Oh Dear, intel integrated graphics

[matticus008]

I said not the current Celeron M. But the ones coming in April.

It's unlikely that even those Celerons will have enough muscle to cope with Rosetta. Additionally, media performance would be less impressive, and graphics speed would suffer as well.

 

[bzgnyc]

The price difference between Core Solo and Core Duo is a lot larger than $25. Especially now with Core Duos being in short supply still.

Everyone out there still arguing about this, just answer this question (truthfully, please):

Given the choice, at no extra cost, would you rather have a Radeon X300, or a GMA 950 in your Mac Mini?
And I don't want to hear any "but it would cost mores" because I'm asking a theoretical question and in my theoretical situation you get to choose between the two, and they both cost the same.

The X300 is a different kind of chip that does not appear to support a real Unified Memory Buffer (UMB). They supplement a local framebuffer with system memory which is not the same thing. The X300 often sits on a card and talks to the system through PCIe. UMB means no local framebuffer -- the GPU talks directly to the system memory.

ATI does have the X200m chipset which is based on an X300 core. However, this just isn't a GPU but handles PCI, USB, and everything else. My guess is that it is difficult to make UMB work well with company X's memory controller and comapany Y's GPU. If so then Apple had to choose between an Intel 945G/GMA950 solution and the ATI X200m solution. The latter is probably faster for 3D but probably also imposes other design constraints (I bet greater heat dissipation).

Beyond the theoretical, is the other design constraint in that Apple is trying to establish a relationship with Intel beyond this one box. This is just one in a series of boxes that Apple plans to make with the Intel chip. If Apple was just making commodity boxes then it wouldn't matter if they used. Its not just that Apple is cozing up to Intel. They are codesigning future products.

P.S.To answer the question, I would rather have neither. I am not a potential Mac mini buyer. Perhaps in the future I would buy something like a Mac mini instead of a DVD player, DVR, surround sound processor, cd changer, etc.

What I want now is a very light, very cool running laptop with a very bright screen. Something under 4lbs, never runs hot/warm to the touch, and with a 13-15" widescreen LCD that puts out 300nits. And no thicker than 1". If that means something like the GMA950 instead of the X300/200m/etc, so be it.

My PB15 with ATI M9600 graphics is too hot for my lap and the battery life stinks. When I first bought this thing, the good graphics were a selling point. Now, I no longer do much OpenGL outside of Quartz Extreme, and I shouldn't need Quartz Extreme to keep basic office apps, the web, and e-mail running reasonably snappy.

 

[danny_w]

Perhaps I am in the minority of mini users here, because I actually do use mine on my desk, not in the living room by the tv. It was my first Mac, and got me "hooked" on Mac and OS X. I sold my AMD tower, even though I knew that the mini was not as capable at raw performance or bleeding-edge gaming. I do, however, consider it more than capable for occasional gaming and for most of my work at home. I found the quietness a major selling
point, and I don't ever want one of those loud towers on my desk again. For what I want on my desktop, the mini is the only thing that Apple currently makes that fills the bill, other than a 20" iMac (but I already own a 20" 2005fpw, so I need something headless). If Apple made something in the midrange that was as quiet as the mini and had decent graphics performance (for the occasional game) I would be all over it. That is why I think that the integrated graphics in the new mini is a step in the wrong direction, and is also diametically opposed to Apple's own advertising of the previous mini. So yes, there are those of us that use the mini as our main computer on the desktop and want at least some level of gaming performance.

 

[bzgnyc]

The X300 is a different kind of chip that does not appear to support a real Unified Memory Buffer (UMB). They supplement a local framebuffer with system memory which is not the same thing. The X300 often sits on a card and talks to the system through PCIe. UMB means no local framebuffer -- the GPU talks directly to the system memory.

Actually, turns out that the ATI Xpress 200 solution isn't necessarily better than the Intel i945/GMA950 solution either. This is a review of the chipset coupled with a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 processor. The graphics are tuned down from the X300 and in fact T&L is also done by the main CPU in this variant.

Integrated video in the ATI Xpress 200 IE is quite a different issue. ATI prefers not to expatiate on parameters of this accelerator, just officially announcing its similarity to the Radeon X300 (Radeon 9600 modification for PCI Express). But we still found out that there are significant differences between them. Firstly, the number of pixel pipelines is halved — from 4 to 2. Secondly, the hardware T&L unit is either absent or severely limited in its functions (but T&L operations are fully supported on the driver level, they are just processed by the CPU). And finally, the operating clock of a chip is not clear: the theoretical range is 200—350 MHz (325 MHz for X300), but the only motherboard that we tested does not allow to specify/view this clock in BIOS. Memory bandwidth in the X300 is 128 bit, X300 SE — 64 bit, Xpress 200 IE — 128 bit in case of the dual channel memory mode. But it's system memory, so it's hard to tell its effective bandwidth in games, where CPU also actively accesses memory (it will hardly exceed 64 bit).
[from http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/mainboard/ati-xpress-200-ie-chipset.html]

So while the GMA950 may not be the fastest solution out there, it might be the best solution with a UMB architecture. And that architecture might be more important to the future goals of the Mac mini product line than the gaming performance of this particular model.

