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The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming
- Thread starter GabrieleR
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Buys a Mac with a spinning hard drive in 2017...complains about performance
Not paying over a grand for three year old technology with an SSD. Was expecting more. I really was surprised at the lack of performance. I did not expect it to be so noticeable. Also, the graphics are lackluster. My 2015 MB Air connected to the same monitor looks much better.
Trying to be a fanboy here, but Apple also has to make the effort. The price of the mini should have been reduced after three years with no updates. That way I would have felt better paying a reasonable price to get one with an SSD. If that were the case we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
A spinner is like swimming with a 500 pound boat anchor tied to your neck.
You see, therein lies the problem. They still have customers for their 3-year-old overpriced stuff, lots of them, and you are one of them...
Maybe, during WWDC, along with the refreshes for laptops (if that happens) there will be a silent lowering of the price of the mini. That would be encouraging? Almost certainly.
You bought a slow system because you couldn't justify making it faster? You are making this really tough.....
I would return it personally. Or install a SSD. It won't be as fast as what Apple was offering (PCIe) but it will make a night and day difference.
Maybe I'm being overly cynical today, but let's just call it what it is. The next iteration of the Mac Mini and Mac Pro will either win back their technical customers or cut that last remaining bit of loyalty from our souls. (forcing us all to either go the way of the hackintosh or give in to get Linux or even Windows powered systems - as many in here have already done).
I mean, for how little they change MacOS, how much could they possibly be investing?? As it's the preferred dev platform for their precious iOS, let it run free on all hardware platforms and either get out of the PC market or just make yourselves a niche laptop company. But make MacOS available for all, so you have your Dev community.
I mean, for how little they change MacOS, how much could they possibly be investing?? As it's the preferred dev platform for their precious iOS, let it run free on all hardware platforms and either get out of the PC market or just make yourselves a niche laptop company. But make MacOS available for all, so you have your Dev community.
This sadly is the Apple of today - overpriced, outdated kit. It looks pretty but performance is dire on the base models. Apple used to have great software and great hardware, now they've let the hardware become thin and light for the sake of it at the expense of performance and usability. Microsoft are now giving them a serious run for their money. Only time will tell, but I can see lots of students with the Surface Laptop as it comes with Office. That's all most students need. Not Pages and Numbers, but real Microsoft Office. If Apple become 'uncool' with that market, then they will lose out on services and phones too which is where they make a lot of money.
Apple need to produce a massive overhaul to the entire Mac line up this year. It's been neglected for too long and we really, really aren't in a Post-PC era no matter what Apple execs like to think.
Ahh lets look at it from the sheeples perspective.
The 2014 Mac Mini has wifi AC, BT 4.0 (standard in 2014), modern PCIe storage solutions using above average SSDs, gigabit ethernet, etc etc..... Honestly I wouldn't build a PC with much more....
The CPU is the elephant in the room but lets really take a look at that before criticizing it too much (and their will be some opinion mixed in with facts here so bear with me).....
CPU:
Intels U series of processors has become commonplace in MiniPCs. Its whats found in the NUC and some others. Dual core, low power usage with integrated graphics.
Intels NUC was using U series (dual core) long before Apple and I guess Apple decided to take that page out of their book. And honestly its not a bad decision for a MiniPC that is essentially setup to be an HTPC type device anymore.
Apple released the 2014 Mac Mini with Haswell. At the time Intels own NUC was still using Haswell. The Broadwell-U CPUs weren't released until Q1'15. Clearly not something Apple could have used being it hadn't been released yet to reference your "behind a year" statement.
Intels top tier 4th gen NUC used a i5-4250U which the top tier 2014 Mini i7-4578U easily bested in performance. Yes, Apples MiniPC used a more powerful Intel CPU than Intels MiniPC.
Intels top tier 5th gen NUC (released early 2015) used a i7-5557U which was only slightly faster than the top tier 2014 Mini since it was an incremental update.
Speaking of incremental updates. Kaby Lake U series isn't something we should be getting excited for at least not the CPUs raw computational power itself. I bet if Apple modified the "About this Mac" to say Kaby Lake in the Mini it would go unnoticed for a very long time. And aside from wanting the latest and greatest are people honestly shopping for Mac Minis with CPU performance in mind? "My boss is going to fire me if I don't get this project done! If only I had a moderately faster low power dual core CPU!" meh. I currently have a blu ray MKV software encoding on a Sandy Bridge dual core (i7-2640M), sure takes longer but its not a bottleneck that prevents me from accomplishing task. If someone has specific CPU needs for specific CPU task its unlikely they will be shopping MiniPCs.
