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I'm usually pretty skeptical, but this looks pretty legit. The TB ports seem a little too close together, though. And why is HDMI shaped like a rectangle? There's enough scale in the diagram to give it the proper shape.
 
Wccftech never validates their source. I still remember that they claimed Nvidia 20series graphics will be named as "11" series, also they claimed that Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, was going to join IBM.
 
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Wccftech never validates their source. I still remember that they claimed Nvidia 20series graphics will be named as "11" series, also they claimed that Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, was going to join IBM.
Well, at least a high end Mac mini will have to come out to replace a space grey Mac mini but not sure about the design. I hope they keep the same design just for Mac mini.
 
These don’t look very official TBH. The ports for example aren’t detailed enough (HDMI port is just a square) so these to me look like poorly created fan-made “CAD” drawings based off of prossers leaks. That’s why the USB-C ports are way too close together.

It still could very much look similar or close to this design, but based on the history of the leaker I’m skeptical of the legitimacy of this.
 
Making the unit thinner makes cooling it quietly a more difficult proposition. Particularly as the internals draw more power than the current model. It’s something we absolutely don’t need.
I hope the rumours are false.
 
Making the unit thinner makes cooling it quietly a more difficult proposition. Particularly as the internals draw more power than the current model. It’s something we absolutely don’t need.
I hope the rumours are false.
The current model supports a ~65W TDP processor since it’s the same exact thermal design as the 2018 models, and the M1 is roughly ~15W? The fan is massively overkill for the M1 as it is.
 
To me, those drawings look more like one of the third-party hubs that have the same form factor as the Mac Mini, rather than an actual Mac Mini design. I can't see Apple abandoning the unibody design in favor of separate top and bottom plates either.
 
The current model supports a ~65W TDP processor since it’s the same exact thermal design as the 2018 models, and the M1 is roughly ~15W? The fan is massively overkill for the M1 as it is.
Overkill?
It allows the M1 to run at full load without throttling and with minimal noise. This is a Very Good Thing.
Squeezing in a higher performance SoC in a tighter enclosure may not achieve the same, which would be a shame. And pointless, since I doubt that people are turned away from the mini for being too big. It’s a stationary mains powered computer, compromised cooling or noise characteristics is competely unnecessary.
 
Overkill?
It allows the M1 to run at full load without throttling and with minimal noise. This is a Very Good Thing.
Squeezing in a higher performance SoC in a tighter enclosure may not achieve the same, which would be a shame. And pointless, since I doubt that people are turned away from the mini for being too big. It’s a stationary mains powered computer, compromised cooling or noise characteristics is competely unnecessary.
Yea, but It can still achieve all of that with a lower thermal envelope. the M1 doesn’t need a 65W thermal envelope to sustain max load. That’s my point.

jorbanead wrote:
"The fan is massively overkill for the M1 as it is."

I'd prefer a fan that is "massively overkill" to one that is "woefully underkill"... :cool:

Nobody has said they are compromising on thermals. We don’t know what the thermal envelope is of the new design. All I was saying is the current mini is designed to handle a 65W processor and the M1 is only 15W. Even if they cut the thermal envelope in half, it would still be more than enough to sustain max load on the M1.
 
Thoughts?

These look nothing like the Quanta MacBook Pro schematics that were released by REvil so color me skeptical.

That being said, and compared to the leaked schematics, these are just basic outlines of what I presume are the major structural components of the case. As such, they would not necessarily have to be accurate representations of the components. So they could be real as a reference document and not a production document like the Quanta MBP schematics.

Going from left to right, I see a power button, an iMac-style MagSafe connector, four TB/USB4 ports, two USB-A ports, Ethernet and HDMI and those all make sense for a "Mac mini Pro" as rumored.
 
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I don't think that ethernet port should be present if the mac mini would have that new magnetic charging port.

The base iMac model power adapter does not include the Ethernet port so it is possible that is what would ship with the "Mac mini Pro".

I believe the iMac power adapter only supports 1Gb Ethernet and the "Mac mini Pro" could be a 10Gb Ethernet port (either standard or as an option).
 
It might be real but the USB-C ports are way too close together to be accurate, IMO. Not saying that won't be vertical like that, but they just seem super cramped to be accessible if all 4 are populated.
 
Rather have a built in power brick, standard power cable and SD card slot than a slimmer device, but it's not a total deal breaker.

