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Mac Mini 2010 Benchmarks (2009 2.53 GHz Mini vs 2010 2.4 GHz Mini)

mac_mini_us_b1.jpg
 
I called two Apple stores, and both told me there were no EOL discounts on the outgoing Mac Minis that they have left over. :(
 
i guess they are hoping that the 320M will make up for the loss of CPU speed, or hoping that most people will go for the Server MacMini? lol

i think its a really nice unit, would make a great home server or starting machine!
 
Hellhammer said:
I guess you should compare it to the ASUS Eee Box, they should be pretty similar in terms of performance, the ASUS might be little snappier though ;)
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I saw some good Asus benchmarks. I think that they might have been at CNET. I'm an Apple fangirl, but that Gateway that they reviewed in the same article looks like good bang for the buck. It's an i3, right?

Here's the CNET review: http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/apple-mac-mini-spring/4505-3118_7-34118624.html?tag=mncol;lst;1
 
The reason for the massive Cinebench discrepancy is because the Mid-2010 mini comes stock with a piddly 2GB of memory, whereas the Fall-2009 tested unit has 4GB. The newer mini was probably paging out considerably.

The Mac Mini's hardware is essentially identical to the MacBook Pro 13's hardware. I'd expect numbers to be within 1-2% of said notebook.

Apple's failure to upgrade the iMac with a GPU that is newer than 2 years old (the Radeon HD 4850 came out in May 2008) forced me to do an interim upgrade of my 2007 2GHz Core2 to the new one. The notable difference I noticed on the MBP13 (2.66) is 1080p YouTube videos play with essentially no dropped frames under Flash 10.1. There is the rare, occasional stutter, but it works, and will be improved dramatically once the GPU-accelerated version is released in a few months. By comparison the 2.0GHz Core2 2007 version could only manage 720p well -- and without 10.1 installed, fell on its face on anything above 480p.

Believe it or not, if you want 4GB of memory, I'm not finding anything cheaper than Apple's BTO option. The cheapest I've seen - sales excluded - is around $113.

If you want 8GB of memory, Amazon seems to be selling Crucial's upgrade kit for $377 (Crucial charges $439 on their site). NewEgg carries a Kingston kit for $389, but that's sold out (though Amazon has it for the same price). This is a healthy savings over the BTO option, and basically gives you a nice, fast hard disk for free.

For hard disks, I went with the hybrid 500GB (7200rpm, 32MB cache, 4GB SLC flash) Seagate Momentus XT for $129 at NewEgg. Amazon is the same price. Considering the large performance discrepancy one can expect over the stock BTO drive, I think the extra $29 is going to be well worth it. Those of you going for SSDs, I believe Crucial's RealSSD is the current top-of-the-heap, but OS X still lacks TRIM support.

-----

It'll play Starcraft 2 reasonably well considering the hardware. Valve's games should be fine under OS X -- even better under XP or Win7 -- simply because they've been around for years. Considering the form factor I can't complain. If you really want games and video encoding, the Core i7 iMac is the way to go, but I'd still wait for a more current GPU before dropping that kind of coin.
 
mrfoof82 said:
By comparison the 2.0GHz Core2 2007 version could only manage 720p well -- and without 10.1 installed, fell on its face on anything above 480p.
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there is a reason why apple is not supporting flash development. i will not go off on that tangent - but i dont think comparing flash playback is an even test.

If you want 8GB of memory, Amazon seems to be selling Crucial's upgrade kit for $377 (Crucial charges $439 on their site). NewEgg carries a Kingston kit for $389, but that's sold out (though Amazon has it for the same price). This is a healthy savings over the BTO option, and basically gives you a nice, fast hard disk for free.
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the cheapest i have found is $247 for 8GB kits :)


what really annoys me is it only has 2GB RAM. wtf?
 
Thanks to the OP. This was interesting.


May I make one comment about there being a "reason" why Flash is not supported? Frankly, whatever the "reason", it's f**king inconvenient for lots of people. And these computers don't buy themselves. I think Apple need to get over their 'crusades' - in the new Mini we see the embrace of HDMI in a Mac, and I'd like to see more of this.

How's about some Flash, Steve? Then maybe a Blu-ray drive...?

I'm not holding my breath.
 
GodWhomIsMike said:
mac_mini_us_b1.jpg
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Wonder why they didn't include the server version of the new mac mini?

There is a large discrepancy in performance between the stock mac mini and the server mac mini.

You get a extra 2gb of ram and faster processor and more importantly a faster and bigger harddrive.

