Late 2014 Mac Mini Benchmarks Indicate Decreased Multi-Core Performance

[hachiman]

At least if the Broadwell was delayed, they could have used the current Haswell i7 quad core, and not soldered the RAM.

Even if the next update uses Broadwell and Apple puts in the lame excuse of "This one is twice as fast as the previous (2014 mac mini)", the RAM would still be soldered, so there's no upgrade there either.

 

[clevins]

No offense, but this is an apples to oranges comparison. How do the new dual-core models compare to the 2012 dual-core models? Of course, since the leap from Sandy/Ivy Bridge to Haswell was relatively small, a quad-core Sandy/Ivy Bridge will outperform a dual-core Haswell on multi-core benchmarks.

It's more appropriate to say that Apple discontinued the quad-core Mac Mini models, and updated the dual-core models to Haswell. Yes, it's too bad for those who really wanted a quad-core, but that doesn't appear to be the core market for the Mac Mini (at least not big enough for Apple to update it).

I think that they also anticipate that anyone who really cares about great multicore performance is probably not looking for a $600 computer. Want kick ass multicore performance but can't afford or justify a Pro? Get an iMac. The quad core 21.5" model starts at $1299.

The fact is that professionals who really push multicore performance aren't looking at the low end of computers; they realize that you need to pay for top end performance. Conversely, people who are after a budget computer likely aren't prone to pushing high end software to its limits. Dual core, single threaded performance is very likely far more important to that audience.

In the meantime, if you are on strict budget but need good multicore performance buy the 2012 machine

 

[mr.steevo]

I do use it as my main computer by the way, I was trying to point out that I can use the machine even while having that stuff running. I think the lowest it gets down to is about 700MB free.

My 2.5 i5 mini was so slow when I opened iPhoto. Looking at activity monitor I saw that iPhoto took almost all my 4 GB. I've upgraded to 10GB of ram and I can actually run iPhoto with other programs opened. I figured the base would be enough because some people said it would be but I'm glad I had the option to upgrade the RAM after trying the machine at home.

 

[RedBanana]

I'm enjoying reading all of the commentary, but I have to admit... I do NOT agree. As an IT professional, I've noticed a continuous trend over the past 8 years or so.... & that is: CPU is the least important component in a home/business computer. This occurred right around the 3.06 ghz Intel Pentium IV w/ hyper threading. From about that point on, I haven't upgraded any personal, or any client's processors. It just doesn't make sense. The processor is NEVER the bottleneck in performance.
The money/time/energy spent upgrading a CPU would be MUCH better spent on
either the RAM, video card, or hard drive.
A spinning HDD will ALWAYS be the slowest point in a desktop system. Thankfully the popularity of SSDs & Apple's clever Fusion Drive solution seem to be solving that particular dilemma. Next, with demanding apps... a nice chunk of RAM is appropriate. I've yet to see a non professional Mac setup in need of 16gb, but 8gb certainly is a must. Next, when it comes to high end video apps... or games (probably two of the most intensive tasks you could perform on your system), a video card upgrade trumps all else.
Since all three of these upgrades are available on the new mini... I'm not seeing a huge issue. From what I see; the sweet performance/price spot is $899 for the 2.6ghz i5, w/ 8gb RAM, Iris graphics, & a 1tb Fusion Drive.
I think in almost any typical environment, you could expect 6-8 years from a machine specced like that.
If you are VERY demanding on your home system, but still don't quite need a Pro... the $200 to up it to 16gb would be worth it, and after 8 years- would be a $25/year outlay.
This is the upgrade & price I've been waiting for.
I will NOT be sitting this one out.

There you have it, an "IT professional" has spoken. CPU and Memory benchmarks don't matter. Price and performance is all an illusion. The past eight years Intel has been wasting our time with these damn processing speed upgrades.

 

[clevins]

After seeing the new Mac Pro I had high hopes that Apple would continuing innovating and improving the rest of their computer line. Instead, we get only one new iMac, albeit an impressively upgraded new display, and one miserably disappointing meh-thanks-but-screw-you-for-waiting downgrade of the Mac Mini.

