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Should I wait for the next Mini?

N

norbiu

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 23, 2007
64
69
This Mac Mini waiting game is driving me crazy. I waited for the last gen to get a more decent upgrade. Then, when it arrived, I found out I was getting a 2GB Core 2 Duo for the same price + more as the previous gen 4GB Core 2 Duo, the only difference being the new form factor and the video and HDMI.

Couldn't Apple have kept the same prices? Or at least throw in a 4GB / i3 in there?

European prices for any Mac are through the roof already, so imagine what a $100 bump does to the prices over here.

At the moment I have a 4 year old 1.83 Core Duo MacBook (2GB RAM) with 128GB SSD hooked up to an external monitor. I do web design, so I'm using Photoshop, VMWare Fussion for testing and a few development apps. Also some amateur photography in Aperture. So no gaming, ocasional (1-2 times a year) video editing and that's about it.

Extensive use of any of the mentioned above will just about murder my Mac. My Intel GMA 950 can barely handle 480p YouTube clips.

So my questions are:

- Should I wait till next year for an i3 or 4GB Mini (or both)?
- Or will this new Mini do? And then get a 4GB stick in the future and have 5GB and then get another 4GB later on and have 8GB? Also, I heard it's harder to replace the HD. Would you recommend replacing it with the SSD in my MacBook?

Thanks!
 
A Core iX processor could mean Intel integrated graphics, which would be a bad thing. However, I doubt they would do that to the mini given it's presence in a lot of our living rooms.

Either way, new models were just released, just buy one of them. Unless you can wait, then wait.
 
seeing as you're using vmware fusion, your current 2gb is really insufficient. buy the stock 2.4ghz mini and upgrade the ram to 4gb yourself. aside from not having an ssd, everything else will be much faster than what you have now. you can always upgrade the ram or hdd as needed, or sell it and buy the latest mini if it gets updated 6-8 months from now. in the meantime, you'll be much more productive with a faster system.

if you want to compare system benchmarks, you can search for xbench results of the mini that were posted in these forums.
 
There's no guarantee as to when the next Mini revision will appear, or if one will ever appear.

A new Mini will be a big improvement over your current rig. But don't get a 4 GB RAM upgrade; go for the 8 GB upgrade if you plan on keeping the machine for a while. Oh, and make that third party RAM, of course.
 
4gb upgrades are about $100 where as the 8gb upgrade is more than 2.5 that amount. 4gb should be enough right now. I'd wait a bit longer until the prices of the 4gb sodimms drop.

I'd buy the Mini now. There's no telling when Apple will refresh it the lineup. Keep checking every morning for the refurbs. They don't stick around too long.
 
The problem with getting 2 x 2 GB SO-DIMMs is that there are only two memory slots in a Mini so you'll have to dump the 2 x 2 GB boards for a new set of 2 x 4 GB boards later. And the money spent on the 2 x 2 GB boards will be mostly lost.
 
That's what the nVidia CEO has to say about this. Intel includes it's own IGP because they are thinking that GPUs (and there manufacturers) are that powerful so they could replace x86 CPUs soon.

The next Mini will either use Intel or ATI graphics, or bump the CPU to 3.06GHz C2D (As seen in the MBPs before) and keep on using nVidia graphics. I read in the news that the new Apple TV has an AMD CPU, AMD+ATI/nVidia IGP is an option for the Mini, too. Phenom II X4 N930 w/ 35W TDP at 2GHz would fit into the Mini. With a little update of the CPU cooling, the Phenom II X4 X920 BE w/ 45W TDP at 2,3GHz would go in there nicely. For dual core, there would be the N620 w/ 2.8GHz (35W) or the X620BE w/ 3.1GHz (45W). They are actually, they could provide a speed boost with AMD CPUs, even if they are not that high-end as the i7's. But Apple could put them in right on release and maybe cut the prices a little, because these CPUs are cheaper then even C2Ds.
Bulldozer, the next generation CPUs from AMD, with provide anything from 10W to 100W.
 
