I think both techyalert (cited above in this thread) and anandtech have made the same conclusion with the HD3000 vs. 320m... which is that the OSX performance is slightly better for the HD3000, while win7 performance appears to be a step backwards. Everyone is citing different parts of the benchmarks to make their case but if you skip to the conclusions for both articles they are saying the same thing.
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Odds of 2011 mini next week ?
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I agree the various pros & cons of both cards aren't clear-cut in OS X. That the HD3000 is better in low settings, I've never disputed. The rest, IMO, is much of a muchness, with some med/high setting showing that the older 320M is better in OS X.
That the HD3000 is even worse in med/high settings in W7 isn't wholly irrelevant for some users, for eg. gamers who might want to Boot Camp it for some games, but can't stand the iMac's glossy screens. That neither 320M nor HD3000 are ideal for intensive gaming is besides the point. The point, IMO, is whether the HD3000 update is an advance or not.
End of the day, computer technology moves fast in even as little as a year. These Minis cost enough as it is, so any reduced performance, graphically or otherwise, over the Mini of a 1 year ago is, IMO, a negative step that justifies highlighting. Just hope Intel improve their drivers in the coming months.
By not providing the links I asked you for, then ignoring ALL benchmarks that prove otherwise, you've just proved you're a waste of my time even responding to beyond this brief reply.
As for Windows 7 comparisons: this is an open forum, not just for fanboys. Who are you to talk about "do we care", as if you represent the collective forum? You don't, I don't, no-one does.
If you can't provide even 1 link out of those you claim you saw showing benchmarks that the HD3000 is generally better than the 320M, I doubt whether you've even seen them.
I must apologize. I misread you, thinking your initial comments were directed towards the performance of the HD3000 on OS X when you meant 64 bit Windows. I don't know how I could make that mistake. Oh now I remember why.. this is a Mac forum.
For PC gaming, you are right: the HD 3000 is terrible. No argument there. Bad drivers maybe? I don't know what to tell you, other than to take my advice and build a cheap gaming PC. Any $50 video card will beat the 320m and HD3000 easily. Unless you enjoy playing modern first person shooters at lowest graphics settings hoping to manage 15-20 fps. I don't.
I've been using Mac's since the System 7 days, but I've also been building my own gaming PCs for almost as long (my first was a 386DX). I love Mac's but not for gaming.
Anyway, good luck with your decision!
Thanks & no problem, man. I could've been clearer about what I meant, which is entirely down to me.I must apologize. I misread you, thinking your initial comments were directed towards the performance of the HD3000 on OS X when you meant 64 bit Windows. I don't know how I could make that mistake. Oh now I remember why.. this is a Mac forum.
For PC gaming, you are right: the HD 3000 is terrible. No argument there. Bad drivers maybe? I don't know what to tell you, other than to take my advice and build a cheap gaming PC. Any $50 video card will beat the 320m and HD3000 easily. Unless you enjoy playing modern first person shooters at lowest graphics settings hoping to manage 15-20 fps. I don't.
I've been using Mac's since the System 7 days, but I've also been building my own gaming PCs for almost as long (my first was a 386DX). I love Mac's but not for gaming.
Anyway, good luck with your decision!
Obviously I appreciate that considerations of performance in Boot Camp won't be of interest to many Mac users, but a growing number do occasionally dual boot, an option that's probably greatly helped Mac sales in recent years.
Re gaming PC: quite agree. FWIW, it's an idea under active consideration, not least some sort of compromise that allows me to get both a decently-specced Mini to maximize working in OS X & a gaming PC within a relatively short time-frame. Regards!
Stores are down now, let's see if new Mini's come up as well in a few hours. Fingers crossed here No longer able to pull the trigger but it's a non-essential comfort to know that there'll be benchmarks/teardown available by the time I have the money.
Oh, and:
I find this whole Macs aren't for gaming an exaggeration. IMO things are getting better, ever since the Intel switch. I highly doubt Macs will EVER be better than Windows, but still, they're ok.
No longer able to pull the trigger but it's a non-essential comfort to know that there'll be benchmarks/teardown available by the time I have the money.Oh, and:
I find this whole Macs aren't for gaming an exaggeration. IMO things are getting better, ever since the Intel switch. I highly doubt Macs will EVER be better than Windows, but still, they're ok.
Agreed. Macs are fine for most gaming, bar the recent, more intensive stuff.
Obviously no-one would ever buy one mostly for gaming, but as Apple sell games on the App Store & I'd expect the number of available titles to increase in future, it's also in their interests for all Macs to gradually improve their graphical capability over time.
Here's also hoping for Mini updates later today alongside iMacs. But if not, we might have to a wait quite a while, maybe even a few more months.
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And.... No update! Going with a windows based pc sorry apple! Maybe id consider buying the mini if it was priced more reasonable for a core 2 duo at 499$. (like that would happen) haha
And.... No update! Going with a windows based pc sorry apple! Maybe id consider buying the mini if it was priced more reasonable for a core 2 duo at 499$. (like that would happen) haha
Yeah I ended up just pulling the trigger on a new small profile 1155 (Sandy Bridge) mini ITX system. Ended up with a 3.3ghz 2500k, 8gb of ram, and a 500gb sata 6gb for roughly $500.
I REALLY wanted to get a new mac mini, but it just took too long and looks like the specs won't be too impressive (especially seeing the low end iMacs and MBP).
I've actually been testing the integrated graphics and I'm fairly impressed. I'm not going to be breaking any records playing Crysis or anything, but I can play starcraft 2, Halflife 2, L4D etc on all high settings and get better than 35 fps.
