xterm said:
I just ran Xbench on my stock Core Duo 1.66GHz, and the new Mac Mini destroys the G4 Mac Mini in OpenGL performance
http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=158732&doc2=146457
if you use digg.com, digg this story please
http://digg.com/apple/Mac_Mini_Core_Duo_1.66Ghz_Benchmarks._OpenGL_over_2x_Faster_than_G4
On the other hand, MacInTouch is suggesting OpenGL is
slower with the new card. (That is, hardware OpenGL - which is graphics card dependent - runs significantly slower. I'm wondering if XBench just tests software OpenGL, which is going to run faster because of the CPU, but isn't a "real world" test in that nobody in their right mind uses software OGL):
1.5GHz PowerPC Mini: Hardware: 530, Software: 427
Core Solo Mini: Hardware: 438, Software: 869
The software speed is actually pretty impressive, but it has to be considered that real world use will never get that fast because, by its very nature, it'll be sharing CPU with the applications that use the rendering. That's 869 on a machine otherwise sitting idle.
These are using Cinebench. Other testing systems may differ, though they shouldn't that radically. Most importantly, these benchmarks fit independent, non-Mac, benchmarks that have always suggested the GMA950 will be slower than chipsets like the 9200.
At this point I'll try to look at the positive. I'm hoping the poor performance of the GMA950 will be made up for by the Core Duo in the higher-end model. I really think, right now, it was a bad idea to release a low-end model with a Core Solo. There aren't enough universal binaries for the Core Solo to have acceptable performance. If I were Apple, and I'm not, I'd have continued to sell an upgraded, low end, PowerPC based Mac mini, and released the Core Duo version of the Mac mini, with a slightly better graphics card (even, if necessary, at a higher price.) The line up would have looked something like this:
Mac mini G4 1.5GHz, 512Mb of memory, Airport and Bluetooth (no modem), SPDIF out, more USB ports: $500
w/Superdrive: $600
w/Superdrive and 1G of memory: $700
Mac mini Core Duo, same as announced, but w/Radeon X1600: $999
w/2GHz and 1G of memory: $1,199
And in a year, once the Universal Binaries are, well, universal, they can replace the entire G4 line with Core Solos.
You know what's mucked up? Despite Apple presumably looking at that and going "But... but... that's even more expensive! Our profit margin would be ridiculously huge and everyone would know it!", I'd probably buy that Intel configuration. Whereas I just plain will not buy what they announced. The Mac mini is
not an entry-level Mac, it's a small, three-box, Mac, priced more reasonably (and across a wider-set of price points) than Apple's first attempt (the Cube.) Apple doesn't seem to understand its own product, releasing something that appears to be a lobotomized Mac this time around rather than something within that spirit. There are configurations priced well into four digits that people would buy. I'm a big fan of the concept, it's a shame that every time someone says "You're not selling one powerful enough", Apple shouts "But that'd eat into our iMac sales" rather than recognizing that a Mac mini sold at, say, a couple of hundred dollars less than the equivalent iMac would have a higher profit margin and be more desirable to a significant number of us.
Bah.
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