HD4000 768MB of VRAM with 8GB of RAM

[DYER]

Got a 2012 Mac mini i7 ten days ago, maxed it out with a secondary SSD as a boot drive and 16GB of RAM.
With 16GB the maximum VRAM available is 768MB.

I'm using it as an iOS video game developer machine, and it's awesome. The i7 is really fast. I was surprised by the HD4000 performance, sure is slower than discrete card but it's pretty capable also for gaming. Diablo III runs very well with medium settings at 1600 X 1050, Portal 2 runs at maximum detail at the very same resolution.
I'm coming from a 2008 2.4 C2D MBP with the 9600M GT 256MB VRAM: the HD4000 on the mini is in another league, it's a lot faste for gaming too.

I have come from the same machine and could not agree more. League of its own in comparison the the 08 MBP's.
Also mine is showing up as 768mb of vram.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I wonder if that number may even go up with 16GB of RAM installed.

Nope

 

[LordHawkwind]

Makes you wonder if Apple would be better off putting the AMD A10 Trinity in the Mini.

Why would you want to replace the core i5 with an AMD A10 Trinity? Surely the AMD is a much inferior cpu? I just built built my son a pc and I used the A4 5300 which has the 7450HD IGP. The IGP is OK but its not brilliant.

I installed an old AMD 5850 discrete card I had and the graphics performance was like night and day. Essentially all IGP's are pretty poor if gaming is what you are after. Fine for a bit of fun on a casual basis but that's about it.

IMHO for serious gaming you still need a PC with a discrete graphics card.

I bought my Mac Mini 2011 as an ex-display model on a clearance sale for just £200. It's my first Mac and i love using it for everything but gaming. It came with just 2GB ram and the HD3000 used 384GB Vram. I maxed the ram to 8GB and it nows shows 512GB Vram. Seems to be a common thread here!

 

[MacMaxNY]

Just got my base 2012 Mac Mini today. After installing 8GB of 1600Mhz RAM, I fired it up to see how it performs. About this Mac states:

Intel HD Graphics 4000 768 MB

The previous Mini maxed out at 512 MB, so this is a nice surprise. I wonder if that number may even go up with 16GB of RAM installed.

Mac Mini Late 2012 Intel HD 4000 1536MB
16GB Ram on board ...

 

[cycledance]

it's the same with all integrated gpus. vram is shared.
big reason why it's horrible to say 4gb ram in macbook air is enough. (and there are many here who say that.)

 

[paulrbeers]

Mac Mini Late 2012 Intel HD 4000 1536MB
16GB Ram on board ...

You realize you quoted a 2012 post right?!?! In 2012 that was the case, but in 3 years they have upped the VRAM allocation....

 

[EmlynDewar]

Why would you want to replace the core i5 with an AMD A10 Trinity? Surely the AMD is a much inferior cpu? I just built built my son a pc and I used the A4 5300 which has the 7450HD IGP. The IGP is OK but its not brilliant.

I installed an old AMD 5850 discrete card I had and the graphics performance was like night and day. Essentially all IGP's are pretty poor if gaming is what you are after. Fine for a bit of fun on a casual basis but that's about it.

A bit unfair to compare the A4 to the A10, there is a large difference in performance.
I've got a 7850K in my ITX setup, and have been quite surprised at what the integrated graphics will do, especially with fast ram with decent timings.
Would be interesting to know what Zen will be like, as if they can drag that CPU performance anywhere close to Intel's, it'd be perfect for a low profile box!

I can't see the Mac Mini ever having a dedicated graphics card again, hopefully gets an Iris Pro option at least...