I would expect the server version of the mac mini to at least split the tests and come out on top in at least two of the four tests. Those being the photoshop test and the multi-media tasking tests and come close in the itunes test and would still fail in the cinebench tests.

The mac mini server overall performance is on par with the entry level imac. The imac having a slightly faster processor but a weaker overall graphics card. Half as fast. With multi-media multi tasking the mac mini server would most likely come out on top of mosts tests and that includes the gateway and imac with 9400.

Here are some numbers for the following processors.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php


Intel Core i3 530 @2.93GHz 2709 140----------gateway Intel GPU
Intel Core2 Duo E7600 @ 3.06GHz 2110 182----------imac with 9400
Intel Core2 Duo P8800 @ 2.66GHz 1873 214--------- mac mini server 320M
Intel Core2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz 1796 226---------mac mini server 9400
Intel Core2 Duo P8600 @ 2.40GHz 1605 266---------mac mini 2010 320M

Now the server mac mini with the 2.66 C2D is not much slower than the C2D 3.06 of the low end imac. With the faster GPU that is twice as fast 9400 I would expect the mac mini server to handle most multi media tasks better and might be a overall more powerfull machine than the entry level imac.

In day to day tasks the mac mini server would be a overall better performer. Not bad for a mini and I think under estimated for a machine that small.

For how small it is it packs a overall performance punch the server edition. They should have went with the 7200 hard drive in the reg mac mini.
 
iamthedudeman said:
Intel Core i3 530 @2.93GHz 2709 140----------gateway Intel GPU
Intel Core2 Duo E7600 @ 3.06GHz 2110 182----------imac with 9400
Intel Core2 Duo P8800 @ 2.66GHz 1873 214--------- mac mini server 320M
Intel Core2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz 1796 226---------mac mini server 9400
Intel Core2 Duo P8600 @ 2.40GHz 1605 266---------mac mini 2010 320M

Now the server mac mini with the 2.66 C2D is not much slower than the C2D 3.06 of the low end imac. With the faster GPU that is twice as fast 9400 I would expect the mac mini server to handle most multi media tasks better and might be a overall more powerfull machine than the entry level imac.

In day to day tasks the mac mini server would be a overall better performer. Not bad for a mini and I think under estimated for a machine that small.
Click to expand...

yea those benchmarks are interesting and all, but in this day and age CPU performance isnt the only thing that comes into it. i want to see some benchmarks that take advantage of the GPGPU. things like h264 playback and whatnot - the 320M would run rings around any of those above CPUs you listed above for tasks such as that. PS is slowly getting GPU support etc, so i think you really have to consider that upgrade as well.

not to mention the fact that the aesthetics upgrade would be adding a large % of the cost to the mini - even though it appears to be using "old" parts.
 
DoFoT9 said:
yea those benchmarks are interesting and all, but in this day and age CPU performance isnt the only thing that comes into it. i want to see some benchmarks that take advantage of the GPGPU. things like h264 playback and whatnot - the 320M would run rings around any of those above CPUs you listed above for tasks such as that. PS is slowly getting GPU support etc, so i think you really have to consider that upgrade as well.

not to mention the fact that the aesthetics upgrade would be adding a large % of the cost to the mini - even though it appears to be using "old" parts.
Click to expand...


?...........:confused:

I just said that and explained as such in my last post? The whole point of my last post.

Try reading the thread before replying. ;)
 
Yeah that review really is fairly pointless. 2GB DDR3 is never going to be as effective as 4GB, and the tests are VERY generic. In real world usage, there'd be very little difference between the 2.53Ghz and the 2.4Ghz minis, and as soon as you throw GPU usage in there, the 2010 mini would clean the floor with the 2009.
 
WilliamG said:
Yeah that review really is fairly pointless. 2GB DDR3 is never going to be as effective as 4GB, and the tests are VERY generic. In real world usage, there'd be very little difference between the 2.53Ghz and the 2.4Ghz minis, and as soon as you throw GPU usage in there, the 2010 mini would clean the floor with the 2009.
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Many tasks do not require CPU so the tests do have a point. On the other hand, those who buy Mini to use it as HTPC may not care that much about the GPU performance as long as it can handle BluRay playback (or even less demanding video content).
 
iamthedudeman said:
?...........:confused:

I just said that and explained as such in my last post? The whole point of my last post.

