We seem to be intermixing TB the spec and the current TB implementation.
Also You cannot daisy chain two of those USB3 displays.
Also You cannot daisy chain two of those USB3 displays.
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Top of the line current gen vs Upcoming Mac Mini
- Thread starter Engali
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Yea, I know.
What is important is that the new mac mini should have both. Then we can choose which bus we want to use. Its just a bus. That guy is a little too passionate about buses. (BTW does the "banned" title under his name mean what I think it means? ha.)
I'm hoping the top model has a quad core cpu with dedicated graphics but I'm doubting that will happen due to the tiny internal power supply.
Yea, that would be great. I don't see why you need an internal power supply anyways. They should use an external brick like the MacBook Pros.
Less heat in the case, more room, and possibly more power.
I am not sure about the power requirements of a mini, but even if they could use a macbook pro power supply, maybe they could reduce costs of an external brick.
The original G4 Mini's had an external power supply. And maybe the first gen Intel ones. They could go back to that design but I highly doubt it.
From the G4 mini thru Late '09 mini all had 110w ext. power brick units ..
The Mid '10 - onwards has 85w internal power units.... now 2012 mini is up in the air on specs 'til apple decides release 'em..
And people were happy about the internal power supply?
Like people thought it mattered?
Or Apple called it Revolutionary and no one talked about it, or cared?
Just curious to see if you guys cared. I hadn't given the mini any attention until now, 'cause I want one.
Like people thought it mattered?
Or Apple called it Revolutionary and no one talked about it, or cared?
Just curious to see if you guys cared. I hadn't given the mini any attention until now, 'cause I want one.
+1 for me, as I have the 2011 Base i% 2.3 Mini with 8GB, but the USB Drives I have are all 3.0 or 2.0
I just found this thread and decided to have a read, after seeing your post above.
I have to say, I agree with the banned bloke! I posted much the same stuff myself elsewhere in the forums some weeks and months back.
IIRC, the USB3 chipset costs less than $1 these days, so Apple's not including it cannot have been a serious cost issue. It must have been a marketing choice, and for the consumer, a bad marketing choice. It forced me to spend £220 on a TB external disk and cable that would have cost me £70 had I been able to do it with USB3.
Great business to be in, extortion. I don't know if that's how Apple planned it to be, but that's how it's panned out with the pitiful uptake of TB and horrendous cost of the peripherals. I also seriously wonder if there have been some bad design decisions in the implementation of TB as well. Whoever thought it was a good idea to put electronics into what would normally be a passive cable, wants shooting imho. They should have stuffed those parts into the gear at each end and kept the cable passive.
That'd be so sweet.
I'm in a different position, I'm waiting for new Mac Mini to have it as a main machine for working - video editing and graphics. I know some of you may not think that Mini is a good choice for this but since my backup machine for past 5 months has been MB Air i5 (2011 model), I beg to differ. That little beast handled HD video editing and live VJing performances - impressive!
The only thing to complain about is the encoding times - so if the new Mini has quad-core i7, I think I'll be content with that. Dedicated GPU would be nice but I don't use that many applications that would take advantage of it (I only play Minecraft and retro games haha
I have one older Mac Mini that I use as HTPC. The OP is looking for long lasting value but from my experience, my 2009 Mini (2,3 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM) is an excellent HTPC. With Snow Leopard it's really good, with Lion it's slower due to the low amount of RAM but for it's purposes, it is a great machine.
And guess what? I paid like $200 for it, in great working condition, boxed with CDs off of eBay. It has Plex installed which can stream media to my iPad when I'm cooking. It handles Full HD files just fine, foreign subtitles, everything that I can think of.
So if I were you, I'd buy used 2010 or 2011 Mini, put 4GB RAM in there and just get Xbox or PC for gaming. But that is just my opinion.
At the frequencies involved, the TB cable is a tuned transmission line. As such, it requires tuned data transceivers at both ends which accommodate the electrical characteristics of the wire, especially the length, to avoid reflections and ringing.
Since each cable design is unique, and the length can be very short, to quite long, the circuitry in each cable is designed and tuned for that specific cable. Trying to put the electronics in the gear at each end would seriously compromise the performance with various cable alternatives.
I am sure that over time, many of these issues will be resolved and the costs will decrease ... but right now the technology is at the expensive leading edge.
-howard
Another factor to consider is that of exchange rate movements since July 2011. I fully expect anything released tomorrow to have a chunky price increase in prices, so if you are in Euroland, I would look to splash the cash today on a 2011 refurb and if you don't like what gets released tomorrow, you at least take advantage of last year's exchange rates. If on the other hand anything spectacular gets announced, you can always take your new computer back for a refund and get a new one...
Dude! an iPhone has got higher resolution than that!
Any graphics card would be good, but keep in mind that you may "and probably gonna have to" change to a new display, so an HD4000 is good.
Do people think the FireWire Port is going to go in the next mini?
Think I better get one of the current ones if this is the case, also is there any point in the product cycle with Macs, where a unit gets a price reduction just before the new one comes on line or does this not happen with Apple?
Thanks
Think I better get one of the current ones if this is the case, also is there any point in the product cycle with Macs, where a unit gets a price reduction just before the new one comes on line or does this not happen with Apple?
Thanks
What if I wanted to multitask with a Youtube video, spider solitaire, and possibly Yahoo messenger all at once?
Not in the real world. Many customers need fast, easy, low-cost and backwards-compatible solutions like USB 3.0.
My Early-2011 17" MBP came with two installation DVDs.No discs with the 2011 models, because there's nowhere to put them.
That's all fine and dandy, but this thread is about Mac Minis, which didn't have optical drives in the latest refresh.