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Is This still a good Mac?
- Thread starter Marcosmg
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It all depends on the price. I have a 2012 Mini with 8GB of RAM and a 250GB SSD drive and it's pretty quick. Not as fast as my 2018 Mini but it's definitely not slow for an 8 yr old computer.
This 2014 model could well suit your needs, but I reckon it's nowhere near as good as the mid 2012 model, and that's also backed up by many users and reviews on YTube. In fact I wouldn't change my 2012 even for the latest 2018.
16Gb RAM is fine for my needs, plus on the 2012 one can install 2 SSD's to give blistering speeds if required at sensible prices, (not the outrageous price for a single SSD if installed by Apple). The soldered-on RAM and/or SSD/CPU on 2014-18 models is once again another insult to customers.
So many buyers tend to over-focus on the specs when deciding to change their Mac, instead of concentrating on the practicalities. Big mistake imho.
16Gb RAM is fine for my needs, plus on the 2012 one can install 2 SSD's to give blistering speeds if required at sensible prices, (not the outrageous price for a single SSD if installed by Apple). The soldered-on RAM and/or SSD/CPU on 2014-18 models is once again another insult to customers.
So many buyers tend to over-focus on the specs when deciding to change their Mac, instead of concentrating on the practicalities. Big mistake imho.
Thank you Cooperbox!
I just bought this computer from eBay.
I still have my personal Mac Pro that runs pretty good.
This Mac Mini is to replace my older Mac Pro 1.1 that the kids use.
The computer that I’m replacing can only run Captain.
I was planning to get something that I can run Mojave. I never had a Mac Mini before and I can’t afford a brand new one now.
I wish I had known that the older Mini was better. Now it’s too late. I hope this runs half way decent as the older ones with an SSD
I just bought this computer from eBay.
I still have my personal Mac Pro that runs pretty good.
This Mac Mini is to replace my older Mac Pro 1.1 that the kids use.
The computer that I’m replacing can only run Captain.
I was planning to get something that I can run Mojave. I never had a Mac Mini before and I can’t afford a brand new one now.
I wish I had known that the older Mini was better. Now it’s too late. I hope this runs half way decent as the older ones with an SSD
I have a 2012 2.6ghz quad-core i7 Mini with 16gb RAM and original Apple 256gb SSD. It is still a nice machine and I plan to keep it for awhile. The HD-4000 graphics chip on the 2012 Mini is arguably its biggest weakness, and will limit the kinds of displays that you use and be somewhat limiting with demanding graphics software.
I also have a 2014 2.8ghz dual-core i5 Mini with 8gb RAM and original Apple 128gb SSD (which I split from the fusion drive) - this machine is one step up from what the OP has purchased. Mine is just a media server and it works very nicely for that. In terms of CPU performance, it's much slower than my 2012 quad. But it has the Iris 5100 graphics chip which is more modern.
I think the 2014 Mini that you bought should be fine for general usage if you install a SSD, and $250 sounds like a decent price. I'm running Mojave on mine with no problems.
This might be a bit misleading. The 2012 quad-core Mini's (there were two models - 2.3ghz and 2.6 ghz) have about 50% better CPU performance than the best 2014 Mini, so that's great if you're doing things like rendering video. But the base model 2012 Mini only has a dual core CPU and will be slower than the Mini that the OP bought. I had one of these too, and it was fine, but I wouldn't recommend one today. So, it depends on which 2012 Mini you're talking about.
Regarding "blistering speed", the 2014 Mini beats the 2012 hands-down when it comes to SSD speed. Here's what I get from the original Apple SSD on my 2012 Mini.
This how the original SSD performs on my 2014 Mini. You can see that it's quite a bit faster because it has a faster interface than the 2012.
Now, I would not fixate on this too much, an average user might not notice much difference. But the 2014 Mini definitely wins the SSD speed contest.
I also have a 2014 2.8ghz dual-core i5 Mini with 8gb RAM and original Apple 128gb SSD (which I split from the fusion drive) - this machine is one step up from what the OP has purchased. Mine is just a media server and it works very nicely for that. In terms of CPU performance, it's much slower than my 2012 quad. But it has the Iris 5100 graphics chip which is more modern.
