Oh Dear, intel integrated graphics

[Macmadant]

Well, that suprised me and dissapointed me that apple would use these as before the new intel mac mini, they were saying how s*** the intel integrated graphics were, on the mac mini page, it also shocks you to find out that the system requirements for the Sims 2 on pc is

with a dedicated grahics card, (presume you know what that is lol)
800 MHz processor
256 MB RAM if Windows XP
128 MB RAM if Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows 2000
At least 3.5 gigs of free hard drive space

With "intel integrated graphics"
2.0 GHz processor
256 MB RAM if Windows XP
128 MB RAM if Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows 2000
At least 3.5 gigs of free hard drive space

so you need extra 1.2ghz processor power for the sims 2 because the graphics chip is hogging ram and processor power, i think this was a mistake,(putting this in a mac mini) and so do many others, such as members at tuaw.com, please correct me if the above information is wrong, my family were going to get an intel mac mini, but now i have advised them to get a powerpc one, beacuse of following reasons:

1. all my games are powerpc, and with it running slow in rosetta itel graphics won't help

2. i feel it is better to have an independant graphics chip with it's own ram

please give me your views, i mean no offence to anyone


heck i might eventually change my mind,

 

[clayj]

Yeah, it was interesting to see Apple crap on integrated graphics before, but now that they are using them in the new Mac mini, that blurb has very conveniently disappeared from the Apple web site. It's interesting to see how corporate memory works ("What? I never said that!").

 

[robbieduncan]

Integrated graphics blow chunks. Not only do you loose system memory (according to the small print on the tech specs at least 80Mb) but performance is terrible.

Check out these benchmarks. Don't buy one of these machines if you want to play any sort of 3d game.

 

[Macmadant]

is it me or is the intel mac mini more expensive than the powerpc, for the same price of a intel mac mini (in the uk) i can get a bundle, (moniter, keyboard, mouse,) all for £468, looks like it's all down hill from here, if they put these graphics in the new ibooks/macbooks i'm just going to cry

 

[MRU]

Yeah, it was interesting to see Apple crap on integrated graphics before, but now that they are using them in the new Mac mini, that blurb has very conveniently disappeared from the Apple web site. It's interesting to see how corporate memory works ("What? I never said that!").

Couldn't agree more. I suspected for a long time they would use integrated in their lower models but was flamed for suggesting it. They already put the price up, so why not just add an extra $20-30 and put a proper gfx card in there?

I priced up an Mac mini in another thread and it with the 20" screen and keyboard it works out more expensive than an imac 20" let alone a 17" imac, both of which are far more suited to gaming. If you want to game, DO NOT get an intel mini....

 

[sixstorm]

At least they could've kept it the same price . . . talk about not only ruining the Mini but also ripping real Mac users off. What I mean by that is, the average user could buy that and be happy. But, us real users who give a darn about crap integrated graphics chips, have the ability to get ripped off. Looks like the iMac is still the best deal out there for a IntelMac desktop.

 

[iGary]

They can have my PowerPC chips when they pry them...

 

[liquidh2o]

I wonder if the price hike was due to higher component costs or to squeeze out extra margins. As far as the integrated graphics, didn't the original mac mini include integrated graphics and eventually was updated w/ an ati gpu?

 

[Eidorian]

I never saw the Mac Mini as a gaming machine though. Somewhat with the old incarnation in playing older OS X games and a few of the less intensive newer ones. Now we have Core Image support on the Mini.

It's slowly leading to being a media hub instead of this light gaming machine though. I'd like to know what kind of h.264 streams this thing can decode rather than it's 3D gaming performance.

 

[ieani]

I hope they dont put integrated in ibooks to force people like me into buying a mbpro. Because I wont. Ill get a powerbook instead.

 

[jsw]

I'm curious as to why anyone would be considering these a "gaming machine" - they aren't. They're small little add-on computers for people that already have a PC (or, I suppose, another Mac) and/or they're little DVRs (with the addition of a $150 Elgato EyeTV EZ USB). They most assuredly are not - and were never intended to be - gaming systems.

 

[clayj]

I'm curious as to why anyone would be considering these a "gaming machine" - they aren't. They're small little add-on computers for people that already have a PC (or, I suppose, another Mac) and/or they're little DVRs (with the addition of a $150 Elgato EyeTV EZ USB). They most assuredly are not - and were never intended to be - gaming systems.

Exactly. If you wanna play games, buy an Xbox 360.

Still, the jump from video memory to integrated video memory would be considered by many, myself included, to be a jump BACKWARDS in terms of performance. Not what you'd expect given that the new minis are more expensive.

 

[jsw]

Exactly. If you wanna play games, buy an Xbox 360.

Still, the jump from video memory to integrated video memory would be considered by many, myself included, to be a jump BACKWARDS in terms of performance. Not what you'd expect given that the new minis are more expensive.

I'm not saying I like the integrated graphics - I don't! - just that I don't think it'll affect the intended applications for the mini. Given the greater horsepower of the Core chips, I suspect that graphics capability is probably on par with the last gen minis. I'll be very interested - as are others - to see the H.264 performance. I'm considering adding one to my living room, and I'm interested to see its movie playback capabilities.

