ArsTechnica Reviews The Intel Mac Mini (Core Solo)

phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has put together a review of the recently announced Intel-powered Mac mini. The model reviewed was the public's first look at a Core Solo desktop from Apple and the results are promising: 'Up until Apple's "fun" announcement on the last day of February, there was really no indication of how Apple's low-end Intel offerings would be presented. Now that Apple has disclosed the specification and price points for their entry-level machines, we can get a better idea of where Apple is trying to take their product line. For those people who might be unaware, two new Mac Mini models were released and by most accounts, the products have been well received aside from a few quibbles over specifications.'"

Comments

Upgradable

[tak amalak]

I'm happy it's al least processor upgradable. See here. Upgrading the processor would speed the internal graphics as well. Not a bad little bugger.

Re:Upgradable

[Binestar]

You wouldn't get OS X I know, but don't all slashdoters replace that with linux anyways?

You're behind the times. No, most slashdotters won't replace OS X with linux. Hell, most slashdotters use windows.

Re:Upgradable

[jcgf]

I figured that like me they just had to use it at work.

Re:Upgradable

[BenjyD]

I think a lot of Slashdotters are going in the other direction, linux to OSX.

Re:Upgradable

[clifyt]

"So we reverted to Linux, where updates are free forever."

Hmmm...$60 a year is too much?

I guess thats why the mainstream media still considers Linux a Hobbiest Platform.

I know in the past, I have paid more than that for access to RedHat's up2date servers (I think thats what it was) -- and I had no problem with paying to make certain that my OS was supported and the fixes were automated to the point I didn't have to worry about having to geek out every single day of my life. Some of our lives revolve around non-technical activities.

For those that love technology and love getting their hands dirty (I use to do the same), I guess its not a bad thing to be a hobbiest and play around with this sort of stuff. But when your livelyhood depends on it -- $60 a year isn't a bad thing. Thats less than one hour of billable work for a client.

But yeah, I have a few unpatched, unsupported boxes running around that I couldn't care less about. Heck, I've got a G4 sitting around still on 10.1 because I didn't want to update. Guess what -- it STILL gets patches sent to it (and I keep forgetting I need to turn that auto-updater off as I don't want it messed with because I definately don't want QT7 or whatever its up to now -- on that box as I've already paid for the Pro version of the last and I don't want to have to deal with any incompatibilities with Final Cut and Logic on that box -- both older versions because they work).

So I understand...mainstream media is right about you...

Re:Upgradable

[tigersha]

No, I know one Slashdotter who decided to splurge on a Powerbook after Suse screwed him over for the nth time and X was still not working. Me.

And he will never go back to Linux on a Desktop.

Linux is free as in beer. Not bloody likely. Linux is free as in Syphilis.

Re:Upgradable

[otis wildflower]

Linux is free as in Syphilis.

ROFL.. QFT!

My complaint: integrated video.

[Hamster Lover]

I have a 1.42 G4 Mac Mini with 512 MB and was very impressed with the Intel version. Apple managed to counter every complaint with an improvement -- SPDIF audio in and out, additional USB ports, SATA hard drive, etc. I expect to buy one within the next few months and retire my G4 to the living room for use a VLC media centre.

My only disappointment was the integrated video. I was hoping for something better than the Intel chipset, and it's shared video memory to boot.

Someone convince me I am wrong...

Re:My complaint: integrated video.

[Golias]

Someone convince me I am wrong...

Wish I could. It seems to be everybody's "only problem" with the machine. It would be a sweet little media unit if they even managed to slap in fair-to-middlin' 128 MB video card.

As it is, it's an awesome li'l feller for a lot of headless tasks (as an example, my old G4 mini has been rack-mounted as an audio processor, and is only accessed via VNC on the Airport card), but it still falls just barely short of being a media center "dream system."

Lucky for me, with my projector at the back of the room and a re-arranged coat closet next to it, I have plenty of space for a dual-G5 tower... but I feel a little sympathy for mac-heads who need something small and unobtrusive in their living-room TV cabinets, yet still want full HDTV resolutions and maybe the occasional 3D gaming experience. The new mini seems to come about 90% of the way to meeting their needs.

Re:My complaint: integrated video.

[Golias]

On the old G4 mini, my experience was that Quicktime generally out-performed VLC (which seemed to out-perform MPlayer). YMMV.

