
Apple Mac Mini - computerjunkie
https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/
======
gambiting
I seriously do not understand how can it ship with a 500GB 5400rpm drive by
default. This gives such poor experience to the user that Apple should have
opted for all-ssd approach two generations ago. Very disappointed by that.

~~~
blhack
Maybe a lot of people are using these as media machines? That requires a lot
of space, and not much speed.

~~~
rm445
Then why not the current p/GB sweet spot, a 3TB disk?

~~~
cherry_su
There are no 2.5" 3TB drives, and even if one existed, it would be 12.5mm (or
more), which may be too thick for Mac mini (standard 2.5" drive thickness is
9.5mm).

~~~
Tiksi
But there are 2TB 9.5mm drives, which would still be far better than a 500GB.

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178627)

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rcchen
So correct me if I'm wrong, but they appear to have done the same thing with
the Mac Mini to achieve the lower price point as they did with the iMac
earlier this year, by introducing a 1.4Ghz i5 model? I don't recall the base
Mac Mini being as weak before...

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Wow, that's quite the downgrade. What's the logic here? To save energy to keep
it fanless? Or is this cost-cutting?

~~~
Tloewald
I would imagine being energy efficient and cheap is their main goal. This is
the kind of computer people will leave on, plugged into their TV.

~~~
calinet6
Ding ding ding. My TV and home media and general server needs are powered by a
Mid-2010 Mac Mini 4,1 with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, which is most certainly less
than half the horsepower of this new model [1], and it works great. This would
only be an improvement for this or any other use.

[1] Hey, I was right:
[https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2238&cmp[]=14...](https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp\[\]=2238&cmp\[\]=1483)

------
ddod
I've been waiting for about a year for this refresh and fully expected to buy
one today, but after looking at the combination of price, default HDD,
processors, and very weak integrated graphics, I just can't justify buying
this. Compared to the relationship between the 2012 Mini and the 2012
computing ecosystem, the 2014 Mini is really not that impressive.

~~~
christoph
I don't really understand Apple's current obsession with fitting their
machines with low-end GFX. I get that it increases battery life, but let me
make the choice between high-end GFX/poor battery life & low-end GFX/great
battery life (at least as an option).

A top end Macbook Pro retina really should be capable of sporting a top end 8x
series Nvidia as a minimum. In fact a 9x nVidia refresh with 40% the current
battery would probably make me drop the cash for another one (I only bought a
new Macbook about 3 months ago). I want "this" physical hardware, but with a
nice GPU so I can demo things like the Rift DK2 on the road without hulking
around another PC laptop just for "those moments". The current Macbook Pro
just isn't cut out for modern day 3D like a cheap(ish) MSI stealth Pro
is...Trust me Apple... I'll find a power outlet if I need it.

As an aside, it's still the best laptop I've ever owned.

~~~
stephenr
My last two (current and previous) MacBook Pros have been 17". The last one
had a dedicated Nvidia GPU, this one has intel + Radeon GPU.

In both machines, I've had faults in with the discrete GPU. Both times
required logic board replacements twice. (that's four replacement logic boards
across two laptops).

I can absolutely understand why Apple is moving as much as possible of their
line to using integrated Intel graphics solutions - they're 'good enough' for
the vast majority of people, and have followed Intel's recent energy
efficiency work, so not only do they drain the battery slower they produce
less heat, and from what I've seen are much less likely to have catastrophic
failures than discrete graphics.

If you want discrete graphics, buy a high end machine. If you don't have that
requirement, why pay for the extra hardware that is more likely to cause a
fault than be of use?

~~~
wyager
Anecdotal +1. Many of my Apple product failures have been discrete GPU
related.

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jrochkind1
Not a bad price until you see it costs $300 to go from 4GB RAM to 16GB RAM.

Do these have user-upgradeable RAM? I can buy RAM a lot cheaper than that.

~~~
personZ
It looks like the physical design is the same as the late 2012, which on mine
has a screw top "bottom" (until moments ago I had it upside down...always
thinking that screen top was the top) that reveals a couple of so-dimm ports.

I am extremely surprised they didn't go Broadwell given that Intel is just
starting to put those out in volume.

~~~
bitL
Exactly, Broadwell would also allow passive or almost silent operation. The
new NUCs in Q1/15 look more promising than this.

~~~
spudlyo
I have a fanless Haswell NUC from Logic Supply[0] that I use for a MythTV
frontend that I really love. Boots super fast off the 32G SSD, and the HD-4400
GPU (with VAAPI) handles with aplomb every kind of video I've thrown at it.

[0]: [http://www.logicsupply.com/computers/processor/intel-
core/co...](http://www.logicsupply.com/computers/processor/intel-core/core-
ml300/)

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stock_toaster
BTO option is now a dual core i7 (3Ghz), vs previous model's BTO option of a
quad core i7 (2.3Ghz).