Try reading the thread before replying. ;)
Click to expand...
all i saw was you comparing the 320M to the 9400M - stating that it was "twice as fast". you said it would be better for multimedia, i was referring to other software advancements (thus PS etc). maybe you should read also? ;)

lilo777 said:
Many tasks do not require CPU so the tests do have a point. On the other hand, those who buy Mini to use it as HTPC may not care that much about the GPU performance as long as it can handle BluRay playback (or even less demanding video content).
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seeing as though my CoreDuo 2.16GHz 2006 MBP can play BD just fine, i dare say these can :D
 
DoFoT9 said:
seeing as though my CoreDuo 2.16GHz 2006 MBP can play BD just fine, i dare say these can :D
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My Core2Duo 2.16GHz (processor upgraded from 1.66GHz CoreDuo) 2006 Macmini with the crappy Intel GPU, can handle HD video 1080p playback just fine under Snow Leopard. No worries.
 
DoFoT9 said:
all i saw was you comparing the 320M to the 9400M - stating that it was "twice as fast". you said it would be better for multimedia, i was referring to other software advancements (thus PS etc). maybe you should read also? ;)

Are you smoking something?

"yea those benchmarks are interesting and all, but in this day and age CPU performance isnt the only thing that comes into it. i want to see some benchmarks that take advantage of the GPGPU. things like h264 playback and whatnot - the 320M would run rings around any of those above CPUs you listed above for tasks such as that. PS is slowly getting GPU support etc, so i think you really have to consider that upgrade as well."

Read my post again, I mentioned "multi-media' multi tasking which takes advantage of open CL. Which the GPU takes over the processing from the CPU.




Bro you said CPU performance isn't the only thing that is important. I explained it wasn't in my last post. The GPU plays a bigger part more than ever performance wise overall. I also mentioned the HD speed, more Ram etc.

I would expect the mac mini server to handle most multi media tasks better and might be a overall more powerfull machine than the entry level imac.

In day to day tasks the mac mini server would be a overall better performer. Not bad for a mini and I think under estimated for a machine that small.
Click to expand...
 
iamthedudeman said:
Bro you said CPU performance isn't the only thing that is important. I explained it wasn't in my last post. The GPU plays a bigger part more than ever performance wise overall. I also mentioned the HD speed, more Ram etc.

I would expect the mac mini server to handle most multi media tasks better and might be a overall more powerfull machine than the entry level imac.

In day to day tasks the mac mini server would be a overall better performer. Not bad for a mini and I think under estimated for a machine that small.
Click to expand...

CPUs still do the biggest number crushing. GPUs are quite poorly supported. Only thing Mini is better is gaming and video playback when hardware acceleration is supported. In everyday tasks, there is no difference between iMac and Mini, they both handle Safari and Mail just fine. Most calculations are still done by the CPU, and iMac has 15% faster CPU than the server Mini, let alone full size 3.5" 7200rpm hard drive, it crushes 2.5" unless you put them in RAID 0.

GPU doesn't play that big role in overall performance, only in apps that can actually take advantage of it. OpenGL isn't same as OpenCL. OpenGL is widely supported but it's used to produce graphics, not to transfer CPU load to GPU like OpenCL which is still pretty unpopular.

Due the lack of support for OpenCL, the 320M won't provide much extra for everyday computing nor for more demanding computing. It's still integrated thus not very powerful so it wouldn't provide that much better performance even if OpenCL was support.
 
iamthedudeman said:
Read my post again, I mentioned "multi-media' multi tasking which takes advantage of open GL. Which the GPU takes over the processing from the CPU.
Click to expand...
openCL? I'm well aware of how these features work :)

Bro you said CPU performance isn't the only thing that is important. I explained it wasn't in my last post. The GPU plays a bigger part more than ever performance wise overall. I also mentioned the HD speed, more Ram etc.

I would expect the mac mini server to handle most multi media tasks better and might be a overall more powerfull machine than the entry level imac.

In day to day tasks the mac mini server would be a overall better performer. Not bad for a mini and I think under estimated for a machine that small.
Click to expand...
currently, gpu acceleration from apple currently only goes as far as h264 decoding, not very useful for some types of BD rips (vc-1 etc). It is even more limited to the fact that you must use QTx for movie playback, which is a pile of steaming manure compared to Plex etc which do not have gpu decoding support.

And as far as openCL goes with applications, the support is limited. There are only a handful of Photoshop features that can take advantage of this but they are slowly coming on board.

Based on those factors, I will say that the mini will be fine for most general users, but I don't see if being significantly better then the older model just because it has a new GPU that can't really be utilized.
 
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