My plan was to try and make a hackintosh down the road but I might just end up with an iMac when my big monitor finally fries. I think for now I'll just use Windows 7, which isn't half bad, and wait to see how things unfold. I figure it'll push all my business applications just fine and if I ever need to play that latest game I can throw a low profile geforce 210 or something into it and be fine.
** I will say, I spent an extra $75 on my motherboard to get built in wifi and bluetooth, and I think it's worth every penny! So far this thing has been about as seamless as my wife's mac mini except it took a little time to figure out how to get the integrated graphics functioning properly.
I REALLY wanted to get a new mac mini, but it just took too long and looks like the specs won't be too impressive (especially seeing the low end iMacs and MBP).
I've actually been testing the integrated graphics and I'm fairly impressed. I'm not going to be breaking any records playing Crysis or anything, but I can play starcraft 2, Halflife 2, L4D etc on all high settings and get better than 35 fps.
My plan was to try and make a hackintosh down the road but I might just end up with an iMac when my big monitor finally fries. I think for now I'll just use Windows 7, which isn't half bad, and wait to see how things unfold. I figure it'll push all my business applications just fine and if I ever need to play that latest game I can throw a low profile geforce 210 or something into it and be fine.
** I will say, I spent an extra $75 on my motherboard to get built in wifi and bluetooth, and I think it's worth every penny! So far this thing has been about as seamless as my wife's mac mini except it took a little time to figure out how to get the integrated graphics functioning properly.
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Actually sounds like a plan
Alternatively I'm quite curious for them AMD Llano chips, so I might just wait to see which is sooner: new Mini or first Llano-powered PC's (but only if they benchmark okay obviously).Sorry Steve, but for the moment it looks like you're losing alot of low-end customers (maybe
doesn't care) trying to sell an absurdly outdated machine yet longer.Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)
Ya the looks of a core 2 duo at the price they have it is embarassing. Nice design but you would have to have to be insame to dip that much dough into a machine that was outdated last year
Ya the looks of a core 2 duo at the price they have it is embarassing. Nice design but you would have to have to be insame to dip that much dough into a machine that was outdated last year
I get it - they just don't sell a ton of mac mini's - so they certainly are not focusing on it. They make boatloads of money on the iMac series for obvious reason (high quality ips panels, all in one solutions are attractive to non-tech savvy folks).
I was hoping the mac mini was going to be powerful enough for the occasional game and a good business application system. And it might end up being just that. But I'm discouraged in knowing most likely I'll have to drop another $200 to bring it up to the performance level I want. And from there, you'd might as well just get an iMac (which I'm sure isn't by accident).
Makes it tough for people like me who want to switch over, but just can't justify it.
I was hoping the mac mini was going to be powerful enough for the occasional game and a good business application system. And it might end up being just that. But I'm discouraged in knowing most likely I'll have to drop another $200 to bring it up to the performance level I want. And from there, you'd might as well just get an iMac (which I'm sure isn't by accident).
Makes it tough for people like me who want to switch over, but just can't justify it.
This is why Apple needs to go back to the old low end $499 high end $599 Mini model.
The 320m has 48 shader cores (aka pipelines) and the HD 3000 only has 12 (aka execution units). For me, this is a contributing factor when choosing any graphics card/chip.
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Yeah, I think at this point in time they are missing that part of the market. But I don't think they have enough people close enough to the Windows user market to get that fact. I know quite a few people wouldn't necessarily abandon Windows but would definitely buy a Mac and use it regularly.
When will the mac mini get updated?
Will it have 2nd gen core i processors?
Will it have thunderbolt .. will hdmi out port stay ..hope it does i want to hook it up to my hdtv and have mac,xbox and satellite tv on one screen . something i cant do with the new imacs now since target display is limited to thunderbolt devices.
Will it have 2nd gen core i processors?
Will it have thunderbolt .. will hdmi out port stay ..hope it does i want to hook it up to my hdtv and have mac,xbox and satellite tv on one screen . something i cant do with the new imacs now since target display is limited to thunderbolt devices.
Sometime before WWDC in June, I think.
Yes.
Yes.. and maybe but if not there will be TB to HDMI adapters available soon.
I'm waiting to see what the mini brings to the table since the current low-end iMac hands the Mini its rear end.
Any chance of a quad-core option and a non-garbage graphics option?
Any chance of two-screen support though normal video-out and thunderbolt?
Any chance of a quad-core option and a non-garbage graphics option?
Any chance of two-screen support though normal video-out and thunderbolt?
Given that WWDC is pretty early in June (6th?), that would mean the Mini would have to be refreshed within the next 30 or so days. Any particular reason you are confident that will happen?
Indeed that seems pretty fast, kinda close to iMacs if you ask me. Early this year there was new MBP's (OS device) and new iPads (iOS device), now there's a new OS device (iMac) preceded by a new iOS device (more or less, white iPhone). I can see them taking a bit more space before they'll release something else. I'm not saying they're gonna wait with Mini's until they have a suitable iOS device to upgrade the week before or after. iPod's spring to mind, although they're still too far off if you ask me. Just saying that they have the refreshing pipeline kinda saturated and a Mac Mini might have fitted in a dent left by iMacs, but since they chose otherwise it's gonna have to wait it's turn. Stupid waiting..
It's just an educated guess. My reasoning is that I think the mini will be refreshed alongside the MacBook, if the MacBook isn't discontinued altogether. MacBooks have traditionally been refreshed in April/May and October. Rumor has it that the Airs will be refreshed in June but I think more likely in July. (Might happen at WWDC though.) Then September is iPod month. I don't think Apple will wait until October to refresh the mini. They really should be done with C2Ds before that or look plain silly.