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New Intel Mac mini

balamw said:
They should easily be able to move the Core Solo mini released today to $499 when the cost of the Intel Core CPU drops in the second half of the year.
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I suspect that the Intel CPU price drop has already happened for Apple. One website published what was supposed to be the new prices, and the new price for chip X was exactly the old price for the next slower chip. That would be a good explanation how Apple could ship all MacBook Pros with the next faster chip at no extra cost.

And I would really, really like to know what Apple pays for Core Solo chips. Actually, a 1.5 GHz Core Solo is not in the Intel price list, so there might be some extra deal going on where Apple gets _all_ the Core chips that can't manage more than 1.5 GHz at a bargain price.
 
Intel graphics

Mac Mini with Intel Core duo is fantastic!

However, the graphics card is rather poor. It supports Tiger full graphical capabilities, but I doubt it will support those of next Mac OS X releases. In particular, considering that Mac OS X will have to compete with Windows Vista Aero Glass (and Novell Xgl for Linux) in cool graphical effects.
 
One thing for certain - whatever about the performance of the integrated graphics, opting for it has been a marketing foul up! 😉
 
Integrated video isn't necessarily bad - except when it has shared memory. Then you have problems. What ends up happening is that it saps bus and memory when the computer needs it the most. When you are scrolling through your pictures in iPhoto your ram is going crazy trying to cache those pictures. Now - it is going to pe paging data back and forth to the GPU AND CPU at the same time. This is going to hurt performance in more than games. It is going to hurt performance in every aspect of your computing experience.

And to those people that keep saying that this is a low end machine. No, an $800 machine isn't low-end. That is mid-range and you can do MUCH better elsewhere.

What pisses me off the most is that Apple could have increased the size of the mini by 1" cubed and then put a 3.5" drive in. They would have saved themselves about $100. Spend 40 of that savings on a decent card, 20 on the bigger case, and then take the last 40 and take it as more profit. Everybody would be happy. The only reason they made the mini so small in the beginning is so they could take everybody's attention away from the fact that it had sub-par hardware. Now that the hardware is decent they should make it a bit bigger.

Rant over... Apple has made me wait again....
 
arrizaba said:
However, the graphics card is rather poor. It supports Tiger full graphical capabilities, but I doubt it will support those of next Mac OS X releases. In particular, considering that Mac OS X will have to compete with Windows Vista Aero Glass (and Novell Xgl for Linux) in cool graphical effects.
Click to expand...

Apple's site merely says it supports Core Graphics (which I take to include Quartz Extreme), I haven't seen any mention of Core Video and Core Image. Based on the specs emerging in this thread, it sounds like it might have the beef for it, but I'm worried about memory bandwidth saturation.

Only time will tell..
 
Tomte said:
from Apple.com:

Graphics memory is shared with main system memory. Minimum graphics memory allocation is 64MB, resulting in maximum of 448MB available system memory. Maximum graphics memory allocation is 80MB.

So you will always have at least 432 MB RAM available.
Click to expand...

From the "Intel Core" sub-page:

"Memory available to Mac OS X may vary depending on graphics needs. Minimum graphics memory usage is 80MB, resulting in 432MB of system memory available."

It could just be an error though.
 
The sony Bravia LCD TV that Steve showed during the event is the same TV I have. It does not do 1:1 pixel mapping over DVI->HMDI.
 
More shared GPU by upgrading CPU?

Question:
In other Intel integrated graphics (For instance the 915), upgrading CPU effectively increases the shared memory allowed for the GPU. Does the same occur for the Intel 945G? Does anybody know?
So, if one buys a Mac Mini with 1 GB or 2 GB, then one should also have more shared GPU, right?
If so, how would a Mac Mini with 2 GB memory perform in GPU-intensive games like Doom 3?
 
