Is economies of scale the reason why a ~39W draw M1 Mac mini has a 150W PSU?

[Hexley]

Is economies of scale the reason why a ~39W draw M1 Mac mini has a 150W PSU? Previous Mac mini had a max draw of 122W out of 150W for an efficiency of 81.33%.

Apple could have spent more money now with the M1 Mac mini by redesigning it to use the same 30W charger as the MBA or 61W charger of the MBP 13".

The M1 Mac mini logic board is about the size of a iPhone 12 Max Pro or almost half that of a Intel Mac mini.

I am thinking keeping to this form factor and 150W PSU allows Apple the headroom to offer an early 2021 Mac mini with a higher TDP "M1X" chip that would be shared on a MBP 13” 61W charger, MBP 16" 96W charger, iMac 21.5" 210W PSU & iMac 27" 310W PSU.

 

[deeddawg]

Likely. Why have different parts if you don't need to do so?

The fact that Apple kept the Intel mini around while creating the lower-tier (fewer ports) M1 Mini strongly suggests they'll have a higher-tier Mini at some point -- which may well utilize more power.

The other aspect, as we see with the M1 MBA & MBP, is that Apple seems to have minimized how many other changes they made to the M1 systems. Perhaps they wished to stick to proven secondary components so as to not risk besmirching Apple Silicon if problems arose with other components?

Edit - not to mention that in the context of the global pandemic and its impact on supply chains, the less they need to retool production lines perhaps the better...

 

[Pressure]

Thunderbolt mandates power delivery.

 

[Hexley]

Thunderbolt mandates power delivery.

Which is also present on the MBA 30W charger and MBP 13" 61W charger.

Assuming performance is linear imagine a M1X Mac mini that draws 60-90-120W power.

2x, 3x or 4x performance over M1 Mac mini?

 

[KPOM]

Likely yes. My guess is that Apple wants the Apple Silicon rollout to be as smooth as possible, and isn’t taking chances with proven designs.

 

[Pressure]

Which is also present on the MBA 30W charger and MBP 13" 61W charger.

Assuming performance is linear imagine a M1X Mac mini that draws 60-90-120W power.

2x, 3x or 4x performance over M1 Mac mini?

Performance isn’t linear.

I would expect 4 more High Performance cores (4 High Efficiency and 8 High Performance cores) and 8 more GPU cores (up to 16-core GPU).

That should give a healthy 30-40% uplift in multithreaded performance.

 

[valynor]

Which is also present on the MBA 30W charger and MBP 13" 61W charger.
Assuming performance is linear imagine a M1X Mac mini that draws 60-90-120W power.

Noone in his/her right mind will plug a thunderbolt device into a laptop that's pulling 60W from the laptops battery.
It's an entirely different story on a desktop device with a power plug.
The 150W PSU has nothing to do with upcoming M chips, it's for the 2x 60W Thunderbolt ports + what the device itself needs.

If anything 150W is a bit on the low side for the Mac Mini. If you put max load on the standard USB ports too AND stress the system 150W might not be enough.

 

[Hexley]

Noone in his/her right mind will plug a thunderbolt device into a laptop that's pulling 60W from the laptops battery.
It's an entirely different story on a desktop device with a power plug.
The 150W PSU has nothing to do with upcoming M chips, it's for the 2x 60W Thunderbolt ports + what the device itself needs.

not everyone aware of this power limit and Apple does not emphasize this difference or Limitation with laptop and desktop thunderbolt.

i think what other people pointed out as using proven design to have the least number of variables make sense.

An iMac 21.5” 210W PSU and iMac 27” 310W PSU without their 4k or 5k display would have a power draw of ~150W?

 

[Pressure]

not everyone aware of this power limit and Apple does not emphasize this difference or Limitation with laptop and desktop thunderbolt.

i think what other people pointed out as using proven design to have the least number of variables make sense.

An iMac 21.5” 210W PSU and iMac 27” 310W PSU without their 4k or 5k display would have a power draw of ~150W?

Former Thunderbolt specifications only mandated 7.5W power delivery per port.

 

[Hexley]

Former Thunderbolt specifications only mandated 7.5W power delivery per port.

As a safety feature I think Apple/Intel would have an auto-cut off to prevent damage or harm.

I want to move this conversation to the iMac's power consumption minus display. I had to use the LG display that I suspect is shared or is a cousin to the display used on the iMac. These are loose estimates.

iMac 27"

• 310W PSU
• 295W CPU Max
• 140-200W LG 27MD5KA
• 170W (iMac PSU minus low power consumption of LG display)
• M1X variant may be shared with higher-end Mac Mini 150W PSU
• Up to 4x the performance of the M1

iMac 21.5"

• 210W PSU
• 166W CPU Max
• 120-150W LG 22MD4KA
• 90W (iMac PSU minus low power consumption of LG display)
• M1X variant may be shared with MBP 16" 96W charger
• Up to 3x the performance of the M1

 

[Gnattu]

Don't overthink about it. The reason is simple: it's the same PSU from the Intel models so that they do not have to design and manufacture new ones. This could both save money for Apple and use the PSU stock that prepared for Intel models.

 

[Pressure]

As a safety feature I think Apple/Intel would have an auto-cut off to prevent damage or harm.

I want to move this conversation to the iMac's power consumption minus display. I had to use the LG display that I suspect is shared or is a cousin to the display used on the iMac. These are loose estimates.

iMac 27"

• 310W PSU
• 295W CPU Max
• 140-200W LG 27MD5KA
• 170W (iMac PSU minus low power consumption of LG display)
• M1X variant may be shared with higher-end Mac Mini 150W PSU
• Up to 4x the performance of the M1

iMac 21.5"

• 210W PSU
• 166W CPU Max
• 120-150W LG 22MD4KA
• 90W (iMac PSU minus low power consumption of LG display)
• M1X variant may be shared with MBP 16" 96W charger
• Up to 3x the performance of the M1

I think you need to rein your expectations in.

How do you propose they get 3x and 4x performance increases?

 

[Hexley]

I think you need to rein your expectations in.

How do you propose they get 3x and 4x performance increases?

By introducing an Apple Silicon chip that is more than the M1.

More watts of power
More than 4 high performance cores
More than 4 efficiency performance cores
More than 8 GPU cores
More than 25K concurrent trheads
More than 11 trillion operation machine learning
More than 16 core Neutral engines
More chip silicon area
More than 16 billion transitors
More bandwidth

More of everything because the logic board has space for it and the Mac has a higher wattage PSU and charger

The above are the reason why a Intel MBA is less powerful than an Intel Mac Pro. They may be the same generation chip but their chips are of a different size and can handle specific amount of power

Apologies to others who find my answer pedantic. I was pushed towards it.

By next year and moving forward the M1 will be the slowest Apple Silicon chip for the Mac.