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The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming

What if... we see an updated Mac Pro and Mac mini, which are very similar in design, just big and small and with the expected differences in specs? It would make the line-up nice and simple. The delay might be a combination of waiting for the right CPUs, more wide-spread USB-C/TB3 adoption, figuring out where to manufacture them (US doesn't seem to work out that well according to some rumors).

And what if... you can daisy chain them for increased performance? You can use external GPUs, so why not chain together a bunch of minis or Pros or a combination, and have an app on a single device use the CPU and GPU power from the others as well. I don't know if that's feasible with the TB3 throughput and all that, but it could be a solution for keeping the device itself simple (read: non-expendable) and still offer an Apple-supported solution to get more power out of it.
 
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C64 said:
What if... we see an updated Mac Pro and Mac mini, which are very similar in design, just big and small and with the expected differences in specs?
Click to expand...

These ideas would indeed be beautiful. The problem, of course, is that Apple's success with the iPhone has made the upper management want to turn every product into an iPhone. Every product should be thin, have an integrated screen, a single I/O port, and be totally non-upgradable. :)
 
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C64 said:
What if... we see an updated Mac Pro and Mac mini, which are very similar in design, just big and small and with the expected differences in specs? It would make the line-up nice and simple. The delay might be a combination of waiting for the right CPUs, more wide-spread USB-C/TB3 adoption, figuring out where to manufacture them (US doesn't seem to work out that well according to some rumors).

And what if... you can daisy chain them for increased performance? You can use external GPUs, so why not chain together a bunch of minis or Pros or a combination, and have an app on a single device use the CPU and GPU power from the others as well. I don't know if that's feasible with the TB3 throughput and all that, but it could be a solution for keeping the device itself simple (read: non-expendable) and still offer an Apple-supported solution to get more power out of it.
Click to expand...

Not sure about daisy chaining together. That sounds very much like the discontinued xGrid which is very much a niche. If I was spending that much money on compute I wouldn't trust Apple to keep it going.

Final Cut Pro users could hand off rendering jobs to other machines but again why risk the investment on something that Apple can kill on a whim with no prior warning when it's not making them enough profit?

The current Mac Pro is old technology that's had a price increase in UK/Europe and is so painfully niche it's not true. They've driven away photographers after killing Aperture. They build a machine with 2 mediocre GPUs where one does the compute and the other just drives one or more displays because they don't have OS level Crossfire. Final Cut Pro X only uses 2 GPUs for certain functions - the rest of the time it's CPU based and the Mac Pro is falling behind on that.

I don't think people have been falling over themselves to write apps that are truly optimised for 2 GPUs and hugely parallelised applications. Instead, Apple should go for the mass market of people who would pay for one powerful GPU, plenty of fast NVMe flash, and a powerful CPU in a package that is sufficiently cooled to be silent and crucially doesn't come with a screen built in.

Sell it for under $1999 and the top end Mac Mini moaners will consider it as the beefed up Mac Mini pro.

One new point to make is that if Apple delay much longer after March, the Skylake EP series of Xeon CPUs becomes available, with more cores, more PCIe ports, and a chipset that is a very interesting.

Before we reach that point, Apple could have used a variety of Intel CPUs for an entry level new Mac Pro configuration if they were carefully selective about the loss of PCIe lanes.

For example: Xeon E3-1275 v5 4 cores 8 threads, with P580 Iris Pro Graphics; $556
3.5GHz (slower than the 27" Retina iMac) 16 PCIe Lanes from the CPU plus up to 20 PCIe Lanes from the PCH on the motherboard.
If you eliminate one of the Graphics cards, you could have enough I/O for 2 NVMe SSD (which could be in a RAID configuration) and attach them to one of the triangle heatsink sides for cooling - because they do run hot.
2x4 PCIe lanes for 2 NVMe sticks
1x8 PCIe lanes for the GPU (AMD RX 460)
4x4 PCIe lanes for 4 USB-C ports
2x1 PCIe lanes for 4 USB3.1 ports (without constricting the bandwidth like it is on the new Mac Pro)
1x1 PCIe lane for Ethernet
1x1 PCIe lane for Wifi and Bluetooth Module
And a HDMI 1.4 port for a 4k monitor