Now I'm in no way saying I feel Apple should stick with older/obsolete CPUs in upcoming devices just given the options available we are betting on a snail race.
Also just to reference the current NUC7 only comes with dual core CPU's however the NUC6 had an i7-6770K (quad core) option and you can still find it for around 600 dollars (bare bones, need your own SSD and RAM). Its a good machine and I recommend it if you want/need a MiniPC.
iGPU:
This is the real problem (IMO) and I'll be first to admit that.
Firstly integrated graphics specifically Intels integrated graphics suck for anything other than the most basic graphical task. They just barely maintain current standards which quickly makes integrated graphics outdated. Which leads to the Minis problem, if its not updated regularly it quickly loses support for the latest standards.
However lets also keep in mind even if the 2014 used Broadwell-U (assuming it was released earlier) it wouldn't have been too much better. For reference Haswell has Iris 5xxx while Broadwell has Iris 6xxx. Similar limitations of max resolutions and frame rate still apply over HDMI (specifically when referencing the U series) for both however I believe the Iris 6100 could do 4k60hz over DP.
But if all you had was a 8 bit 1080p display even iGPU isn't much of a problem. And please don't mention gaming, all Intels options suck for that....
TL;DR : The iGPU is the only problem with the current Mini, aside from that the rest of the "tech" is fine even by todays standards. Intels lousy iGPUs in combination with Apples reluctance to update the Mini caused it to become what I would consider "obsolete" for MY standards (namely 4k60hz).
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After all that writing and all I can say is the 2014 was an abortion and abomination of what the 2012 was. Sorry to put you through all of that.
Its really no problem, I actually enjoy talking tech and researching stuff like this regardless if you or anyone reads it. This is just much less weird then writing a journal....
Can I make the assumption you feel that way because it had a quad core option and was more upgradable?
I wasn't interested in Minis until the last year or so. I won't deny if I was around watching the 2012 release and then around watching the 2014 release I would have been underwhelmed. However my lack of interest in either I feel makes my opinion more unbiased (at least not nostalgia based). I just see CPU downgraded for specific task and difficult/impossible to upgrade certain components. Most of the rest of it saw upgrades Wifi AC, PCIe SSD, Thunderbolt 2, etc...
Oh well to each their own. Hopefully the next Mini is more to both our liking....
Assumption correct.
I do not plan on seeing another one but if their is I would consider for a server.
I held out hope until last year and have gone Hackintosh for my main machine along with boots for Windows 10 and Linux SSDs.
The trifecta! I'm in the process of doing the same thing with a ThinkPad T420 just for kicks. I just need to replace the wifi card because its unsupported by MacOS from what I read (Intel).
No partitions either.....Ubuntu GNOME 17.04 on mSATA, Windows 10 Creators on an SSD in the ultra bay, and hopefully MacOS on an SSD in the main drive bay.
Find yourself one of these:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/fenvi-pcie-adapter-bcm94360cd-wifi-bluetooth-100-working.204178/
The thinkpad is actually a laptop so that might not work
. However being Lenovo the card is replaceable and thanks to Tonymac I know what I need to get I just been dragging my feet. Before investing anymore money (I've added 2x250gb SSD, 250gb mSata, installed a higher res screen, upgraded the CPU ~300 bucks) I might just use ethernet to make sure I can get it to work first. Plus I mostly use Linux and the current Intel card works perfectly so I'll need to research broadcom options a bit. The process doesn't seem overly difficult however I've never done it before so I know I'll run into some hiccups.
Indeed. it has all been down hill after the 2012 Quad Core i7.
Funny how people complain about people complaining about Apple. Now I go out and buy an Apple product to show my support and stay in the club, yet still I get critisized for trying. Hmmm.
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Not that hard to understand. I DID NOT EXPECT THE COMPUTER TO BE SOO SLOW.... Of course an SSD would be faster, but again I thought I could live with a spinner and the specs the way it was. The price was right and it was Apple. My mistake for trying.