 

[bzgnyc]

Perhaps I am in the minority of mini users here, because I actually do use mine on my desk...If Apple made something in the midrange that was as quiet as the mini and had decent graphics performance (for the occasional game) I would be all over it. That is why I think that the integrated graphics in the new mini is a step in the wrong direction, and is also diametically opposed to Apple's own advertising of the previous mini. So yes, there are those of us that use the mini as our main computer on the desktop and want at least some level of gaming performance.

I am not saying that your uses of the mac mini are wrong, but rather the mac mini might be changing as a product in such a way that it is no longer the product for you. For example, I have a PowerBook G4 15". Greater computer, but I wish different tradeoffs had been made. My feeling about the MacBook Pro 15" is that it is even less right for me.

My worry is that when I replace it, I will be forced to choose between that or something like an iBook (which is a bit too plastic and consumer-focused for me). Similarly, I understand how you feel forced to choose between the new Mac mini and the PowerMac (or iMac but then have to dump your screen).

By the way, ignoring our design desires, benchmarks results floating around for the Intel mac mini suggest that its OpenGL performance is between 80% and 200% of the Mac mini G4. So the mac mini isn't so much a step down as a big step up on CPU and a significant improvement for some kinds of graphics but not others. It should run pretty much the same games you run now (ignoring Rosetta/emulation issues).

Would we hate that the Intel mac Mini so much if it had been called the iPod Video Maximus but still came with GMA950 graphics?

 

[neonart]

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!

According to actual tests reported to xlr8yourmac.com today the new Mini can play 1080p with the base 512MB of RAM. So I don't think your problems with playing DVD's or windows sheering will be a problem with the new Minis.

 

[neonart]

Perhaps I am in the minority of mini users here, because I actually do use mine on my desk, not in the living room by the tv. It was my first Mac, and got me "hooked" on Mac and OS X. I sold my AMD tower, even though I knew that the mini was not as capable at raw performance or bleeding-edge gaming. I do, however, consider it more than capable for occasional gaming and for most of my work at home. I found the quietness a major selling
point, and I don't ever want one of those loud towers on my desk again. For what I want on my desktop, the mini is the only thing that Apple currently makes that fills the bill, other than a 20" iMac (but I already own a 20" 2005fpw, so I need something headless). If Apple made something in the midrange that was as quiet as the mini and had decent graphics performance (for the occasional game) I would be all over it. That is why I think that the integrated graphics in the new mini is a step in the wrong direction, and is also diametically opposed to Apple's own advertising of the previous mini. So yes, there are those of us that use the mini as our main computer on the desktop and want at least some level of gaming performance.

Good points, but there is also the drivers issue. We don't know for sure if the integrated graphics in the Mini are as bad as some are going nuts about. Remember when the nVidia 6800 Ultra was released in the G5's? The performance increase was missing at first in alot of games and everybody had a heart attack much like the one we see now. Some driver updates later and the card was the cats meeao.
Apple may still squeeze some performance out of the Intel GMA950 so that casual gaming will be totally doable on the Mini.
Apple's shift in advertising with this machine may have been well though out. If games simply were not doing anything to sell Minis, but iMovie Garage Band, etc. were, then the right choice was made. Apple could have stripped the machine of the nice improvements* including the great processor and put a Celery in the the thing. But they didn't.

I too would have preferred a better graphics card, but I don't think this machine is horrible by any means. I also have a feeling that sales of these things will prove apple did good on it. We'll see.

 

[prostuff1]

I am not a fan of this "update" to the minis. I was telling a friend to hold of and wait to get his family a new computer cause i told him the next minis would be good. And while they are...they are also not good. Computers are supposed to get better and while the mini did it clearly went backwards in one direction...graphics.

I never expected there to be a DVR mac mini (at least not yet). Apple would have been a lot further ahead to put core solos in both models, (with an option for core duo in the top model) only 1 ram slot, options for bluetooth and/or airport (in the low end model), and an independent graphics card. I think this would have mad a much better mac mini.

A few of my thoughts:
1. people wanting to get into the mac experience no long have a "low cost" option. The $500 price tag of the previous mini was a "sweet spot." At $600 + tax it si not long a low cost option.

2. More ram is always good but most do not and will not need to go up to 2GB. Obviously because of rosetta and the integrated graphics the more ram the better, but most of the things that "normal" (i.e. non power users) are going to need/use are going to be universal binary (short of MS ofiice and maybe a few others). Had apple put in a dedicated graphics card then one of those ram hogging things would have been avoided. My feeling is if you are planning on doing photoshop or the like a lot your computer should not be a mac mini.

3. Airport and bluetooth dont need to be included in the low end model. I would venture to guess that most are not going to be using those features but it should be an option to add on.