One other concern - this is an entry-level PC, for which switchers are likely to be a big target demographic. If any (unversed in Mac) PC user buys a stock mini, a few Mac apps (likely to be PPC) off the shelf and tries it out, the machine is likely to crawl.

512MB - 80MB leaves 432MB available, which is scarcely enough to run Tiger at a decent speed, but by all accounts Rosetta requires a LOT of memory. Expect a lot of disk thrashing.
 
mokeyjoe said:
The way I see it is;

This is not a games machine.

This is marginally more expensive than the present G4 mini but with overall better specs.

This and the Boombox are a statement of intent from Apple. They've cornered the portable music market and now they're coming for you living room.

The Mini streams media and comes with a remote. It also easily hooks up to a TV and had digital audio output. (The Boombox had digital audio input). This is the system that Apple intends to launch their Movie download/rental service around. This is the home equivalent to the iPod - or at least could be.

Storage capacity? Well most people rent a lot more movies than they own. And if you want to shell out and download? Well it streams remember. Maybe from an external HD? Or a desktop PC/Mac?

HiDef? Well the iTunes music store does ok for itelf with its 128kbps downloads. They take up less space and most people couldn't care less. The larger the file the longer it takes to download too remember. I think Apple would want more of an 'on demand' experience.

Apple don't want to provide a DVR, they want people to get their content through them, not other providers.

The iTunes music store will morph into a multimedia provider. And this is the access point. Watch movies and listen to music at home, or take them with you on your ipod. So many people use the iTunes store, if or when they start providing full movies then people are going to want to know how to access them, and will find that the products already exist.

On their own these product are nothing special. Just like on its own the iPod isn't. There are more fully featured mp3 players out there. But its the overall experience, including the content delivery that make the ipod what it is. And that'll be true for these products too.

Of course this is speculation. But its the direction Apple are surely headed. The new Mini is the ideal machine for this. And the boombox may look daft with an iPod sticking out of it, but I bet it'd look a whole lot nicer sat under your TV.
Click to expand...

i'd agree with all of that.

if i had the spare cash (as it is i don't right now, but hopefully will later in the year, by which time they may have gone further down this path), i'd get one to sit next to the tv, act as a server storing all my music and photos, freeing up valuable space on the powerbook.

hook it up to the tv, and use front row for music, photos, videos. even in that i like the idea (and indeed GUI) FR provides for watching movie trailers on demand on the tv.

and i can still play music, view and edit photos on the PB wirelessly, and preview iMovies and dvd projects wirelessly on the tv via the mini.

that may be underusing it - but its all the sort of stuff its suited for, and able to do a great job doing.

Iain
 
iHeartTheApple said:
Of particular interest to me is the 2GB of RAM and 1.6GHz Duo! Great job, Apple!
Click to expand...
I think the option for Core Duo and a max of 2GB of RAM compensates for the intergrated graphics, but not the rise in price.
 
arrizaba said:
Question:
In other Intel integrated graphics (For instance the 915), upgrading CPU effectively increases the shared memory allowed for the GPU. Does the same occur for the Intel 945G? Does anybody know?
So, if one buys a Mac Mini with 1 GB or 2 GB, then one should also have more shared GPU, right?
If so, how would a Mac Mini with 2 GB memory perform in GPU-intensive games like Doom 3?
Click to expand...

It would play horribly. If you say, play Doom 3 on a video card with 32 MB of dedicated memory, and Doom 3 eats up 64 MB of video memory for instance, the remaining 32 MB needed will be offloaded to the main system's RAM.

Now, as this card uses shared memory not dedicated, it's essentially a video card with 0 MB of VRAM. So Doom 3 will use the main system's RAM entirely, and that's, well, slow as hell for that kind of task.

Don't expect to play Doom 3 on this thing.
 
ScottB said:
I think the option for Core Duo and a max of 2GB of RAM compensates for the intergrated graphics, but not the rise in price.
Click to expand...
Airport and Bluetooth are standard now too. And the I/O is better, but only to the point of what it should have been already.

