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Surprise! My old 2014 i5 Mac mini is 4K capable!

Populus

Populus

macrumors 604
Original poster
Aug 24, 2012
6,802
9,556
Spain, Europe
Yes! All this years I didn’t replace my monitor for a 4K display because I thought my 2014 intel core i5 Mac mini wouldn’t support it… and to my surprise, now that I got a 4K monitor, I plugged it into this old Mac… and it runs at 4k! How’s this possible?

Now, I must say my 2014 Mac mini isn’t the base model. It’s not the base 2.40GHz CPU with an Intel HD 5000 GPU, but the 2.60GHz CPU with an Iris 5100 GPU. And 8GB of RAM instead of just 4GB. Maybe this made a difference?

According to what I’m reading, officially it supports, indeed, up to 3840 by 2160 pixels at 30Hz. So yes, I got the first 4K capable Mac minis without knowing it!

The experience is not spectacular at 30Hz as you can imagine, but I never thought I would be looking at a HDPi 1080p mode with this clarity on my old Intel Mac, even if at 30Hz.

Now I’m less in a hurry to replace this Mac mini, and thanks to its SSD it runs really fast! However, something inside me wants one of the new M4 or M5 Mac minis, to be able to run the newest macOS… and all the machine learning stuff that I’m missing. Maybe now I could hold until the M6 model? Who knows!
 
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When Macs with Thunderbolt 2 were introduced in late 2013, one of its features was supporting DisplayPort 1.2, which when introduced could drive two 2560x1600 monitors, or one 4K/30.
This was what the Trash Can Mac Pro supported, but also everything else with TB 2 ports.

4K/60 came with the 2015 MacBook Air, and that year's iMacs.
 
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PaulD-UK said:
When Macs with Thunderbolt 2 were introduced in late 2013, one of its features was supporting DisplayPort 1.2, which when introduced could drive two 2560x1600 monitors, or one 4K/30.
This was what the Trash Can Mac Pro, supported, but also everything else with TB 2 ports.

4K/60 came with the 2015 MacBook Air, and that year's iMacs.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that’s my case, 4K at 30Hz. However my 4K monitor isn’t connected through Thunderbolt 2, but rather an HDMI 2.1 cable (I know the HDMI port in my 2014 Mac mini is a lower version, just to be sure that my cable is not a bottleneck). But still, really happy to have a 4K signal out of my old Intel Haswell mini.
 
Glad you're finding a new life for your old Mini. I have the next model up from yours (2.8ghz i5) but no longer use it. FWIW, there was no 2.4ghz 2014 Mini, the base model was 1.2ghz 1.4ghz (I have one of those too) and the next step up was 2.6 ghz (like yours). You're probably thinking of the base 2012 Mini, which was 2.4 ghz.

Here are a few threads about 4k on the 2014 Mini (there are probably more).

 
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Boyd01 said:
Glad you're finding a new life for your old Mini. I have the next model up from yours (2.8ghz i5) but no longer use it. FWIW, there was no 2.4ghz 2014 Mini, the base model was 1.2ghz (I have one of those too) and the next step up was 2.6 ghz (like yours). You're probably thinking of the base 2012 Mini, which was 2.4 ghz.
Click to expand...
Correct, I just checked and the base model was the 1.4GHz one. Glad I got this one! More than ten years later it’s still a very decent machine.

I don’t know why (probably I misread it somewhere) I always thought this machine didn’t support 4K.

Thanks for the links, I’ll take a look at them.
 
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Fishrrman fearless prediction:
If you like the old Mini as it's running now...

... you will REALLY like a NEW Mini (either m4 or perhaps the upcoming m5).
Just be sure to get it "properly equipped" -- I'd recommend at least 24gb of RAM and at least a 512gb SSD (1tb is better).

If cost is a factor, and if they have "Apple refurbished" where you are, consider buying from there. I did (for my 2024 m4 Mini), very satisfied with the purchase.
 
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Fishrrman said:
Fishrrman fearless prediction:
If you like the old Mini as it's running now...

... you will REALLY like a NEW Mini (either m4 or perhaps the upcoming m5).
Just be sure to get it "properly equipped" -- I'd recommend at least 24gb of RAM and at least a 512gb SSD (1tb is better).

If cost is a factor, and if they have "Apple refurbished" where you are, consider buying from there. I did (for my 2024 m4 Mini), very satisfied with the purchase.
Click to expand...
Yeah, a new, smaller Mac mini, either the M5 or M6, is certainly coming… to my home. But I’ll wait as much as I can.

And of course 24GB of RAM will be my minimum, because I was also considering 32GB… and 1TB of storage, nothing more, nothing less.
 
"And of course 24GB of RAM will be my minimum, because I was also considering 32GB… and 1TB of storage, nothing more, nothing less."

My own Apple-refurbished m4 Mini seems to be doing fine on 32gb of RAM and 1tb SSD...
 
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