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Late 2014 Mac Mini Benchmarks Indicate Decreased Multi-Core Performance
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Well I did:
2 x Xeon v2 2650 with 32 GB ram, 1TB SSD, 2 x 1200p IPS Mons. and 2 x quadros for $5k delivered.
I thought he was trying to get out of there as soon as he could, that Mini announcement didn't slow him up much
To be fair, I am quite sure he would have. I think this is much more Phil Schiller's idea than Tim Cook's. It just smells like something coming from the marketing department. They drew some charts with the markt segments they are covering, then they added numbers for each segment to show how much money they are making from it, and then they decided to readjust their product offerings according to that, to maximize the profits. Schiller proposes it to Cook. Cook nods. It's done.
He said "for browsing e-mail", so the question is, why does somebody buy a 6 core CPU to browse e-mail? Dual core is fine for all casual users!
The key point is that they compared the highest-end Mac Mini from 2012 with the current highest-end Mac Mini, and the result was that the 2012 models perform significantly better than the 2014 models.
Obviously, if you compare dual core CPUs with quad core CPUs, this kind of result can be expected, but the important thing is the message behind it: It means that Apple pushed the Mac Mini quite a bit further towards the low-end market.
Phil Schiller was unusually bashful when he announced the new Mac Minis. Some might even say anticipating this reaction.
Apple has always had more product designs than ever get released. It is inconceivable that Apple did not have a quad-core mini ready to go, should they have so decided. They decided against it.
If you want performance, Apple want you to buy a more expensive Mac. They witnessed how the quad-core Mac minis were being used, in some cases for professional, heavy duty work. A Mac mini with 2.6GHz quad-core i7, 16GB memory and an SSD offered better performance than some 8-core Mac Pros of not that long ago!
Johnny Ive has made comments in the past about Apple striving to make the best products. The new Mac mini is not the best product and for quite cynical, commercial reasons. I hope he gets asked specifically on the withdrawal of the quad-core minis.
I was hoping for an 8-core Mac mini. Apple have gone the opposite direction. I am not in the same market as a Mac Pro buyer, unfortunately. I now find myself in the ludicrous position of trying to snap up one of the last 2-year old quad-core minis before their prices soar in a market that Apple has ceased to supply and for which there is no alternative supplier. I also thought that the 2 year timeframe in updating the mini meant they were doing a total redesign as they did with the Mac Pro. It could have been wonderful.
If a new quad-core mini does arrive, it will not be any time soon. Apple would have pre-announced it at the same time for completeness and to allow the commercial users to plan to upgrade.
'Cash in my pocket but Apple doesn't want it'.
Tim.
Apple has always had more product designs than ever get released. It is inconceivable that Apple did not have a quad-core mini ready to go, should they have so decided. They decided against it.
If you want performance, Apple want you to buy a more expensive Mac. They witnessed how the quad-core Mac minis were being used, in some cases for professional, heavy duty work. A Mac mini with 2.6GHz quad-core i7, 16GB memory and an SSD offered better performance than some 8-core Mac Pros of not that long ago!
Johnny Ive has made comments in the past about Apple striving to make the best products. The new Mac mini is not the best product and for quite cynical, commercial reasons. I hope he gets asked specifically on the withdrawal of the quad-core minis.
I was hoping for an 8-core Mac mini. Apple have gone the opposite direction. I am not in the same market as a Mac Pro buyer, unfortunately. I now find myself in the ludicrous position of trying to snap up one of the last 2-year old quad-core minis before their prices soar in a market that Apple has ceased to supply and for which there is no alternative supplier. I also thought that the 2 year timeframe in updating the mini meant they were doing a total redesign as they did with the Mac Pro. It could have been wonderful.
If a new quad-core mini does arrive, it will not be any time soon. Apple would have pre-announced it at the same time for completeness and to allow the commercial users to plan to upgrade.
'Cash in my pocket but Apple doesn't want it'.
Tim.
Pushed it quite a bit further towards the low-end market .... without pushing the price quite a bit further toward the low-end market.
Reading through this thread suggests to me that even the fanboys on here who have often defended Apple have realized this is one move, that is truly indefensible.
But all of this is already known if you test for multi-core performance, the new chip does better on single-core performance, the thread could have been named: the quad core option is gone.
I would be much more interested in seeing how the entry level model stacks up against the 2012 entry level model.
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could have gone... Past participle, not past tense.
In addition to quality Apple products, we also must stand for English.
Overkill. Working on 2D print and digital graphics and photography, all I want is a highish end desktop (not workstation) level computer without mobile graphics into which I can plug a professional colour-calibrated monitor of my choice.
On Windows relatively few professionals buy 'workstations'.
Just as a sidenote: Even the Late 2011 quad core Mac Mini outperforms the Late 2014 highest-end Mac Mini in multicore performance:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/1049992
Even the multicore performance of the Late 2011 dual core 2.7Ghz model is surprisingly close to the new 3Ghz dual core model:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/1050056
At every iPhone/iPad introduction, we get a curve showing how the performance is X times higher than it was a few years ago, but with the Mac Mini, the performance has actually gone down. Significantly.
Why not just continue selling the old models from three years ago? Apple manages to unapologetically sell the Thunderbolt Display from over three years ago, which by now is bulkier than the iMac. Why not just leave the Mac Mini unapologetically untouched as opposed to downgrading it? Just so that in three years, Apple can unapologetically say that OS X La Jolla will not run on the Late 2014 Mac Mini anymore?
