I do also note that there’s no actual iFixit teardown (or guide) for the M1 Mini as of yet. But from what I’ve seen; the current M1 Mini is effectively half empty.
Regardless of how the space is used, the PSU and cooling system is rated for a 65w TDP CPU. The M1 SoC is designed to cope with going in a fan less MBA which you an assume to be under half of that limit. I'm not a current M1 mini user but I bet the fans in there rarely fire up and if they do they won't be very audible - which is great for quality of life.
If you assume that the data centre guys who buy the Mini in the hundreds/thousands have set up their trays to accept Mac minis in the current configuration - they want build in PSUs and for the Mini to remain rack mountable in their current configuration.
I’m making the assumption that Apple applies at least a small amount of logic to the naming nomenclature beyond simply making the number bigger with each release.
Specifically; that increasing cores or speed or memory etc. would result in an appended XYZ (or “pro ultra giga max plus”), while migrating to a design based on the A15 (then A16, A17…) would merit a numerical increment to A2, A3, A4…
The logic of the M series CPU should really follow the corresponding A series in my opinion - for simplicity.
Therefore: A14 => M1; A15 => M2; A16 => M3 - all on an annual release schedule.
Marketingwise, you could then apply a number of compute cores and graphics cores accordingly depending on the product. There is a train of thought that suggests that Apple will not go for suffixes such as M1X, M2X.
Even if you think it's confusing, naming the a different CPU would implicitly allow Apple to do the following:
Create a tier of product with 4 Thunderbolt ports
Create a tier of product with a fixed number of additional compute and graphics cores.
Change the base clock speed if required because of the additional cores.
I've already said they can adjust the number of cores depending on the product it's in with less confusion. The issue comes when you try and put that into a Mac mini and then put 4 Thunderbolt ports into it - unless Apple are going to call a Mac mini with an M1X something like 'Mac mini Pro'
If Apple wish to just denote that a 16" MacBook Pro simply has an M1 with 8+4 cores and 16 graphics cores with 4 Thunderbolt ports they can try and market that too, especially if the base clock speeds remain consistent.
I’m somewhat disappointed that the non-motherboard half is effectively rendered unusable for anything else by having a bunch of standoffs to hold the fan riveted in place. It suggests there’s no plan to either use this case for a larger motherboard, or allow the space to be used as a bay for a secondary drive.
And there’s no real benefit to having this air-filled void either; there’s no air filters or deadening, while any air flow restrictions are elsewhere in the vents/fan/heatsink itself. Also; they haven’t needed to use it to increase the size of the fan or heatsink/fin area.
Apple just don't want to add SATA ports or an internal PCIe slot for expansion - Intel motherboards might have allowed for this but we don't know if M1 ARM motherboards allow for it - from what I have seen M1 may not have spare I/O capacity since they only have 2 Thunderbolt ports.
It's external storage all the way as far as Apple are concerned. I have already explained at the top why I think Apple have gone with the same form factor, but for data centre use if they would just make access easier for cleaning internals that would be great. Maybe M1X might allow for additional PCIe lanes but I equally can't see Apple offering drive bays unless a future full Mac Pro has genuine PCIe slots which could have cards added but the Mac Pro could be exceptionally pricey.
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