4. Had Apple just left the card that was in the silently upgraded minis in A LOT of people would not have complained about the downgrade in graphics. I mean hell the cards were all ready in there so why go backwards in graphics??

5. I dont believe that anyone on these boards has ever claimed that the mini is a gaming machine but the fact is that some switchers and others will want to play the occational game on it. With integreated graphics that does not seem to be possible. Yes, integrated graphics should be fine for mom and pop that are just going to use the comptuer for internet, word processing, and the iLife apps.

In the end Apple would have been further ahead and there would have been a lot less complaining if they would have just included a dedicated card like the ones in the silently updated minis or the current line of iBooks. I for one dont want the CPU (no matter how powerfull) doing the work a GPU should. And a GPU should not use system memory. Integrated takes at least 80MB of ram.We (the mac community) did not want anything earth shattering or ground breaking. We just wanted something that does not flat suck.

I think the comparisions using windows computers as a base to compare the cards is a good choice for now. If integrated graphics sucks under windows it aint going to get any better under OS X. I dont care how much they try to optimize the drivers cause it probably aint going to help.

The only thing i hope is that apple does not cripple the iBooks/MacBooks like they did the minis. And they better not raise the price.

Apple screwed up this update and i bet Rev B will be better.

 

[danny_w]

As I noted above, I just "switched" this time last year to a Mac mini, largely because of the $499 price for a Mac got me interested. I had always wanted to try a Mac, but the entry price had always been prohibitive for me. At $499 I figured that the price was low enough that I could afford to "try out" the Mac world. As luck had it, when I went to the store (Fry's) the Monday after they were released on Saturday, not expecting them to have any on display or in stock, they actually did have the $499 model on display and the $599 model in stock (the last one). I ended up getting the more expensive model, but only because I had ben enticed by the entry $499 model. Now this price point no longer exists, and may not entice other potential "switchers" like me as much as the original model did.

 

[generik]

Meanwhile, I know what I think, and what I hope, and I'm not sure it's anything but hypocritical to say my opinion doesn't matter until either of us have the hardware to test it.

That's your opinion.

f mine doesn't matter, your's clearly doesn't either.

At least I didn't make sweeping assertions.

I clearly suck because I think the Mac mini Core Solo doesn't sound like a particularly useful machine compared to its predecessor, and as such, I've probably angered The Steve, and have little time to on this Earth left.

Straw man argument. The Steve doesn't even give two hoots about what perharri thinks, unless that same individual storms into his office with some sort of contraption that propels a tiny piece of metal out a barrel by the means of explosives at him, which then penetrates his body to the cries of "That's for that lousy core solo Mini!!!" then perhaps he will care about it.

 

[generik]

I am not a fan of this "update" to the minis. I was telling a friend to hold of and wait to get his family a new computer cause i told him the next minis would be good. And while they are...they are also not good. Computers are supposed to get better and while the mini did it clearly went backwards in one direction...graphics.

Was the G4 capable of 1080p playback?

Wow, that's news, last I heard even a G5 would choke on it. What were you saying again? Something about going backwards?

 

[disconap]

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

AMEN BROTHER

 

[prostuff1]

Was the G4 capable of 1080p playback?

Wow, that's news, last I heard even a G5 would choke on it. What were you saying again? Something about going backwards?

I did not say the G4 was great and in fact it was not compared to the new intel ones. The only thing i am saying is that they updated a lot of stuff (good for apple) but CLEARLY went backwards in GPU.

The CPU, HDD, bluetooth, airport, remote, IR sensor, more USB, digital and optical in and out, 2 ram slots, and any other things they added are all great but the fact remains that they went BACWARDS in the GPU department!!!!

Like i said in my original post i would have rather had one with core solos, one ram slot, and a DEDICATED GPU!!

Obviously, there are many other apple fans on these boards that feel the same way.

As far as i am conserned the silent update minis are a better value and that is what i am going to tell a friend to get.

 

[matticus008]

I did not say the G4 was great and in fact it was not compared to the new intel ones. The only thing i am saying is that they updated a lot of stuff (good for apple) but CLEARLY went backwards in GPU.

[...]

Obviously, there are many other apple fans on these boards that feel the same way.

Backwards how? It's pretty hard to argue with a newer, more advanced graphics system that finally supports the stupid ripple everyone whined about and simultaneously outperforms the G4 graphics in a fair share of the benchmarks.

Obviously lots of people "feel" the same way, but it doesn't make them right. It's a knee-jerk reaction and very few people actually have any specific reason to believe the new mini is less adequate than the G4.

 

[BornAgainMac]

In my experience, you're selling the Pentium M short. A 1.6 GHz Pentium M feels faster than a 2.8 - 3.0 GHz Pentium 4, though I don't have the benchmarks to back this up, I only have subjective use.

You are right. I compared iTunes encoding speeds on a Pentium 4 HT 3.0 Ghz to a Pentium M 2.1 Ghz and the Pentium M was a little bit faster.