How much does the graphics hurt Mac Mini Server?

[The-Pro]

Okay, how about this one for size?

2011 Mini Server
8GB RAM
120 GB SATA III OWC 6G Primary
500GB 7200 RPM Secondary
Two (2) 20" Apple Cinema Displays (HDMI>DVI & MDP>DVI)

I'm not pushing major displays here, just two 20". I work in Photoshop, and Lightroom for photo processing, as well as CS5 tools for web development. I do not game at all. This is pretty much just a workstation. Only doing mostly 2D, and processing where the CPU really comes into play.

I don't want much video content, and what I do watch is usually 720P. I don't expect to see any frame drops in anything I'm doing, but wanted to get some real world input on that configuration above.

Thanks!

Looks mighty good to me Id grab that if i needed it

 

[shortcut3d]

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I've had amazing results with a similarly configured system in my signature. I have to admit it's sole purpose is windows. Forget VMs. It was well worth it.

 

[bibon]

My mini server has 8gb ram and plays that video just fine. I'm not certain it's the ram having any effect though.

What is the resolution of your monitor? I try to play the video on a Dell U3011 with 2560x1600 res. Before that I had a two years old iMac 27" with i5 and AMD Radeon with 512MB of RAM and I didn't have any of these problems. I feel disappointed with the performance of my Mac Mini, at least regarding the GPU. If I use 8GB of RAM (or maybe more) will I see any difference?

 

[powerbook911]

If you buy Mini Server it already has two drives, so does that make it even easier to swap out the primary one with a SSD? Is it easy to tell which drive is primary or does it not matter and you just change that under settings? I'm just thinking the bracket for two drives must already be there? Then I'd have the 500 GB to put in an enclosure too.

Therefore, I wonder if it's better to buy a stock $999 model and put in OWC 240GB 6G or let Apple do it? The cost is virtually a wash.

 

[shortcut3d]

If you buy Mini Server it already has two drives, so does that make it even easier to swap out the primary one with a SSD? Is it easy to tell which drive is primary or does it not matter and you just change that under settings? I'm just thinking the bracket for two drives must already be there? Then I'd have the 500 GB to put in an enclosure too.

Therefore, I wonder if it's better to buy a stock $999 model and put in OWC 240GB 6G or let Apple do it? The cost is virtually a wash.

It's very easy in the server model. You don't need to source the spare parts and can avoid a full tear down because the bottom drive is in place.

 

[AuroraProject]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

My mini server has 8gb ram and plays that video just fine. I'm not certain it's the ram having any effect though.

What is the resolution of your monitor? I try to play the video on a Dell U3011 with 2560x1600 res. Before that I had a two years old iMac 27" with i5 and AMD Radeon with 512MB of RAM and I didn't have any of these problems. I feel disappointed with the performance of my Mac Mini, at least regarding the GPU. If I use 8GB of RAM (or maybe more) will I see any difference?

I'm connected to a 1080P tv, so 1920x1080.

 

[mdgm]

When 8GB RAM is installed more RAM is allocated for use by the graphics card so I guess the RAM upgrade would be worth a try.

 

[powerbook911]

Anyone know which SSD Apple uses if you have them install the 256 SSD they offer in the Server Mini? If I'd prefer to get the SSD from Apple on this machine, will it be a terrible hindrance to aftermarket options?

 

[The-Pro]

Anyone know which SSD Apple uses if you have them install the 256 SSD they offer in the Server Mini? If I'd prefer to get the SSD from Apple on this machine, will it be a terrible hindrance to aftermarket options?

As far as I know Apple uses Toshiba SSD's. Don't know the model, but hey are SATA II. The Mac Mini has SATA III I think. The apple drives are slower than most aftermarket SSD, especially SATA III ones. Ive read that most people didn't notice performance differences between apple SSD's and others.

 

[shortcut3d]

Anyone know which SSD Apple uses if you have them install the 256 SSD they offer in the Server Mini? If I'd prefer to get the SSD from Apple on this machine, will it be a terrible hindrance to aftermarket options?

Apple uses a Toshiba SSD. Its painfully slow compared to aftermarket SSD like the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G or OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPs. Both of those devices are SATA III at 6Gbps and capable of 500MB/s read/write speeds. The Apple branded Toshiba SSD does not even break 200MB/s read/write. I own all three drives mentioned above and there is a real world difference. In fact, it was the driving reason to replace the Apple SSD in my 2011 15" Macbook Pro. However, if you are coming from a hard drive then even the Apple SSD will make a huge difference.

 

[penguy]

Well they probably could have done it. Problem would have been that it is a lot of heat though and the cooling might not have been adequate.
Bigger reason for them not to include a quad and discrete is so that they still sell the iMac. Lots of people would pick a quad and discrete GPU mini over a low end iMac (which has less CPU power). Apple knows what its doing to maximise the profit.
Also the quad mini is a SERVER!!!! and servers usually don't need a good GPU in it, hence why the 2009 Xserve, even with 8 cores, had a "crappy" 256MB GT 120

I confess that I don't know that much about the current crop of Intel processors...but the mini server runs a 2.0 quad core i7, correct? Doesn't the base level iMac run a 2.5 quad core i5? I thought the i7 performance only shows its stuff when an application can utilize the what it believes is more than 4 cores...hyper-threading. In this case, won't the higher clock speed in the iMac out-perform the mini?

 

[shortcut3d]

I confess that I don't know that much about the current crop of Intel processors...but the mini server runs a 2.0 quad core i7, correct? Doesn't the base level iMac run a 2.5 quad core i5? I thought the i7 performance only shows its stuff when an application can utilize the what it believes is more than 4 cores...hyper-threading. In this case, won't the higher clock speed in the iMac out-perform the mini?

Intel processors are no longer as distinct as i5 equals no hyper-threading and i7 equals hyper-threading. For example, the i7 dual-core 2.7GHz in the mid-range 2011 Mac Mini would previously not have received an i7 moniker. The i7 moniker just designates the processor has a higher performing model taking all specifications into consideration, not just cores or hyper-threading or clock speed. The i7 dual-core has a higher Speed Step clock speed than its 2.5GHz i5 sibling, thus earning it the i7 moniker.

 

[The-Pro]

I confess that I don't know that much about the current crop of Intel processors...but the mini server runs a 2.0 quad core i7, correct? Doesn't the base level iMac run a 2.5 quad core i5? I thought the i7 performance only shows its stuff when an application can utilize the what it believes is more than 4 cores...hyper-threading. In this case, won't the higher clock speed in the iMac out-perform the mini?

You are 100% correct! Saying the quad i7 in the mini has more power than the quad i5 (w/o HT) depends on the application. The benchmarks show the server mini reaching a higher score because the program uses all available cores. The i5 in the iMac will outperform the quad i7 in the mini in tasks that use a maximum of four cores. Every i5 CPU in the iMacs is quicker than the i7 quad in the server mini as long as the cores used are 1,2,3 or 4.