This newest model makes the Mini a beginner's computer again, rather than the powerhouse in a small box that it was starting to become. To me, Apple's almost complete indifference to the Mini line speaks volumes about their commitment to the future of Macs. It also makes me cynical about Tim Cook's promise of "Wait until you see what we have next," tease earlier this year. So far, we've gotten a decent but nothing awesome upgrade of the iPhone, a totally boring and lazy iteration of the iPad, these new and forgettable Macs, and an upcoming watch that doesn't look all that must-have either.

Come on folks, this is not the way to stay ahead of the pack.

The Mini has always been an entry level box. It's designed to hit a price point and maintain decent margins for Apple, not to give you a significant chunk of the Pro's performance at 1/5th the cost.

There you have it, an "IT professional" has spoken. CPU and Memory benchmarks don't matter. Price and performance is all an illusion. The past eight years Intel has been wasting our time with these damn processing speed upgrades.

No, but its true that benchmarks often don't correlate but roughly to real world performance. For example, the GPU in the 2014 Mini is far faster than the 2012 one. For software that uses the GPU heavily this will matter a lot... and isn't captured in a CPU benchmark.

Note that the OP distorted the thread, too, by choosing to only show the multicore chart. For most people, that's not going to be the chart that reflects what they really see day to day.

 

[alent1234]

I'm enjoying reading all of the commentary, but I have to admit... I do NOT agree. As an IT professional, I've noticed a continuous trend over the past 8 years or so.... & that is: CPU is the least important component in a home/business computer. This occurred right around the 3.06 ghz Intel Pentium IV w/ hyper threading. From about that point on, I haven't upgraded any personal, or any client's processors. It just doesn't make sense. The processor is NEVER the bottleneck in performance.
The money/time/energy spent upgrading a CPU would be MUCH better spent on
either the RAM, video card, or hard drive.
A spinning HDD will ALWAYS be the slowest point in a desktop system. Thankfully the popularity of SSDs & Apple's clever Fusion Drive solution seem to be solving that particular dilemma. Next, with demanding apps... a nice chunk of RAM is appropriate. I've yet to see a non professional Mac setup in need of 16gb, but 8gb certainly is a must. Next, when it comes to high end video apps... or games (probably two of the most intensive tasks you could perform on your system), a video card upgrade trumps all else.
Since all three of these upgrades are available on the new mini... I'm not seeing a huge issue. From what I see; the sweet performance/price spot is $899 for the 2.6ghz i5, w/ 8gb RAM, Iris graphics, & a 1tb Fusion Drive.
I think in almost any typical environment, you could expect 6-8 years from a machine specced like that.
If you are VERY demanding on your home system, but still don't quite need a Pro... the $200 to up it to 16gb would be worth it, and after 8 years- would be a $25/year outlay.
This is the upgrade & price I've been waiting for.
I will NOT be sitting this one out.

you are wrong because all intel CPU's after the P4 have specialized circuitry for specific tasks like encoding and transcoding video or encryption. running modern software that supports these features will give you huge improvements in performance

 

[RockSpider]

Utter BS! Im keep in late 2012 Quad Core model. Apple will have to pry it from my DEAD HANDZ!

I've got the same one, we could be sitting on a fortune. Maybe this new one is a replacement for the Apple TV.

 

[hachiman]

I think that they also anticipate that anyone who really cares about great multicore performance is probably not looking for a $600 computer. Want kick ass multicore performance but can't afford or justify a Pro? Get an iMac. The quad core 21.5" model starts at $1299.

The fact is that professionals who really push multicore performance aren't looking at the low end of computers; they realize that you need to pay for top end performance. Conversely, people who are after a budget computer likely aren't prone to pushing high end software to its limits. Dual core, single threaded performance is very likely far more important to that audience.

In the meantime, if you are on strict budget but need good multicore performance buy the 2012 machine

I don't know if this is true or not, but I feel like Apple's Damage Control Team is coming out.

Now the excuse that mac mini is the "starter kit", and to get better performance, you have to get the iMac or Mac Pro. Lame.

The current Haswell Intel i7 Quad-core (with Iris Pro) exists, Intel offers the equivalent CPU upgrade to the Mac mini 2012. I don't know what Apple was thinking. Must be counting beans...

Don't tell me there isn't any! There are plenty of them to choose from. They're all from Q3 of 2013 or Q4 of 2014, so they've already been out for a while, yet, we get downgrades.

http://ark.intel.com/products/family/75023/4th-Generation-Intel-Core-i7-Processors#@Mobile

 

[Treq]

I could have built a faster PC in the late 90s than this little Munchkin. There'll be no worries about this little hockey puck overheating, it should be $49.