Depending on how much flash memory you bundle you might have the basis of a solid machine for $1999

So there you go, nothing gets wasted, nothing idles, no bottlenecks unless Apple decide to offer a faster GPU which would do better using more than 8 PCIe lanes - but it's been proven that the performance benefit on more powerful graphics card using 16 lanes over 8 is less than 10%.

If Apple decide they want an even cheaper entry level option than let's do one with no graphics cards and up to 4 NVMe sticks OR 2 NVMe sticks plus 2 additional USB-C external ports to match up to the higher end Mac Pros.

Only problem for Apple is these kinds of machines are going to last us folks probably 10 years if they've engineered them right. Bluntly speaking, that's a bad idea for Apple!
 
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DesertSurfer said:
I would like to get a microphone for my new 2012 mini, which is almost certainly coming in a few weeks, but I can't find those suggestions. So if anyone has any, I'm looking for something small and as unobtrusive as possible.
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I bought one similar to this:
It's invisible if plugged into the standard Apple keyboard or back of Mini.
 
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Boyd01 said:
You are just dreaming there. Apple already charges $1999 for the top of the line 2014 Mini 3ghz/16gb/1TB SSD model. And my 2012 2.6ghz quad Mini is 50% faster than it….
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Wonder how many of those top whack Minis they sell? The UK refurb store had quite a few 8Gb 1Tb SSD models for some time but they don't seem to have popped up for a while. Probably for the best as the price will have gone up.

Maybe for certain single threaded applications a 3.0GHz dual core i7 (which can turbo up to 3.5GHz) with more modern integrated graphics would beat a 2.6GHz quad core i7 from a few generations earlier. It's too simplistic to completely knock the performance of the newer machine because the newer CPU will predictably beat the older one on single threaded performance.

With respect to my desktop spec, I never said how much RAM or storage such a machine would come with. Wouldn't be surprised at 8Gb and 256Gb SSD but it'll certainly not come with 1Tb SSD straight off the bat. I'd certainly expect the RAM to be user upgradable but it remains to be seen if Apple would continue with proprietary non-upgradable flash storage.

Either way, the soldering down makes sure people have an impetus to upgrade after a set period - shorter than they'd like which is why Apple need to get moving on improving their iCloud services rather than upsetting people with the cost of their hardware.
 
sublunar said:
With respect to my desktop spec, I never said how much RAM or storage such a machine would come with. Wouldn't be surprised at 8Gb and 256Gb SSD but it'll certainly not come with 1Tb SSD straight off the bat. I'd certainly expect the RAM to be user upgradable but it remains to be seen if Apple would continue with proprietary non-upgradable flash storage.
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To be clear, I think a machine like you describe would be great, my point was just that Apple does not seem to be headed in that direction, and that they are already charging $2000 for a Mini that has rather underwhelming specs. I don't know why you think they would switch back to user-upgradeable RAM on a small computer like the Mini when all the signs point the other way. So, if they offer a 32gb machine, you would have to pay a hefty premium for that at the time of your initial purchase. And the use of soldered SSD's on the new MBP also seems to be where they are going.

So - if there even is a new Mini and the RAM and SSD are soldered in place, it seems like you would be closer to a $3000 machine if you want a top spec model that will be adequate for demanding use over a period of years. I hope you're right and I'm wrong…. but I wouldn't bet on it. :)
 
Boyd01 said:
To be clear, I think a machine like you describe would be great, my point was just that Apple does not seem to be headed in that direction, and that they are already charging $2000 for a Mini that has rather underwhelming specs. I don't know why you think they would switch back to user-upgradeable RAM on a small computer like the Mini when all the signs point the other way. So, if they offer a 32gb machine, you would have to pay a hefty premium for that at the time of your initial purchase. And the use of soldered SSD's on the new MBP also seems to be where they are going.