My second point is to spend any more than I did would have been unreasonable for aged technology. Again, my mistake. I already have an Apple wireless keyboard, mouse and 4K monitor, so all I needed was a desktop like the mini. There are no other Apple products that would fit my needs. I needed a new desktop so I tried the current mini.
For the record, I bought it at $100 off. So it cost me $599. If I would have bought one with an SSD I would have had to buy it at the Apple Store and I was not going to buy retail.
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In part I was criticizing you with my snide comment and for that I apologize, childish of me.
You just seemed like you knew it was an issue beforehand then made out like the victim. And while I agree a 5400rpm HDD is a bad idea in a computer for the OS and programs it can still be fixed. Return it if at all possible (they are lenient for anything other then iOS devices especially if you are buying a more expensive product), if not upgrading the HDD to an SSD isn't terribly difficult and would be cheaper as well.
Since an SSD makes the biggest difference I wouldn't consider it a waste putting it into an older machine (above I mention I have 3 SSDs in a 6 yo laptop). Plus it'll greatly helps resale value and the speed in which it will sell. And of course the obvious thing is it will run infinitely faster and better.
I think it goes a little beyond that. The base 2014 1.4ghz model feels noticeably slower than the base 2012 2.5ghz model, I have owned both. Then Apple boasted the 2014 base model was only $500. The list price on the base 2012 was $600, however at the point when they introduced the 2014 Mini it was going for a street price of $550. And was well worth the extra $50.
I think it goes a little beyond that. The base 2014 1.4ghz model feels noticeably slower than the base 2012 2.5ghz model, I have owned both. Then Apple boasted the 2014 base model was only $500. The list price on the base 2012 was $600, however at the point when they introduced the 2014 Mini it was going for a street price of $550. And was well worth the extra $50.
This is a very good point, thank you for bringing it up it that never crossed my mind.
However again I need to be "that guy"....
The 1.4ghz dual core CPU in the 2014 base model is a reasonable replacement for the 2.5ghz dual core in the 2012 base model if they wanted to move the line up to the low power series. Like many of Intels low clocked CPUs its heavily bolstered by a massive turboboost, nearly doubles to 2.7ghz. Because of that plus other factors with Haswell, better graphics, etc benchmarks look like this compared to the 2012 base model CPU.
2014 is the i5-4260U, 2012 is the i5-3210M.
I know benchmarks don't represent reality, your experience for example. However since the 2012 base model was also dual core that kind of makes 2014 base model an actual upgrade (at least on paper) and where it starts to falter some we can just keep in mind its 100 dollars cheaper.
The very next processor in Intels line up for the U series is the CPU they are using in their middle tier unit and the base clock is much higher with a lot less of a boost ratio. So options were somewhat limited.
Conspiracy theory alert.....When Apple first listed this particular CPU for the Mini I researched and found its performance (again on paper) not to be lacking as much as I initially thought due to its base clock. However there are other CPU's they could have used or bumped the middle tier up one so all the clock speeds appeared similar. However your average consumer will look at 1.4ghz and say "hell no" and immediately pay for the next model up which in reality is a very minute incremental bump in performance. Matter of fact according to Intels ARK the prices are identical however going to the middle tier you also get more RAM and storage so its not a complete sham....
I fail to get the obsession of some that a Mac Mini should come standard with SSD, to satisfy the up-market fantasy some think they are buying into with Apple products, and that HDD is somehow cheapening the brand.
The ruggedness of SSD means it has become the standard for portable computers, which do tend to take some knocks.
For desktops, where mass storage is often required, HDD remains a more cost effective, and will be around for a few more years yet. If snappy performance is a priority, SSD has long been available as an option. And for those who want some of the benefit of both there is Fusion Drive.
Simple really…. Choose what best suits your situation.
The new Mac Mini is almost certainly coming with a choice of HDD, SSD or Fusion Drive.
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Yep. Desktops, in some form or other, are not going away anytime soon.
Not everything needs to be smaller and more mobile.
Horse for courses.
Seriously..? Can't believe you'd happily accept such mediocrity.
The wealthiest tech company can't spare the tiniest bit of cash from their billions to put in a token amount of flash in every Mac as standard?
The mini makes up such a small fraction of their sales that doing so would be tinier than a rounding error... but make a tangible difference to their customers' experience.
Micky Don't.
5000rpm? Apple's got some sort of time-portal open, and they're buying these things from 1992.