 

[aswitcher]

Rev B...September/October...?

Or real Mac Mini Multimedia machine with full sized PC parts...

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

My wife games with her 32mb 9200 Mini every night! She aint playing Doom3 but she is gaming. Integrated graphics is garbage and everyone knows it. This is pure handicapping to sell imacs and powermacs. Apple has used crippled graphics over the years many times to seperate model lines. Here we are again

 

[robbieduncan]

OK. Whilst the Mini was never designed to be a gaming machine it is designed to be a generally useful Mac. With CoreImage quite popular with developers now and only going to get more popular the performance of these new Minis is going to be poor. We're not just talking about Aperture here, iPhoto will be slower than it should be on these machines for example.

 

[vniow]

The GMA 950 supports Core Image.

 

[miloblithe]

A lot of us though are just interested in having one computer do a little of everything. I'm no "gamer", but I do want to be able to play Civ IV, or run Safari and VLC at the same time while leaving iPhoto, Mail, Firefox, and iCal open.

It does seem like the lack of the graphics card is the only thing keeping this from being a great little machine. I for one can live without a 7200RPM HD, but the graphics card seems important.

 

[robbieduncan]

The GMA 950 supports Core Image.

There is a big difference between support (CoreImage works even if all the work gets done on the CPU) and providing a decent level of acceleration. CoreImage is clever enough to decide when to use the GPU and when to use the CPU to render a particular effect (based on whether the GPU is capable to render the effect, the current workload of the CPU(s) and GPU and probably other things). I'd wager that the Mini will end up using the CPU most of the time as opposed to the GPU on a more capable system.

 

[risc]

I work with GMA950 Integrated Video all day at work and it is bloody horrible. Firstly 3D support is pretty much dead, 2D is nearly as bad. You can actually see windows ripping and tearing as you move them. Also DVD playback is absolutely horrible using them.

But hey it's Apple so they must kick ass!

 

[sk1985]

I see nothing wrong with Apple using integrated graphics cards/chips on their low end Macs. However I find the new mini to be way overpriced, especially now that it doesn't have an ATI card. If the price was about 100 less then I'd be cool with Apple using integrated graphics. Most people that buy a mac mini (i.e people like me who own a mini and an iBook) know their not get the best of the best when it comes to a mac and I could justify apple going this route only with a price reduction. I must say when I first used my mini I was extremely impressed by how much better everything looked graphically, than my old PC with integrated graphics. I have a rev.a mini and I was really impressed at how well WOW ran on it with only 256 megs of system ram. That ATI card did the bulk of the work and the game remained playable for the most part. I think Apple should have had the lowest level mac mini have integrated graphics while that 799 dollar version should really have an ATI card (for 800 bones you're better off getting a PC that at least has a graphics card built in it). This all seems like kind of a dumb move by apple especially because the mini is the product that is suppose to get people to switch on over and be a good value at the same time.

On a plus side I could see one of the core (on the core duo model) running as a graphics card with the systems ram. I could see that being less damaging to performance with added ram (but still no where near as good as anything with a graphics card).

 

[IJ Reilly]

I work with GMA950 Integrated Video all day at work and it is bloody horrible. Firstly 3D support is pretty much dead, 2D is nearly as bad. You can actually see windows ripping and tearing as you move them. Also DVD playback is absolutely horrible using them.

In Windows, right? I can see windows "building" on my XP box with a Radeon 9800, so I think this might have at least as much to do with the OS as the graphics subsystem.

Anyway, if you filter out for all of the gamers, who seem to think the computer world revolves around their needs, and who wouldn't buy a Mac mini for gaming anyway, the integrated graphics in the new mini doesn't seem to be a huge deal.

Edit: Also, is anybody else offering the Core Duo in a desktop PC? I looked around a bit and couldn't find any.

 

[p0intblank]

It's definitely very disappointing that Apple went with integrated graphics with the new Mac minis. Sure they're no gaming machines, but come on... at least give us a cheap GPU to work with. I see this as a very big mistake... I really do hope they change this in the near future.

 

[jsw]

I think that one of the MR community with an "old" mini (clayj?) should buy a new one and do a comparison test for us. That would answer our questions.

I also wanted to point out that, without bickering over the inferior graphics in the latest consumer Macs, it just wouldn't feel like a product announcement....

 

[munkees]

I don't know much about the intel graphics, I used to use them years ago. But remember that you are comparing a windows system running these chips.

I think the graphic could be ok alot has to do with the driver, and on an windows microsoft does not write drivers. So they running intel drivers, which in my guess never got the love to make the graphics sing.

We are now taking about MAC OS X, and this is a different story, I can say for sure apple engineers dealt with this graphics and it may not suck as much.

I will have to see with my own eyes, but I think this could be an ok solution. ATI and Nvidia only make GPUs, intel make many products so for sure, my guess the intel writing software is not going to be great, but I think the apple drivers should make this little gpu sing.

Has anybody reviewed this chips spec, in comparison to a 9600 ati ?