So - if there even is a new Mini and the RAM and SSD are soldered in place, it seems like you would be closer to a $3000 machine if you want a top spec model that will be adequate for demanding use over a period of years. I hope you're right and I'm wrong…. but I wouldn't bet on it. :)
Click to expand...

As mentioned before, it's not in Apple's interests to have Mac users using a perfectly sound machine for 10 years. They help this along by deprecating support after 6 years (which is fair enough). What they should be doing is beefing up their subscription services (iCloud) to get more $$$ out of people.

Extending the Mini upwards would intrude into the territory which is currently filled by the iMac. Obviously Apple could also drop the entry price (and spec) for the Pro down instead.

The irony for Apple now is that Intel have officially launched Kaby lake U series CPUs suitable for the Macbook Pro a matter of weeks after Skylake chips were announced in the 2016 Macbook Pros. That doesn't mean they are shipping of course but they can't be far away but Apple will probably keep using the Skylake ones for the Mac Mini, because it would be macabre if the Mini actually stepped ahead of the Macbook Pro in terms of technology.

Two notable points - the Iris Pro GPU in them is actually called the Iris 650 Plus and the RAM naysayers will remain angry if RAM remains LPDDR3-1866 and 16Gb maximum.

Note also that there's a tasty 45w i5-7300HQ on offer from Apple - it uses 45w (within the current Mac Mini case heat limit), has 4 cores (no hyper threading because it's an i5) and runs at 2.5GHz but has only got HD630 graphics. Given that all the Macbook Pros have Iris Graphics - even the one with a 15w MBA CPU - this is extremely unlikely to get into any Apple product unless a completely new one is coming.

Now that the Kaby Lake desktop CPUs have been officially launched the i7-7700K cpu (that would go into the iMac) shows no appreciable clock for clock improvement over Skylake. There's no Iris Pro version for a nominal 21.5" iMac but there's serious doubts that there is one on the roadmap - which makes a decision to go with a slight speed bump over the Broadwell CPU that's in the current Retina iMac look a bit odd because they'll have to go to a CPU+GPU by the following generation.

OK, this is the Mini thread but what does waiting an additional 4-5 months for Kaby Lake on the desktop offer for Apple if it's not an implicit speed increase clock for clock due to architecture?

The iMacs go with the K variants of the Skylake CPUs for pure speed reasons so it makes sense that Apple will choose the Kaby Lake K CPUs for the effective speed bump.

Allows faster speeds of DDR4 RAM
Has built-in support for USB-C on the motherboard chipset (doesn't require Alpine Ridge controller), saving money, space on the motherboard, and power consumption
Onboard GPU supports 4k decoding/encoding in hardware (HEVC h265 and Google VP9) which will help FCPX
Optane SSD becomes available for memory/storage

Things don't look great for the Mac Pro for 2017 but the iMac can't accommodate the number of cores in an Intel CPU required to match the Mac Pro - perhaps Apple aren't getting value for money from the low volume Xeon purchases and assembly in USA?

Most rumours suggest that we won't be seeing revolutionary desktop Mac upgrades thanks to the engineering teams being seconded to help get the tardy 2016 Macbook Pros out the door. Perhaps all we can really expect is a speed bump to add USB-C ports to a spring iMac with a Mini getting the same treatment. It's certainly too early to assume that AMD's Ryzen (formerly Zen) 8 core solution would stand any kind of chance in a future Apple product (without Thunderbolt 3) in my opinion though.
 
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I sooo much wanted a mini..... 2 years ago.
If apple had been fast they could have made money selling me a Mini (that would now collect dust)
Then VR came....now I wonder what the hell I was thinking.
I love my ipads, iphones, watch airpods etc. .... have a 2011 macbook pro and its not being replaced .... my dreams of a mac mini is also gone.

Im back on a gaming VR PC..... and not looking back
 
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