Also for people who are concerned about the size for cooling, if Apple is going magnetic power cable isn't it pretty much a foregone conclusion it's an external power brick?

That all said I can't imagine what the purpose of such mock-ups would be as they are pretty low detail.
 
I can’t see this being real. I think they’ll ditch the USB-A ports to make space for the extra Thunderbolt ports.
 
What's the point of a magnetic charging port if the Mini doesn't have a battery? One false move and it's powered off. Stupid idea....

Well if you yank a laptop off your desk by tripping over the power cable, you should be able to do the same with a mini.

And as thenewperson noted, the magnetic strength of MagSafe on an iMac, for example, is far more powerful than it is expected to be on a MacBook Pro. It takes some effort to unplug MagSafe on an iMac - it is not going to disconnect because you bump the mini or even move it around the desk.
 
I can’t see this being real. I think they’ll ditch the USB-A ports to make space for the extra Thunderbolt ports.

Current high-end mini has those same ports. 4-USB C and 2-USB A so they should fit. This new design, if real, just looks slimmer vertically.
 
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Personally, I don't trust LeakApplePro...

Thoughts?


Looks fake.

1. There is no ventilation there at all. All the 'holes' are for sockets or bottoms. The presentation of the bottom looks to be missing any inlets. The back has now outlets That makes little sense if the M1X is 2-3x higher thermal output. ( If more than double the number of GPU cores then not going to get a doubling of wattage consumed. Likewise if double up on RAM modules then path lengths go up incrementally over a doubling). Doubling the TBv3 sockets is a doubling of power there. (MBA don't have four sockets) . The 10GbE still generates substantively more power burn off than 1GbE do.

Cooling by air capacity is about how many cubic feet of air you move per second. If there is no input or output then amount moved is probably going to be pretty close to zero. Lowering the thermal capacity is one thing. Dropping it zero is silly. ( Apple has done silly thermal things before so not impossible. )

Completely getting rid of the vents is a bonehead move. The size of the hole doesn't have to change to lower the cooling. Just blow air through the holes at a slower rate will reduce the cooling capacity. That buys less noise which is a good enough "win".


"Apple will just passively radiate everything through the chassis". The problem with that is multiple over several contexts.

a. stacking Mini. ( a super cheap cluster is to just stack 2-3 minis on top of each other. ) . If the top and bottom are radiators then are radiating into one another. In a 3 stack the one in the middle is being radiated to on both sides. You have put it in a sandwich if heat sources. That isn't good.

[ looks like there are some "bumper" feet on the bottom . The stand off distance there doesn't look large enough to be effective for this problem. ]

b. racking them in a data center. How do you get cool air into the MIni's. They have no fan. Would have to add extern fans to blow it in. That is a 'fail'. There will be fans to help "scoop up" hot exhaust , but this runs counter to about everything else in the rack. ( Minis are already a bit of 'odd ducks' in that the suck in air from the side ( racking usually means vertical placements. That isn't "great" but it isn't exactly hostile to the overall cooling flow. ).

[ Never mind there are 10's of thousands Mini racks slots already deployed out there in the current form factor that would need tweaking. ]

c. Very long ( dozens of hours) workloads ( e.g., 24/7 continuous build for multiple projects over different time zones ). This is plugged into a wall so the power draw can be constant and assigned to multiple users.



2. The "design" here seems to be just horizontally slicing off the air vent from the current model .

m1-mac-mini-ports.jpg



That appears "clever" right up until the point you notice that it also slices off the headphone jack. That is ridiculous. Even when Apple thinned out the iMac M1 variant they still left the headphone jack. Dumping the headphone jack from a desktop product wouldn't be "brave" . It would be "boneheaded".

3. Somewhat coupled to that is just how is the speakers sound suppose to get out of this enclosure.... or being "brave" and deleting the speaker too? Similarly to cooling you have to actually move air to make noise.


4. As another post mentioned those TBv3 ports are packed too tight. There is Radio frequency bleed and power coming off 40 Gb/s ports.

5. Radio out for multiple antennas where? The top is now "glass" ? ( that won't help much with thermals dissipation). Somewhat goofy placement but Apple places major antenna placment in the bottom.


tXWDDESShGWNeSI1.medium







[ step 3. ]

If they "nuke' the inlet mechanism where do the antennas go?


The Mac Mini is already pretty thin. With x86_64 chips, it has run quite noisey because it is pretty thin now. "Even thinner" isn't going to buy much here.
 
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