I wonder what the performance difference is between the two.

~~~
karpodiem
which is totally insane.

Yes, let's alienate the group of people who build 3rd party software and want
a reasonably priced headless mac, and user upgradeable memory/HDD. Idiots.

$100+ billion in cash or marketable securities and total spite for the
dev/performance market. Just blind arrogance at this point - 'we don't need to
offer this option anymore'

~~~
oso2k
Apple has never been shy that "developer" Macs are the MacPros. The fact that
you can get a reasonable developer experience on a Mac Mini or an iMac the
last few years has been coincidental.

~~~
4ad
Let me put it this way. If I do a pkgsrc bulk build, what do I build it on?

Previously there was the XServe platform that I could have in a rack along my
other infrastructure. They ditched that. The old MacPro's you could install in
a rack, though they were massively overpriced for what it was a purely CPU-
bound job. Now the new MacPro's are not rackable any more.

Mac Mini's were never great, but they were cheap enough you could buy a few
and small enough that you could put _somewhere_ , although it sucked.

~~~
oso2k
Again, you're missing the point. Mac's are built for workstation style
development. The distributed, shared infrastructure that's en vogue today
isn't a factor if you're building iOS & OSX apps. And, if you dedicate the
time and infrastructure, you can build those up to stronger processes with
Xcode and it's distcc.

~~~
4ad
And where does the software that powers the workstations come from? Out of
thin air? Where do you compile it? I am not talking about iOS and OS X
bundles, I am talking about fundamental Unix system software (which pkgsrc
provides). And what if you do continuous integration? Where do you run that?

Lately I've been playing with a setup that builds a cross-clang on FreeBSD to
cross-compile OS X software using the libraries inside the XCode sdks. The
setup itself is working reasonably well, but most autoconf scripts don't work
well with cross-compilers, so it's not workable for pkgsrc right now (though
it is workable for my own C software). Unfortunately, this would not help with
integration testing...

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sauere
The $699 model + the SSD upgrade sums up to a whooping $899.

I like the form-faktor and all, but really, with 900 bucks i am sticking to my
custom ITX builds

~~~
eyeareque
Do you know of any good ITX hackintosh howto writeups? I might go that route
too as I want small form factor and OSX, but do not want to pay an apple tax
(even if their case is way prettier).

~~~
mmcwilliams
tonymacx86.com is a decent enough community. I've built 10+ machines using the
site-promoted build tutorials (with some modifications) for myself and
friends. The forums are hit or miss in terms of helpful information, though.

~~~
mmcwilliams
Replying to emocakes below, post is dead.

I was unaware of the theft, could you go into more detail? I read OSx86
sometimes but could never get chameleon installed on my own. The tonymac
software was the easiest for to install. That's my fault for being lazy. This
is disappointing.

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dankohn1
This is a credible answer for our new default developer machine, now that it
has 2 Thunderbolt ports, but it doesn't seem cheap enough. We want dual 27"
2560 x 1440 displays, 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB fusion drive. This is for Rails
development, so we're not taxing the CPU or GPU, although we do run
parallel_rspec and parallel_cucumber, so more cores are helpful.

The 27" iMac is $2199 + $399 for this Monoprice monitor w/ DisplayPort
<[http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=...](http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=1130703&p_id=10489&seq=1&format=2>),
for a total of $2598. This has a 3.2GHz i5 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M 1GB
GDDR5.

The new Mac Mini with 3 GHz i7, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB fusion drive, keyboard and
trackpad is $1537 + 2 x $399 for the monitors = $2335.

I'm not convinced saving $263 is worth going from 4 cores to 2, and presumably
a worse graphics card.

~~~
dirtae
You don't tax the CPU, but you want to pay an extra $200 for a build-to-order
option to bump the CPU by 0.2 GHz?

How about getting the mid-tier 2.6 GHz Mac mini, with 16 GB RAM, 1 TB Fusion
Drive, keyboard, and trackpad for $1,237? Then you'll be saving an additional
$300, for a total of $563 in savings.

If you want to save a little more, don't buy additional memory from Apple, buy
it from Crucial or another vendor instead. You'll pay less than $200 for 16 GB
of RAM (which is what Apple charges to bump from 8 GB to 16 GB), plus you'll
have the 8 GB of RAM that is pre-installed in the machine, which you can sell,
if you want.

~~~
bronson
All true, except the 2014 Mini has the RAM soldered down. Buy it with the
memory you think you'll need.

~~~
dirtae
Ah, you're right. I saw that the enclosure was the same (or at least nearly
the same) as the old Mac mini and assumed you could replace the RAM yourself,
but I was wrong. That's a shame.

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SloopJon
No quad-core models?

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jimmcslim
Despite the HDMI port and 2xThunderbolt ports, still maxes out at two monitors
rather than three... guess Iris Pro would have been required for triple-head
support.

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xngzng
Any idea if the harddisk is user upgradeable?

