That might be fun, Mac Classic, Mac Nano, Mac Touch....Mac Shuffle.Mac nano
That might be fun, Mac Classic, Mac Nano, Mac Touch....Mac Shuffle.Mac nano
Imagine if you could hack an Apple TV to run Big Sur. Hmmm. Mac Mini mini.
If MacOS is optimized properly for the hardware, I’m sure it would run fine. I doubt that it would be a workhorse but it could do some basic tasks, like a MacOS Raspberry Pi.AppleTV Mk6 is expected to come with 64 or 128Gb SSD and the A12X SoC (4-6Gb RAM). Probably not really the ideal box to be running macOS on.
If the ARM mini has solid thermals, a strong gpu (No need for an egpu), and fixed Bluetooth and WiFi, I am in.
I would like a Mini, but these four things prevent me from jumping on.
I would assume that the A12z GPU, if it matches the iPad Pro 2020, will have graphics comparable to top end MacBook Pro Iris Graphics. This would represent a real terms improvement on the HD630 graphics in 2018 Mac mini.
And we could have even better A14x graphics to look forward to on a consumer launch product.
Thanks for answering, but I hope they will be more powerful and Apple improves the thermals.
The only downside would be the likely relative lack of single threaded performance that affects any ARM CPU at the moment.
It's the other way around. Single threaded performance is great. What is lacking is multi-threaded performance due to a lack of cores.
the reference material I was looking at was an Anandtech article about Amazon Graviton 2 - an ARM server CPU. That page full of benchmarks suggests it’s close to AMD Epyc but lagging Xeon platinum.
Wouldn't it make more sense to look at the current A-series from Apple instead of an unrelated implementation of AArch64 suited for server farms?
Forgetting about the developer transition kit for a second, the Mini is a small and often overlooked part of Apple's line up, but one that is much loved by all who own it. What are your hopes for a new Apple Silicon based Mac mini?
I think Apple's move to their own SoC presents a fantastic future for the mini if they choose to continue with the product. I think they may go quite wacky with it in terms of the sizing and possibly the power and graphics available due to the reduced size and heat constraints the switch brings.
For me, and I know this almost certainly won't happen, but I'd love to see the mini split into Mac mini and Mac mini Pro lines.
Mac mini:
I'd love to see this back in the $499 range, which should be doable even with their usual markup. The Core i3 in the current mini currently retails at $133, bear in mind this is 2 years after it launched. Apple will receive a discount for bulk however the CPU alone is not the only outgoing cost to a third party.
- A really small design, not considerably larger than a Raspberry Pi
- Standard consumer level AXX chip
- Passively cooled, entirely silent
- 2 x USB 4 ports
- 2 x USB 3 type A ports
- 1 x HDMI port
- WIFI 6, I could see Apple dropping ethernet though, adapters are very cheap and I'd wager lot's of users use WIFI, might be quite controversial which Apple seems to love lately.
- Powered through one of the USB 4 ports, iPad style "charger" sufficient to power the unit
Mac mini Pro:
I'd like to see this in the $999-$1499 range depending on options. User replaceable RAM/SSD would be amazing to see, but very unlikely I'm sure.
- A larger design, but not considerably larger than the current Intel mini, if at all
- Faster SoC, we don't know what the silicon strategy will look like at this stage but something really speedy would be nice, same SoC from the high end ARM iMacs as an option?
- Actively cooled, but very quiet
- Up to 128GB RAM/4TB SSD (ECC memory option? very unlikely)
- 2 extra USB 4 ports, ethernet standard and with a 10Gb ethernet option available
- Traditional power cord, but no power brick, built in to the unit
So these are my wishes, I think in reality we'll probably just end up with something similar to the basic Mini I've described. Apple have always been very hesitant to release anything that eats into the iMac line, people have been pining for the xMac on here for at least 15 years and Apple have always resisted. With that said if Apple do release the basic Mac mini similar to what I've described, I'm sure it will be a great seller and I'll certainly take one.
What do you think the new Mac mini will be like?
Wouldn't it make more sense to look at the current A-series from Apple instead of an unrelated implementation of AArch64 suited for server farms?
My guess is that Apple will initially stick their custom silicon into the existing Mac mini chassis (like the current Developer's Transition Kit). At some point, they will release an Apple Silicon Mac mini designed specifically for the new hardware. Then they will refresh the new design with better internals. It's the latter (3rd gen) unit that I would ideally purchase.
Isn't this showing that the Core 9900K and Ryzen 3900X are both about 15% faster than the A13? Not sure if this is single core or multi-core though.
It shows that the A13 matches the Core 9900K and Ryzen 3900X in integer performance but trails both by 15% in floating point performance.
What is interesting is that the A13 only uses around 5 Watt to reach that performance level.
Too expensive as an HTPC or game console. Apple set course on a different direction.I am interested in it as an Apple 4K TV replacement.