Apple unveils a new Mac Mini | Hacker News Reader

Apple unveils a new Mac Mini

theverge.com

19 pointsduartetb17 comments

minor refresh, practically the same. very sad because the mini was long long overdue for a refresh.

Whats missing?

it's underpowered compared to NUC's (and similar) in it's price range, even after adding hdd's and ram to the NUC kit if you don't buy it pre-made.

the top $1k model still is only a dual core cpu.

it comes with a slow 5400 rpm drive instead of a ssd. even the pro $1k model has a slow 5400 rpm mechanical drive unless you pay extra for the upgrade.

not to mention thunderbolt ports have not really caught on outside the apple-peripheral community, would have liked to see more USB3's than thunderbolts.

(also not sure about their claim of "lowest power computer in the world", guess it depends what your definition of a computer is, because RPi takes 700mW. None-the-less, some of the NUC kits sip only 8W or less, while the new Mini is rated at 83W)

Intel NUC uses low TDP mobile CPUs. The new Mini uses regular TDP mobile CPUs. The fastest NUC tops at 1.3GHz with Intel HD 5000 graphics. The new Mini tops at 3.0GHz with Intel Iris graphics.

If you are refering to compact desktop computers there aren't many (none?) that use regular TDP mobile CPUs, have Intel Iris graphics and are virtually silent. The only ones that are similar or have better specs are the Gigabyte Brix Pro line of compact desktops and most of them are noisy or extremely noisy and have bad cooling solutions. I know because I've owned two and ended up selling both after only a few weeks. The only one that show promise is this [1] and I still have doubts that it will be any good...

My only issue with the new Mini's is that you used to be able to buy one with a quad core CPU and now that option is gone. Other than that...

[1] http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5156

Gigabyte has a model[1] with the Intel Iris Pro 5200 graphics which includes a 128 MB L4 DRAM cache. The Iris Pro is a big jump up[2] from the Iris 5000 graphics.

[1]: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4888

[2]: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8175/gigabyte-brix-pro-a-secon...

And it's still cheaper than the best new Mac Mini, and it will way way out perform it.

That BRIX you linked to has a quad core with hyper threading (8 threads), and Iris Pro graphics (you can do some gaming with this, not just hi-def video).

And when outfited with 16GB of RAM, and a 240GB SSD, this puppy is what the new Mac Mini should have been. (only this is cheaper!)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemLi...

And according to this review, it sips about 82w at full throttle:

http://www.missingremote.com/review/gigabyte-brix-pro-gb-bxi...

So, it uses less power than the Mac Mini, busting Apple's claim that their new Mac Mini is the "lowest power computer in the world".

All-in-all, you'd have to be a fool to buy the new Mini. Especially given we can expect the current (new) Mini hardware to be the same for another 2-3 years without a refresh, and given the difficulty you will have trying to upgrade it with more RAM, HDD, etc.

Only missing feature is the ability to run Mac OS X without a bunch of weird hacks and instability. :(

who says I want to run Mac OS X? ;-P

I would of bought the mini then wiped it anyways. I've found Linux to be a much better home server/build server anyways. And now that Steam is on Linux, I could game on the same box. Great setup.

Maybe you don't, but people considering a Mac Mini probably do.

I tried running a Hackintosh, and gave up after the third instance of unrecoverable disk corruption. :(

Yes, I know. I had one of those. It uses a "special" 65W TDP desktop class CPU. The cooling solution is pretty crappy and noisy as hell.

Sounds like a fault in the cooling solution. I'm sure Apple could find a way to dissipate 65W in a Mac Mini chassis.

There's also 47/55W mobile processors with Iris Pro, one of which Apple uses in the 15" rMBP. Several historical unibody Mac Mini models had a 45 W processor.

It has 2 thunderbolts and 4 USB 3.0 ports...

http://www.apple.com/mac-mini/specs/

yes but plug in a keyboard, mouse, and this leaves only 2 ports. Some USB sticks are girthy and will take up 2 slots, meaning you may really only have 1 slot to use. I'd of preferred one or two more USB3's instead of the second thunderbolt port personally.

Did they drop the server version?

the server edition really was the same but had no cd drive in lieu of an optional second hdd, and it came pre-installed with OSX server (which most wiped anyways in favor of a linux or BSD flavor)

The second drive was useful because you could RAID the boot volume using Disk Utility, and then use 3rd party software to RAID external USB drives. Cheaper than what appears to be their new plan for data reliability: Buy an expensive Thunderbolt RAID enclosure.

unlikely you'd actually need the full 10Gbps from the thunderbolt. As you said, they are way overpriced since Apple is really the only company using Thunderbolt.

You could try out a USB3 external as a possible alternative, 6Gbps is still likely faster than even an array of SSD's.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com