LOL!.. no.

 

[RuffyYoshi]

At this point I think Steve Jobs is spinning so much in his grave we could use him as an endless power generator.

 

[RedOrchestra]

There you have it, an "IT professional" has spoken.

An old boss of mine used to say Economists are a-dime-a-dozen, and I wouldn't give any dime for any dozen.

I feel the EXACT same way about "IT professionals."

 

[iStrat]

Don't stop screaming.

Send your complaints to Apple, not only about the lack of quad core, but about soldered RAM, lack of an Iris Pro option, etc...

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macmini.html

If we complain loud enough and long enough, they may be forced to address it.

 

[RockSpider]

I'm enjoying reading all of the commentary, but I have to admit... I do NOT agree. As an IT professional, I've noticed a continuous trend over the past 8 years or so.... & that is: CPU is the least important component in a home/business computer. This occurred right around the 3.06 ghz Intel Pentium IV w/ hyper threading. From about that point on, I haven't upgraded any personal, or any client's processors. It just doesn't make sense. The processor is NEVER the bottleneck in performance.
The money/time/energy spent upgrading a CPU would be MUCH better spent on
either the RAM, video card, or hard drive.
A spinning HDD will ALWAYS be the slowest point in a desktop system. Thankfully the popularity of SSDs & Apple's clever Fusion Drive solution seem to be solving that particular dilemma. Next, with demanding apps... a nice chunk of RAM is appropriate. I've yet to see a non professional Mac setup in need of 16gb, but 8gb certainly is a must. Next, when it comes to high end video apps... or games (probably two of the most intensive tasks you could perform on your system), a video card upgrade trumps all else.
Since all three of these upgrades are available on the new mini... I'm not seeing a huge issue. From what I see; the sweet performance/price spot is $899 for the 2.6ghz i5, w/ 8gb RAM, Iris graphics, & a 1tb Fusion Drive.
I think in almost any typical environment, you could expect 6-8 years from a machine specced like that.
If you are VERY demanding on your home system, but still don't quite need a Pro... the $200 to up it to 16gb would be worth it, and after 8 years- would be a $25/year outlay.
This is the upgrade & price I've been waiting for.
I will NOT be sitting this one out.

Tell that to a couple of my old ITX Atom based PCs.

 

[fa8362]

Send your complaints to Apple, not only about the lack of quad core, but about soldered RAM, lack of an Iris Pro option, etc...

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macmini.html

If we complain loud enough and long enough, they may be forced to address it.

I sent them scathing feedback, but it won't help. They don't care. They're a pod, pad, phone, tune, headphone, watch, payment processing company now.

 

[BruiserB]

So if I have a Mid 2011 2.3GHz i5 mini with 8GB of RAM, should I be looking to sell it for more than I paid for it? Like I sold my Apple TV 2's and replaced with Apple TV 3's and made money doing so? I'm guessing the 2011 mini is not the sweet one, but maybe it's upgradable?

 

[mvmanolov]

I'm enjoying reading all of the commentary, but I have to admit... I do NOT agree. As an IT professional, I've noticed a continuous trend over the past 8 years or so.... & that is: CPU is the least important component in a home/business computer. This occurred right around the 3.06 ghz Intel Pentium IV w/ hyper threading. From about that point on, I haven't upgraded any personal, or any client's processors. It just doesn't make sense. The processor is NEVER the bottleneck in performance.
The money/time/energy spent upgrading a CPU would be MUCH better spent on
either the RAM, video card, or hard drive.
A spinning HDD will ALWAYS be the slowest point in a desktop system. Thankfully the popularity of SSDs & Apple's clever Fusion Drive solution seem to be solving that particular dilemma. Next, with demanding apps... a nice chunk of RAM is appropriate. I've yet to see a non professional Mac setup in need of 16gb, but 8gb certainly is a must. Next, when it comes to high end video apps... or games (probably two of the most intensive tasks you could perform on your system), a video card upgrade trumps all else.
Since all three of these upgrades are available on the new mini... I'm not seeing a huge issue. From what I see; the sweet performance/price spot is $899 for the 2.6ghz i5, w/ 8gb RAM, Iris graphics, & a 1tb Fusion Drive.
I think in almost any typical environment, you could expect 6-8 years from a machine specced like that.
If you are VERY demanding on your home system, but still don't quite need a Pro... the $200 to up it to 16gb would be worth it, and after 8 years- would be a $25/year outlay.
This is the upgrade & price I've been waiting for.
I will NOT be sitting this one out.