I was always under the impression that the problem with integrated graphics was that the cooperative sharing of memory between the CPU and GPU created a performance hit. That's not really something you can get around by writing "better drivers." It's just the nature of the beast.

Re:My complaint: integrated video.

[heinousjay]

I'm not sure how you picked up an informative mod, since you asked questions and provided no information, but such is Slashdot.

Anywho: I couldn't tell you how it would do with an MPEG-2 stream at 1920x1080, but I do know my Core Duo mini plays 1080p H.264 QuickTime movies at full resolution with no frame dropping.

So far as games: who buys a Mac to play games in the first place? And when people do buy a gaming PC, do they typically go for the lowest end machine available? Personally, I'd have to answer no to both of those questions, so the gaming contention doesn't really make sense here.

Re:Graphics Irony

[Golias]

They weren't wrong when they said that either. The new mini is not a very good game system.

The real question is, why do you keep posting this exact same quote on every single Mac mini story? Are you just trying to get more hits for the "free mini" pyramid scam in your sig file?

You must not think it's that bad of a computer if you are willing to turn yourself into a total whore to get your hands on one.

The only thing that matter to me..

[antime]

The only really important thing to me is that they improved on the atrociously poor HDD of the original Mini. About 80% of the beach-ball-spinning I've had to endure would just go away, and videos wouldn't immediately start stuttering whenever any other program at all touched the HDD. Compiling software should also be much quicker, which is another gripe I have.

Re:The only thing that matter to me..

[Slashcrap]

Compiling software should also be much quicker, which is another gripe I have.

I expect that's exactly why they put a faster HDD in there. I bet Apple were just sick of getting thousands of support calls from first time buyers about how slowly Emacs was compiling.

In fact, that's probably why they sacrificed a better graphics chip. They just had to get those compile times down for the end user.

Incomplete benchmarks: no Mac Mini CoreDuo

[Lord Satri]

Interesting article (since I'm a potential buyer :-), however, they didn't included the new Mac Mini CoreDuo for most of their benchmarks, only the new Mac Mini CoreSolo. I don't understand why, but that's clearly a limitation of the review.

Its like this.

[NDPTAL85]

The thing is, OS X is like Linux only without the headaches and politics.

Linux is like OS X, without the ease of use and reality of actually getting things done in a timely manner.

One thing people don't mention...

[frankie]

...is that the OLD mini G4 had damn poor graphics of its own. Remember, we're comparing to a 32MB (yes, 32) ATI 9200.

For example, MacWorld's game benchmark results. In UT 2004 (at default quality settings) the new mini gets a pathetic 10-12fps ... whereas the old mini got 14fps, gee so much better.

Also, the new mini will get FASTER in the months ahead. For starters, upgrading to paired DIMMs will use the dual-channel bus, which is always a boost for shared-memory IGPs. Secondly, the Intel compilers for Mac are on the way.

Sure, a mini with GF 6200 or Radeon X200 would be better, but GMA950 is not the apocalypse some have been claiming.

Re:One thing people don't mention...

[RiscIt]

> For starters, upgrading to paired DIMMs will

They ship paired anyway.

> the Intel compilers for Mac are on the way.

Nope... they've been around for months.

Re:One thing people don't mention...

[squiggleslash]

Neither the Intel compilers nor the DIMMs will make any difference (Apple is using GCC and the DIMMs are already paired.)

That's not to say they will not get faster. They will. Applications that use Rosetta, right now, will crawl on the Core Solo and look "Ok, but nothing spectacular" on the Duo. In time, more and more such apps will become Universal Binaries.

As far as the UT2004 comparison you make, it's worth noting that comparison is:

Core Solo: 10.4fps, vs
G4 1.25GHz: 13.9fps

That puts the G4 as over 33% faster.

Core Duo: 12.22fps, vs
G4 1.42GHz: 14.5fps

That puts the G4 as over 18% faster.

In both cases, not only are all G4 models faster than all Intel models, but they also beat out (the Core Solo to the point of it being embarassing) their market equivalent. And these are comparing against the penultimate generation of Mac minis, Apple replaced (without updating the website) the last high-end Mac mini with a 1.5GHz model.

This pretty much settles it. I'm not getting a Mac mini, not this time around. I mean, this is ridiculous. The Core Duo, with its decent FSB et al, should be a good 4x as fast as the machine it replaces, yet real world benchmarks are saying anything but, with one application type being badly degraded. Gah.