You'd be surprised how many Pro apps aren't multi-threaded very well. Most of Lightroom supports two threads (generating Smart Previews is the exception). Many tools in photoshop have yet to be upgraded to support 4 or more threads either.
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Late 2014 Mac Mini Benchmarks Indicate Decreased Multi-Core Performance
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You'd be surprised how many Pro apps aren't multi-threaded very well. Most of Lightroom supports two threads (generating Smart Previews is the exception). Many tools in photoshop have yet to be upgraded to support 4 or more threads either.
Hell, if we're doing downgrades, lets go back to the G5 so we can watch the mini light on fire!
Yeah but I don't want to have to fix OSX every time Apple updates it, heck I'd just build a Hackintosh if I wanted to mess with it. By all accounts, Windows 10 is looking very good and is very OSX-like so I'm hopeful.
It may be because it is late, but both of these made me laugh a little.
I also fear my dog would try to eat/drink out of it.
This does seem bizarre. While I don't think the move to the low power chip to get a $100 price drop was a bad move, I can't really see the logic in dropping the higher powered models.
This could be planned in preparation for ARM based consumer model Macs. Cut performance now and take another 1-2 years to perfect the ARM chips. When they come out, brag about the performance increase from the previous model.
Releasing a Mini and a Macbook Air with those chips would be a likely place to start, with those models being intended more as accessories to the iPhone/iPad than anything else.
This could be planned in preparation for ARM based consumer model Macs. Cut performance now and take another 1-2 years to perfect the ARM chips. When they come out, brag about the performance increase from the previous model.
Releasing a Mini and a Macbook Air with those chips would be a likely place to start, with those models being intended more as accessories to the iPhone/iPad than anything else.
What modern displays are you talking about? the 2012 can't support a 2560x1600 display? Or are you talking about 4K? I don't think many base 2014 mac minis with 4GB of ram are buying 4K monitor
Well maybe more from the Pro Audio side and DAW's like Pro Tools, from my experience. Wow, that's too bad about PS only using dual threads. It would burn through filters with 4??
huh? clock speed is way more important for many (most) professional (and nonprofessional) apps.. it's definitely the thing that's going to make your time physically sitting at the computer go by more efficiently..
the part of the workload that can max out all cores- well, you're doing other things during those times.. like sleeping.
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it's not necessarily that they aren't multithreaded 'very well'... it's that most processes can't run in parallel.. multicore is moreorless a myth which happened when the clock race stopped.
a single 24ghz cpu is a zillion times better than 8@3
I think that sums it up for me as well. I could stomach the apple tax as I would get a tax refund when I sell it
. Now that the models are non user upgradable, the resale value will go down the drain. If will be hard to sell a 2014 mac mini with only 4 GB of ram, when the 2015 will have 8Gb base and way better specs. The higher end one will get hit even more. People who buy used know more and will not touch the toxic 2014 models. I look forward to see people lose 50-75% of the value next year. The only way for it not to go down in price is if the Mini is discontinued.So to sum it up you have the
Apple tax
Apple punishment
Apple Poison
The problem with the Mac Mini is it's size. They switched to BGA to conserve power and make the thing smaller. You can't continually make stuff smaller while increasing performance, you run out of TDP headroom.
Personally I think the mini is treated this way because it's not a product Apple really wants to make. It's cheap, low margin, and the people who buy it don't tend to buy a ton of other apple stuff. You aren't really apple's target demographic (to sell computers to).
Apple wants to sell Mac Pros, Macbook pros, and Ipads. Not Mac minis.
And yes multicore performance is down, but single thread should be higher and the 2C/4T i5 and i7 are fast.
Personally I think the mini is treated this way because it's not a product Apple really wants to make. It's cheap, low margin, and the people who buy it don't tend to buy a ton of other apple stuff. You aren't really apple's target demographic (to sell computers to).
Apple wants to sell Mac Pros, Macbook pros, and Ipads. Not Mac minis.
And yes multicore performance is down, but single thread should be higher and the 2C/4T i5 and i7 are fast.
As long as I can remember computer performance went up year over year and for sure - after 2 years.
I expected a Mac mini with a quad option and Iris Pro graphics.
But nooooo. That would have meant serious competition to the iMac and maybe even to the Mac Pro. So they went and down crippled the machine on purpose.
As a result I will get a nice Hackintosh instead.
Who said you shouldn't fear your own competition?
I expected a Mac mini with a quad option and Iris Pro graphics.
But nooooo. That would have meant serious competition to the iMac and maybe even to the Mac Pro. So they went and down crippled the machine on purpose.
As a result I will get a nice Hackintosh instead.
Who said you shouldn't fear your own competition?
Apple is taking criticism over thin-ness very seriously. Next year, instead of an iPad Mini and Mac Mini, we'll see the iPad Plus and Mac Plus.
Obviously you have no patience...
I'm waiting for the Celeron version... And, if I don't like that one, then I'll be waiting for them to release the new line of reborn 486 processors...
Seriously, only Intel would bring back the Pentium and Celeron product line. Maybe if we get lucky they'll feel Nostalgic about the 8088 and we'll come full circle... I'm just glad Intel didn't make the Z80, or we'd all be in trouble
- The Haswell quad core chip is on a different socket, which wasn't the case previously.
- Broadwell has been delayed for six month and still isn't out.
More likely they'll release the Macintosh 512K, affectionately known as "Fat Mac"
For those unfamiliar, Google and Wiki have the answer.
Gotta love the name... I only wish Apple would bring back a Mac that could live up to being called "Fat Mac".
Obviously you have no patience...
And, if I don't like that one, then I'll be waiting for them to release the new line of reborn 486 processors...
286 or I'm not buying.
On a serious note, I'll stick with my late 2012 Mini. It's only the base model, but has 8gb ram (upgraded from 4, and I can add more any time I want) and I added a 120Gb SSD and did the home made fusion thing. Does the job very nicely.
They took the easy route... cripple the lower end machine instead of upping it's specs and the specs of the machines above it as well. Much easier to go backwards than to innovate and improve all of their computers.
Apple hit the $499 target because they're offering the lowest macbook air internals in a minimal desktop package. The Macbook air is a fine computer for its market segment, that is a premium low-power, ultra portable computer. A fully specced Mac Mini is only a 100 bucks less than a decent quad-core iMac, and you get a 21.5 in screen. For that, they can keep it... The argument that Apple is overpriced and under-performing hardware has never been more true in the case of this refresh.
/rant.
/rant.
I really miss roasting marshmallows while I used my computer... I think you're on to something.
You know, maybe Apple had the right idea back then... now they just write their OS to require a certain generation of machine... which people can hack to get around. Back then, they just had the machines self destruct when they wanted you to buy a new one. Much more effective.
I'm going to go for it. $85 is worth it for the improved performance.
I see no reason to replace mine. I have a 2.5ghz i5 and an AMD Radeon graphics card with 256 Mb VRAM.
This is where upgradeability comes in. I can change the RAM in my machine, unlike the new ones.
I wanted SSD mainly so I was waiting for the new Mini to come out but I don't like this soldered on crap.