~~~
greglindahl
Since the design seems to have stayed the same as the previous generation:
Yes, but you have to take the entire thing apart to get to the drive, and the
parts are laptop parts so they're kind of finicky. iFixit is your friend.

The RAM, on the other hand, is extremely easy to change out.

~~~
IbJacked
Unfortunately, the RAM on the new models is soldered on. Someone above said
the drive is soldered, too, but I can't confirm that.

~~~
greglindahl
You are correct, that news trickled out after I wrote my comment :-/

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mjcohen
Has the mini server gone away? I don't see it mentioned.

~~~
jamie_ca
The server features are available on the app store now (IIRC it's $20).

The model with two distinct disks looks gone now, though.

~~~
walshemj
Bugger I hope not

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digitalsushi
Hi folks. I am not a hardware nerd at heart. It appears this 'iris' GPU will
not be able to do 4k display. Does anyone confirm?

~~~
frandroid
It better be able to do 5K, since the Thunderbolt will inevitably be upgraded
to the same screen the new Retina iMac comes with...

~~~
alexgaribay
It won't because the bandwidth of TB2 cannot transfer the amount of data
needed for a 5K display. The new Retina iMacs can get away with it because it
can interface with the graphics output directly.

~~~
gambiting
Hmmmm my math can be wrong but I don't think you are correct:

5120x2880 = 14745600 pixels

14745600pixels x 3 colours, 1 byte each = 44236800 bytes

44236800/1024/1024 = 42.19MB each frame

42.19MB per frame x 60 frames a second = 2531.25MB.

TB2 has a bandwidth of 20Gbps = 2560MB/s

So yeah, theoretically TB2 has enough bandwidth. But it's a very tight fit.

~~~
Shebanator
I don't know the actual answer, but it may be that the display actually
expects 32bpp, in which case it would be over the limit by a considerable
amount.

~~~
nullz
The above calculation was for 32bpp:

3 colors * 1 byte * (8 bits/byte) = 32 bits

~~~
gambiting
I am sorry,but no it wasn't. 3*8 is 24 not 32. But in any case I don't think
the display requires 32 bits, alpha is not necessary.

~~~
Shebanator
Thanks for the clarification. fwiw, I knew that alpha wasn't necessary, but
vaguely remembered that DisplayPort might support displays that expected the
entire 32 bit word to be sent. Looking at the specs, I don't see that. But it
does show that DisplayPort supports 16 bits per component, or 48bpp.

FYI, Wikipedia's section on DisplayPort lists the resolution of 5120x2880 x
24bpp @ 60Hz as requiring 22.18 Gb/sec of bandwidth, see
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Specifications](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Specifications)

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SeanLuke
So they got rid of the 2 1TB drive option? Essentially the maximum internal
storage on the Mini has been cut in half?

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mwcampbell
Now I wish I hadn't bought a new Mac mini 6 months ago. But I really needed
one then. In any case, I applaud the switch to ULV processors (like those
found in ultrabooks or the MacBook Air). Anyone know if this generation of Mac
mini has a fan in it? I have a serious fanless fetish.

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milhous
A disappointing update, but would still consider it to replace my mid 2010
Core2Duo mini if the Thunderbolt ports supported Multistream Transport (MST)
so I could daisychain 3 x Dell U2415 19x12 displays.

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paul9290
Mac Minis have been great entertainment boxes for me!

Hook them up to a LCD TV, use a wireless mouse and enjoy tons of free content
on Hulu, YouTube, Justin.TV substitutes and others!

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lokeshk
I'm slightly bummed that I can't get SSD on their starting model, and have to
force myself to a fusion drive if I want to do better than hard drive.

~~~
srcmap
It is fairly easy to swap out the sata HDD with a sata SSD, right?

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chrismeller
Did I miss something, or does maxing out the CPU and the RAM on the mid-level
model get you the same specs as a maxed-out high-end model for $200 cheaper?

~~~
derelk
You're missing the Fusion drive, which is standard on the high-end and $200
extra on the mid-level.

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eva1984
Good choice for a home server

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glxybstr
i just bought a mac mini a few months ago. wish i would have waited...

~~~
cstrat
its been well overdue for an upgrade, if you had asked on forums everyone
would have suggested you wait.

~~~
k-mcgrady
But they would have been saying that for around the last 12 months now. An
update was long overdue. Guessing upgrade cycles of Apple's less cared for
products (i.e. not iPhone/iPad) is getting difficult.

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gcb0
whoever comes to hacker news and upvotes all and any minor apple launches
should be ashamed.

~~~
northernmonkey
The clue is in the word 'news'. Relax.