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/1049992
Even the multicore performance of the Late 2011 dual core 2.7Ghz model is surprisingly close to the new 3Ghz dual core model:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/1050056
At every iPhone/iPad introduction, we get a curve showing how the performance is X times higher than it was a few years ago, but with the Mac Mini, the performance has actually gone down. Significantly.
Why not just continue selling the old models from three years ago? Apple manages to unapologetically sell the Thunderbolt Display from over three years ago, which by now is bulkier than the iMac. Why not just leave the Mac Mini unapologetically untouched as opposed to downgrading it? Just so that in three years, Apple can unapologetically say that OS X La Jolla will not run on the Late 2014 Mac Mini anymore?
All of this should be obvious, for 1 core to beat 2 it has to be significantly faster. A benchmark for multiple cores, is a synthetic test that does some random work on all cores and scores it in some manner.
Not so difficult, as the i5-4260U at 1.4Ghz is already in the Macbook Air, and I think the performance will be quite similar.
Macbook Air with i5-4260U, 1.4Ghz:
Single core Geekbench score: Around 2500
Multicore: Around 4800
Late 2012 Mac Mini, 2.5 Ghz dual core:
Single core: Around 2500
Multicore: Around 5200
I think it will too and I didn't claim that it would be difficult, just more interesting than this benchmark.
I guess its aimed at people who are on the fence. I'm betting this cheap-as-**** upgrade got them plenty mini customers at basically no extra cost.
"oh look new iPad mini with touch ID". most of people who buy these things don't even know what makes them tick
Do you realize what you have done! Send that company another 5k for their margins. I don't know about you but I care more about Apple's margins than me saving dough. We should do the same for other companies as well.
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pointless turboboost benchmark comparison for the uneducated got an instant vote up. embarrassing.
the world is doing that themselves (transitioning to Tablet) It's all 60% of people need. Thy just don't need a full blown computer.
But if you think they are phasing out the mac you are nuts.
1. What do you think they design iPhones on? A PC? Ha They have lots of bespoke OSX software for creating and testing iOS devices that we never see.
2. iOS can never be as adaptable as OSX as it runs on a RISC architecture.
3. Mac are actually seeing a gain in sales percentages - Other PCs are in negative figures.
Oh and this is just a stop gap mini because Broadwell is not ready yet.
Totally understand that they didn't want to have to create a 4core motherboard when the actual percentage of mini server sales is probably very low.
I am 99% sure that when Broadwell comes out we'll see a 4 core version back. I do find it odd they didn't add the 2tb option.
Also I be the next mac mini will be fanless and round.
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Did you win a bet by getting unapologetically into a post 3 times?
It is a little insane, but the important thing about the mini is the price point. And they've got it back down to the magic $499 mark from $699 in 2011/12.
This really is a stopgap model like they did with the Mac pro. until the new one was ready.
I fully expect the next one to be a complete new fanless design, with broadwell custom ATI graphics and probably manufactured in the USA.
As for the lifespan... Yosemite happily runs on 2008 hardware - even some 2007 macbook pros. I have it on a 2008 4gb air and it runs perfectly!
Is it really such a surprise that the Mac Mini's multi-core score has gone down when the best you can put in it is a dual-core processor?
The previous generation had a quad-core i7 desktop option, whereas this new mini's i7 looks like one of the "i7" laptop options. As an aside I really hate Intel's i branding; why they can't just call a dual core with hyper-threading an i3 is beyond me, as that's what an i3 is for desktops, so why pretend these "i7" chips are any different?
But yeah, not surprising at all. What is surprising is that despite the significantly worse options at the high-end, the cost hasn't gone down at all; all you're getting for the expense is an SSD to make up the Fusion drive, but it's presumably only 128gb. Not that a Fusion Drive doesn't make a big difference, but it doesn't really seem a fair trade at all.
I really do hope that there is a technical reason why they didn't keep the quad-core model for this update, and that they're just waiting for Broadwell/Skylake to give them back that option.
My Hack-Mini with i7-4790T manages a respectable 13000+ multi-core score, though that's on GeekBench 32-bit since I don't have a license for the 64-bit tests, not sure if I should expect 64-bit to be higher or lower?
The previous generation had a quad-core i7 desktop option, whereas this new mini's i7 looks like one of the "i7" laptop options. As an aside I really hate Intel's i branding; why they can't just call a dual core with hyper-threading an i3 is beyond me, as that's what an i3 is for desktops, so why pretend these "i7" chips are any different?
But yeah, not surprising at all. What is surprising is that despite the significantly worse options at the high-end, the cost hasn't gone down at all; all you're getting for the expense is an SSD to make up the Fusion drive, but it's presumably only 128gb. Not that a Fusion Drive doesn't make a big difference, but it doesn't really seem a fair trade at all.
I really do hope that there is a technical reason why they didn't keep the quad-core model for this update, and that they're just waiting for Broadwell/Skylake to give them back that option.
My Hack-Mini with i7-4790T manages a respectable 13000+ multi-core score, though that's on GeekBench 32-bit since I don't have a license for the 64-bit tests, not sure if I should expect 64-bit to be higher or lower?
Of course, Apple might have avoided all this consumer discourse, IF they would have wrapped the Mini in a GOLD case.