for work most people do on the mini, the integrated graphics are fine. Ive even run some CAD apps on my mini and its not that bad. I think people just like to whine about the GMA950
Personally, for work most people do on the mini, the integrated graphics are fine. Ive even run some CAD apps on my mini and its not that bad. I think people just like to whine about the GMA950
My G4 mini has a dedicated ATI with 32Mb Graphics RAM. They ditched the card for the GMA950 when it went intel.
I just hate the little things - Disco won't let me use the cool graphic stuff, iTunes has the stupid messy text and blurry CoverFlow scrollbar...its just not nice...
If IBM had given Apple the choice of an integrated graphics chip don't you think they would have taken it? They were forced to use dedicated graphics chips in their consumer laptop/mini lines which is apparent by their use of only the bare minimum dedicated cards often a generation or two out of date in their consumer macbooks and the mini. Had Apple have gone Intel years ago, the original mini would probably have had an Intel Extreme Graphics chip (shudders at the thought).
Which they probably won't ever. I might have to accept the fact that Steve Jobs is a stubborn bastard.
But one can pray.
You can already 'upgrade' to a 3.5" disk if you really want to by running a SATA cable from the internal SATA connector out to an external drive.
As to where to get MXM cards? Well right now there's not a market for them, however, if more iMacs, Mac Minis and MacBooks used them then you can be sure that a third party would start to offer them a year or so down the line. As it is you can already get a 7900 MXM card although without a comparable Mac compatible desktop card there's no bios to pilfer and flash it with. If someone could find a 1900XT MXM card (which I don't think exists right now), it could probably be flashed with the bios of the Mac Pro card and could work in the 24" iMac.
I'll never get the integrated graphics hate. The GMA950 performs well enough and is better then the Radeon that was available in the G4 Mac Mini. At least the GMA950 can handle Core Image, while the Radeon in the G4 could not.
Because most people really like that size. Most people would be perfectly happy with a notebook drive in there. If it did have a 3.5" drive, it would have to be much bigger. If people like yourselves *really* want to upgrade to a 3.5" drive then there's a way for them to do it by buying an external drive that matches the style. So if what you want so badly from a mid-sized tower is the ability to use a 3.5" drive then you need look no further, the mini can do it.