Voting for the new mini for you. I am taking the slow approach to ram upgrades. i bought one 4 gig chip replacing one of the included one gig chips, for a total of 5 gigs now(for roughly the same price as two 2 gig chips). If i need eight gigs later on , i can do it without throwing away 2 sets of chips. Of course if you have the cash, go straight for eight gigs of ram, i just dont need eight right now, but if i do later, it would kill me to waste money on four gig now.(two sets of chips trashed or sold)
 
Go ahead and wait.


Per Mac mini history:
It should be at least 1 year and no more than 3
The all new machine will cost $100 more than the last one
 
At some point you have to stop waiting for the mini to get the best of everything and at a lower price. Bashing the stock CPU is fashionable, but I wonder whether a newer CPU would stay as cool? If so, I would not mind a faster chip, but not if it would cause the mini to have any fan noise, of which there is none, or cause it to be hot like all my prior PCs. It's as cool as the other side of the pillow. If you needed the fastest gaming rig possible, you would not be looking at the mini. So buy, buy, buy.

Otherwise, keep waiting another year or three for upgrades that you hope will arrive. But if the upgrades are not there -- more disappointment for you.
 
And suppose the next Mini does have an i3, but in the meantime Intel has released a different processor (i??) and then you will wonder if you should wait for the i?? processor and 8gb ram. It's a never ending wait if you try to chase hardware. The mini hasn't been updated that regularly, so it could be more than a year before it's updated again.
 
The performance delta between similarly clocked Core2 Duos and an i3 is negligible at best. Even if they put in a similarly clocked dual-core i5 -- which won't happen -- you're looking at a 10-15% performance boost, tops.

Based on the buyer's guide, you shouldn't expect a Mac Mini refresh until at LEAST February 2011, and I'd say March or April would be more realistic. The Mini now uses MBP13 hardware, so don't expect a refresh until the MBP13 is refreshed first.

Also consider this: Right now, a Mac Mini with 4GB of memory is $899. During the Black Friday sales in November, a 21.5" iMac (4GB of memory, ATi Radeon 4670) would be $1049 at places like Best Buy. Yes you already have a display... but now you could have dual displays. Just food for thought.
 
old-wiz said:
And suppose the next Mini does have an i3, but in the meantime Intel has released a different processor (i??) and then you will wonder if you should wait for the i?? processor and 8gb ram. It's a never ending wait if you try to chase hardware. The mini hasn't been updated that regularly, so it could be more than a year before it's updated again.
Click to expand...
Some thought the mini was dead, that Apple was so focused on their non-Mac items that it would not get an upgrade. They obviously don't have alot of respect for it, since it was released without an official release statement, even though there was an Apple event the day before or so. Also, if you look at the Mac threads, the mini thread has the fewest posts, meaning Apple must move more of the other models.
 
Baby Mac said:
Some thought the mini was dead, that Apple was so focused on their non-Mac items that it would not get an upgrade. They obviously don't have alot of respect for it, since it was released without an official release statement, even though there was an Apple event the day before or so. Also, if you look at the Mac threads, the mini thread has the fewest posts, meaning Apple must move more of the other models.
Click to expand...
If you put any credence in the Amazon best seller list, the Mac mini sells more than the iMac. Problem for Apple is, there isn't as much money in it so they do their best not to promote it. :rolleyes:
 
Baby Mac said:
Some thought the mini was dead, that Apple was so focused on their non-Mac items that it would not get an upgrade. They obviously don't have alot of respect for it, since it was released without an official release statement, even though there was an Apple event the day before or so. Also, if you look at the Mac threads, the mini thread has the fewest posts, meaning Apple must move more of the other models.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's that they don't have a lot of respect for it. It's just not as consumer-sexy as the iMac. But it's hardly the redheaded-stepchild. It's typical (at least in this part of the world) for minis to be unavailable anywhere but from Apple because Best Buy et al can't keep them in stock.
 
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