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Mac Mini Teardown Provides Real-World Look at M1 Chip on Smaller Logic Board
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It’s coming. Watching this video made that much clear.
There seems to be this push with Apple to say “these are still Macs” which, of course they are. But this transition is all about the internals.
Who wants to deal with another butterfly keyboard while also dealing with new silicon?
Apple tends to handle transitions pretty damn gracefully. Next year they’ll announce the all new “smallest ever” Mini and have 5 minutes of the announcement dedicated to how much they care about the environment because the boxes are smaller.
looking at this again and closer, I am not convinced this is a production unit ... combining RAM and CPU in this SOC is actually genius, hopefully we can see some more and better pics of this soon
Think this looks great, it's pretty much everything an average user needs (& then some) at minimal cost.
Okay when will Apple put a M1 chip in a iPad Pro and run OSX on it. So what if the iPad has to get a bit thicker it would really be a Pro class tablet then.
A teardown of the new Mac mini has surfaced on the forum eGPU.io (via Reddit), providing us with a real-world look at Apple's new M1 chip, which is soldered onto a much smaller logic board than the one found in the 2018 model of the computer. (Note: At the time of publishing, the eGPU.io forum appears to be experiencing downtime.)
The M1 is the silver chip labeled with APL1102, housing the 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, I/O controllers, and more all in one. The unified system memory is also visible on the right side of the chip, and takes up far less space than the standalone RAM modules used in the previous Mac mini, contributing to the smaller logic board.
As expected, the switch to unified system memory also means that there is no user-upgradeable RAM, as there was with the previous Mac mini, so choose wisely between 8GB or 16GB of memory when configuring the Mac mini on Apple's online store. The SSD also remains soldered to the logic board, so there is no user-upgradeable storage either.
A video teardown of the new Mac mini has also surfaced, revealing that the overall disassembly process is similar to the 2018 model:
There's also a video teardown of the new MacBook Air, providing a peek inside the notebook, although many components are covered with shielding. We'll have to wait on iFixit for its more in-depth teardowns of the new Macs for a closer look.
Article Link: Mac Mini Teardown Provides Real-World Look at M1 Chip on Smaller Logic Board
Regardless of your arguments, if they had the PCIe lanes to spare you would see 4 TB3 ports. Clearly there is some limitation to the number of PCIe lanes. Putting M.2 on the board because there is room in the case wont matter if there are no lanes to connect too.
Now THIS is an interesting observation. As far as i’m aware the 2018 Mac mini has 4 ports but only two controllers, so it’s essentially already daisy chained. That would mean you’d get the same performance from this Mac mini as you would from the 4 port Mac mini.
I've heard the reason Apple hasn't changed the form factor of the Mini is that a decent percentage of its sales are to server farms, which have invested quite a bit in racks custom-designed for that form factor (see pic below).
In addition, preliminary reviews indicate the M1 mini is nearly silent even with heavy loads, and shows little or no thermal throttling. Having both of those together is a big deal, and making it smaller risks losing this.
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Sure they could. Why would they? This way they must have better thermals. It’s a desktop, I’d say it’s small enough already.
And that would be a very Apple-like decision, not the most consumer-friendly decision. Remember, we're talking about an entry-level Mac mini, not a fancy workstation.
The thing with Apple is that, if the base model of whatever you're buying suits your needs, then you're usually getting a good bang for your buck and a good experience at that. But if you need anything extra they'll rip you off.
I like that it has sufficient heft to anchor cables. I consider the mini to be a flexible computing hub with good I/O. I don't want a feather light plastic dongle flopping about on the end of my cables.
Not if there are no spare PCIe lanes to drive them (probably also the same reason why there's no 10G Ethernet). At the end of the day, the M1 is still Apple's solution for ultra-light portables, not expandable desktops.
I think the whole reason they’re reusing the chassis is the non-entry level mini is going to look the same and take up that unused space in the entry level chassis.
Why change up the supply chain logistics if you can get reuse?
See comment #2 It may be true that the M1 has less PCIe bandwidth than the intel chip it replaced, but this is speculative at this point.
I see the point of reusing the chassis. My point was that Apple would not include slots for storage expansion even if technically they could do it.
You know, that's a really good point, I also like it has a little heft, it's not yanked off a desk by a couple of adapters and heavy video cables, I've got mine sitting on a 140mm BB fan (bottom plate removed) and it's very stable.
Also ...
That's what she said ...
Oh definitely not, no reason to. I’d imagine less than 20% of Mac mini’s get opened in their entire lifetime, for any reason.
Too bad the IO is gimped on AS macs anyway. Can only output to 1 screen, and no eGPU support.
They're really devolving these things to facebook machines
Yes, but if it was easy to do so most people would find expandable storage in a entry-level Mac mini more useful than, say, extra thunderbolt ports.
Remember how easy it was do add ram in that same chassis till 2012? That round bottom panel used to turn open. Just like that, no screws, no nothing.
I thought the MacMini could drive two monitors??? Somewhere I read three, but I’m having a hard time believing that is true.
I'm glad there's not a redesign of the enclosure. First, Apple can use the same parts between the M1 and the Intel Minis (keeping costs down) and it leaves room for next year's iteration.
Also, in how small a space is an 8" x 8" x 2" device is a problem? This isn't designed to fit in a jacket pocket...
Also, in how small a space is an 8" x 8" x 2" device is a problem? This isn't designed to fit in a jacket pocket...