I think the 2014 Mini that you bought should be fine for general usage if you install a SSD, and $250 sounds like a decent price. I'm running Mojave on mine with no problems.
This might be a bit misleading. The 2012 quad-core Mini's (there were two models - 2.3ghz and 2.6 ghz) have about 50% better CPU performance than the best 2014 Mini, so that's great if you're doing things like rendering video. But the base model 2012 Mini only has a dual core CPU and will be slower than the Mini that the OP bought. I had one of these too, and it was fine, but I wouldn't recommend one today. So, it depends on which 2012 Mini you're talking about.
Regarding "blistering speed", the 2014 Mini beats the 2012 hands-down when it comes to SSD speed. Here's what I get from the original Apple SSD on my 2012 Mini.
This how the original SSD performs on my 2014 Mini. You can see that it's quite a bit faster because it has a faster interface than the 2012.
Now, I would not fixate on this too much, an average user might not notice much difference. But the 2014 Mini definitely wins the SSD speed contest.
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Now, I would not fixate on this too much, an average user might not notice much difference. But the 2014 Mini definitely wins the SSD speed contest.
I don't think you could spot the difference in almost anything. By the time you have to retrieve data from disk, it's already quite a lot slower than cache. Disk bandwidth would have to be your primary bottleneck for you to actually notice a 35% difference there. I don't know that I could spot that without knowing which is which.
Yes, that's probably true, which is why I qualified my answer. You might see a difference if the Mini is swapping data to disk due to not having enough RAM. Not sure, but a faster SSD can't hurt.
I think you should be fine with the 2014. Photoshop demands a fast disk I/O for disk swapping and advance layering and this Mini supports both USB3 and ThunderBolt 2, so focus on getting faster external disks. Your SSD will also help as Mojave is a major disk swap hog. Otherwise, you will benefit one thing that the 2012 didn't have and that is, the version of Quicksync on the 4th generation Core i5 allows faster encoding of movie clips than the older 2012 i5, BUT maintains the same high quality. It would be somewhat slower on the older 2012 Mini if Quicksync is selected to maintain the same quality as with the 2014 Mini. You won't get a major benefit of this under iMovie, but you will in both Final Cut and in Davinci Resolve. That is the "MAIN" reason why I used my MacBook Air with the same Core i5 as your Mini 2014 to encode h.264 movies that I made from my Mac Pro 5,1 as the Mac Pro does not have Quicksync and the process is way faster with my MB Air. Only the 2018/2020 Mini with its T2 security chip can smoke all the Minis and older Mac Pros in regards to encoding/decoding h.264/h.265 footages.
The 2014 is fine. It has Thunderbolt 2 via the DisplayPort output.
But for the long term you’re still better off finding a discounted 2018 with USB-C and ability to run 5K displays.
For similar reasons I would not buy a 2012 at this point - display output capabilities. That version if you are mainly wanting a server.
But for the long term you’re still better off finding a discounted 2018 with USB-C and ability to run 5K displays.
For similar reasons I would not buy a 2012 at this point - display output capabilities. That version if you are mainly wanting a server.
Thank you guys for all the input. I've learned a great deal about the Mac Mini here.
The conclusion is that, for $250.00 this is still a very usable computer and I'm glad I purchased it.
I will be setting it up this weekend. New SSD and new System. I also have an extra USB3 external drive for it.
Now, next year when things get a little better I will be replacing my Mac Pro. Not sure yet if it will be a new Mac Mini or an IMac.
Below is my existing old Mac Pro
.
The conclusion is that, for $250.00 this is still a very usable computer and I'm glad I purchased it.
I will be setting it up this weekend. New SSD and new System. I also have an extra USB3 external drive for it.
Now, next year when things get a little better I will be replacing my Mac Pro. Not sure yet if it will be a new Mac Mini or an IMac.
Below is my existing old Mac Pro
.
If it's a mini, make sure to wait for the next update. The current one was released in 2018. If your current one is sufficient for now, then you obviously don't want to buy on the wrong side of an update cycle. Your 2014 supports AVX2 and FMA3, which aren't supported by the 2012 and earlier. There's a chance AVX512 will be compatible with laptop chips in the future. Notebook chips aren't really the place for it, but it's possible that it'll show up to reduce fragmentation in ISAs across Intel's lineup.