I think it shows just how cheap Apple was getting the G4.
 
An old mac mini with the new features like the photo, music etc. steaming would make it a perfect house server, but the price is too high in the intel version for it to be used for such a thing.

On the other hand, it's got lots of new things (like bluetooth and airport) that make it quite a cool little machine.
 
graphic card and 3.5 inch drive. CAN WE HAVE POLL HERE??

zelet said:
...
What pisses me off the most is that Apple could have increased the size of the mini by 1" cubed and then put a 3.5" drive in. They would have saved themselves about $100. Spend 40 of that savings on a decent card, 20 on the bigger case, and then take the last 40 and take it as more profit. Everybody would be happy. The only reason they made the mini so small in the beginning is so they could take everybody's attention away from the fact that it had sub-par hardware. Now that the hardware is decent they should make it a bit bigger.

Rant over... Apple has made me wait again....
Click to expand...

I totally agree, a 3.5 inch drive and a graphics card, make
the box a bit bigger. Perhaps a bit higher and deeper, not wider.

I think the mac mini is still fine for grandma etc. doing email
and web surfing, but at the moment there is nothing
between a huge powermac and a mac mini, unless you
go with an iMac, which I don't want (because I already
have a nice 19 inch screen). There is a need for a small,
but a bit more powerfull box. Can we get it,
can we collect votes???
 
Cost

I thought the Mac Mini was supposed to be the cheap way to own a Mac!

If you guys in the US think the Mini is expensive try buying one over here in the UK, at $1.7 Dollars to the Pound, works out over $1,000!

This has lost Apple a sale from me, just too costly to now justify (to the wife!)
 
I'll most likely buy the new mini. Currently using the G4 mini. Haven't had any performance issues for what I'm using it for. Yeah, rendering video takes a while, but I just let the process run over night. I don't like the iMac all-on-one solution. Already have a PC laptop. Can't justify buying a PM. I like having a small system on my desktop, instead of a tower.
 
trbgln said:
I totally agree, a 3.5 inch drive and a graphics card, make
the box a bit bigger. Perhaps a bit higher and deeper, not wider.
Click to expand...

A 3.5 inch drive? what exactly do you mean?
 
300ZX said:
Intel GMA graphics and $100 dollars more...what a joke.
Click to expand...
I know. I almost wish they'd never updated. 😱
I mean, this is just stupid. Apple's already looked down on by some for their "high prices" and now this?
Trust me. My Windows friends are going to be making fun of this hardware. 🙁
 
From what I've heard, that GMA is better than the GMA in the Powermac dev kits, and it is pretty much better than the 9200. It has full filtering and pixel fill performance.
 
Raven VII said:
It would play horribly. If you say, play Doom 3 on a video card with 32 MB of dedicated memory, and Doom 3 eats up 64 MB of video memory for instance, the remaining 32 MB needed will be offloaded to the main system's RAM.

Now, as this card uses shared memory not dedicated, it's essentially a video card with 0 MB of VRAM. So Doom 3 will use the main system's RAM entirely, and that's, well, slow as hell for that kind of task.

Don't expect to play Doom 3 on this thing.
Click to expand...


The Intel GPU has been bothering me quite a lot. I just shot messages back and forth with a friend who has a dev box running osx with a gma900 and 2gb ram. He tried doom3 on it. The frames per second were decent on medium quality settings and at 800x600. In other words, if you hook that mini up to a decent display really just forget about playing games. I'll wait for a revision or buy a shuttle x100 which is getting a radeon x1600 if they come out before.
 
mkjj said:
I thought the Mac Mini was supposed to be the cheap way to own a Mac!

If you guys in the US think the Mini is expensive try buying one over here in the UK, at $1.7 Dollars to the Pound, works out over $1,000!
Click to expand...
Whoa. Over $1,000 for a Mac Mini!?!?!??!? 😱
 
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