Despite, wishing there was a quad option, i do tend to agree with your arguments.

 

[boulderarch]

Apple might have saved a lot of money with this upgrade downgrade, but think of all the money their PR staff has spent telling us on this forum to buy iMac's and Mac Pros...

 

[Chupa Chupa]

soldered on ram
slower multi-core
dual-core only
server option removed (no 2tb)

does anyone else think that Apple was supposed to release a redesigned Mac Mini but because broadwell got delayed and Apple ended up just releasing a revised edition at the very last minute?

Nope. If Apple wanted to do that it could have dropped in a haswell same way they did the minor bump on the MP before it got a complete overhaul and come back next fall with this supposed "all new" mini.

The 2014 mini is an intentional gimping by design, not a last minute after thought. The mini won't be updated for another two years, if ever, based on the downward direction desktop machines in general are going.

I was hoping for a mini "pro" but clearly Apple is going the other way and wants prosumers to buy a souped up iMac.

 

[Count Blah]

I'm enjoying reading all of the commentary, but I have to admit... I do NOT agree. As an IT professional, I've noticed a continuous trend over the past 8 years or so.... & that is: CPU is the least important component in a home/business computer. This occurred right around the 3.06 ghz Intel Pentium IV w/ hyper threading. From about that point on, I haven't upgraded any personal, or any client's processors. It just doesn't make sense. The processor is NEVER the bottleneck in performance.

...

This is the upgrade & price I've been waiting for.
I will NOT be sitting this one out.

Enjoy your 2014 machine being 1/2 the speed of the 2012 with every application that can take advantage of the quad-core, or running VMs where you can designate # for cores, Or ...

If you just enjoy browsing, and word, the new one is the machine for you. Congrats Mr. IT pro.

 

[Treq]

I think that they also anticipate that anyone who really cares about great multicore performance is probably not looking for a $600 computer. Want kick ass multicore performance but can't afford or justify a Pro? Get an iMac. The quad core 21.5" model starts at $1299.

Unless you don't need or want the monitor.

 

[manu chao]

slower multi-core
dual-core only

Listing the same point twice does not enhance your argument.

 

[rochford]

The Geekbench link in the article is for an i5 processor, which incidentally scores 6424, more than the i7 listed by Macrumors. Where's the test for the current i7 processor macmini so we can compare against last years processors?

 

[dazz87]

No memory upgrade and slower cpu?

 

[YKdvd]

Gigabyte did it with their BRIX series. It's $650 without an memory, harddrive or software. It has a 135W power supply. It does not have Thunderbolt (which adds licensing costs).

But more importantly, even with an obnoxiously loud fan it STILL has to throttle when being pushed because the small form factor just isn't enough mass to handle all that heat. Apple wants the Mini to be quite. They do not want the case, which is used as a heatsink, to be stupid hot to the touch. As a customer I agree with these goals.

I'm not saying that going backwards is a good thing, and I'm not defending that particular move. But I think some people had unrealistic expectations for what Apple could get out of the current form factor of the Mini. Real estate inside and heat dissipation are a real concern.

"westrock2000" has been very on point as I read through this thread. Apple has a form factor with the Mini, and isn't going to jump through hoops for small ends of a relatively small product line. With Ivy Bridge, the basic single motherboard and case could be used to offer some fairly high-end i7 quad-core specializations. It sounds like with Haswell you'd need a redesigned motherboard (difference CPU socket) for a quad-core. Probably not enough would be sold to bother. Potential quad-core purchasers probably break down into:

1) quad-core would be nice, but they don't really need it and will settle for dual-core.
2) can live with quad iMac form factor and added cost
3) will resignedly splurge on a Mac Pro
4) will not buy from Apple

Group 4 is a small portion of the Quadlings, which is a small portion of the Mini-ites, which is a small portion of the Macophiles, which are a small portion of computer buyers, or Apple customers. When Apple could satisfy them without a lot of extra effort, they did. Now perhaps they can't, and don't. I can understand people being unhappy about it, but Apple isn't going to be all thing to all people all the time.

 

[Larry-K]

Wow, there's a shocker!