Apple Killed the Mac Mini.

[Emily Young]

It’s been YEARS since Apple has released an update to the Mac Mini, the most AFFORDABLE Mac available… But it’s not so affordable anymore. So who’s it for now?

 

 

Buy a 4-core Mac Mini 2018:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/Tz9JR
From Apple: https://lmg.gg/8KVQK

 

Buy a 6-core Mac Mini 2018:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/Dck6
From Apple: https://lmg.gg/8KVQS
On Newegg: https://lmg.gg/8KVQ8

 

Buy a Hades Canyon NUC8i7VHK:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/LqRLvvI
On Newegg: https://lmg.gg/8KVQr

[Radium_Angel]

2 minutes ago, GabenJr said:

So who’s it for now

Those will little space on their desktop?

 

[DrMacintosh]

21 minutes ago, GabenJr said:

So who’s it for now?

Home servers, cheap macOS and iOS development machines, HTPC, cheapest new Mac for Audio/Video professionals inside of Logic and FinalCut, and finally it is still the entry level macOS experience?!

 

Get some people who know Apple products to do these reviews or stop making them.......or just don't click bait so hard  

[TacoSenpai]

Mac mini will have a developmental arc where they meet the spirit of Jobs-senpai stay tuned.

[Streetguru]

Does apple have an exclusive CPU deal with Intel, or do they not know what a Ryzen APU is?

I also have a crazy idea, what if we just put 4 screws on the bottom, so that the whole thing can just come off, and make it much easier to swap the RAM?

[AngryBeaver]

Outside of just wanting Mac's OS there is little to no reason to ever buy an apple product compared to other more affordable and better spec'd options. Hell there is probably a linux distro out there that feels Mac enough for people... then you always have the hackintosh if you are willing to be a little more hardware limited.

[AngryBeaver]

4 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

Does apple have an exclusive CPU deal with Intel, or do they not know what a Ryzen APU is?

I also have a crazy idea, what if we just put 4 screws on the bottom, so that the whole thing can just come off, and make it much easier to swap the RAM?

Mac's are not meant to be upgraded... not unless you take them to an authorized service center and pay 3x as much for the component and labor.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Streetguru said:

Does apple have an exclusive CPU deal with Intel

Not exclusive, just a long history with relatively little issues. Apple does buisness with companies that are nice to them. While I have no doubt that AMD would love to undercut Intel, the Mac is not in a position to switch away from Intels technology. 

 

2 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

I also have a crazy idea, what if we just put 4 screws on the bottom, so that the whole thing can just come off, and make it much easier to swap the RAM?

You could, but then it wouldn't look like a Mac mini. It's still really hard to mess up with the 2018 mini.  

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, AngryBeaver said:

Mac's are meant to be upgraded... not unless you take them to an authorized service center and pay 3x as much for the component and labor.

They should just start welding the cases together, apple users are unlikely to complain, just say it keeps dust out

[Blademaster91]

6 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

Does apple have an exclusive CPU deal with Intel, or do they not know what a Ryzen APU is?

I also have a crazy idea, what if we just put 4 screws on the bottom, so that the whole thing can just come off, and make it much easier to swap the RAM?

If Apple can fit a GPU into a Macbook, there should be room for one in the Mac Mini, but the pointless access door on the bottom has to be on purpose to keep most users from upgrading their own Mac.

[AngryBeaver]

2 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

They should just start welding the cases together, apple users are unlikely to complain, just say it keeps dust out

You are correct and all of the apple users that don't have a welded case will throw all their money at Apple for the brand new look!

[Streetguru]

2 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

If Apple can fit a GPU into a Macbook, there should be room for one in the Mac Mini, but the pointless access door on the bottom has to be on purpose to keep most users from upgrading their own Mac.

There just isn't room on the PCB for a GPU core + memory and additional cooling, it's why an APU would be perfect, especially when 6 core APUs come out next year.

Though then they'd have to price the mac at like $499 at least instead

I also forgot about thunderbolt, even though they could just use good ole USB type C instead?

 

[AngryBeaver]

6 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

There just isn't room on the PCB for a GPU core + memory and additional cooling, it's why an APU would be perfect, especially when 6 core APUs come out next year.

Though then they'd have to price the mac at like $499 at least instead

I also forgot about thunderbolt, even though they could just use good ole USB type C instead?

 

Thunderbolt 3 is still about twice as fast as USB C.

[Streetguru]

3 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

Thunderbolt 3 is still about twice as fast as USB C.

Does someone buying the cheapest mac have money for all of the thunderbolt accessories anyways? Or are they ever even going to use the PCI-e additions it has?

If AM4 is 16 cores on the desktop, and apple is actually making a new upgradable normal Mac Pro, that's a pretty easy choice rather than the 9900K

[Hunter259]

1 minute ago, Streetguru said:

Does someone buying the cheapest mac have money for all of the thunderbolt accessories anyways? Or are they ever even going to use the PCI-e additions it has?

If AM4 is 16 cores on the desktop, and apple is actually making a new upgradable normal Mac Pro, that's a pretty easy choice rather than the 9900K

Which would kill anything that uses quicksync.

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, Hunter259 said:

Which would kill anything that uses quicksync.

The mac pro doesn't have quick sync already right? It shouldn't be that big of a deal since it already has whatever AMD GPU is in the machine, unless AMD needs to stick some decoders/encoders somewhere, should put it on the chipset...

[Hunter259]

Just now, Streetguru said:

The mac pro doesn't have quick sync already right? It shouldn't be that big of a deal since it already has whatever AMD GPU is in the machine, unless AMD needs to stick some decoders/encoders somewhere, should put it on the chipset...

Which is a big reason why no one actually uses the outdated POS

[Streetguru]

Just now, Hunter259 said:

Which is a big reason why no one actually uses the outdated POS

imac pro* whatever has a xeon isn't going to have quick sync. or intel's other HEDT CPUs

[Hunter259]

1 minute ago, Streetguru said:

imac pro* whatever has a xeon isn't going to have quick sync. or intel's other HEDT CPUs

Oh. Idk why but I thought we were talking about Mac Mini. Oopsies.

 

I think Apple has an agreement with Intel. They won't ever use AMD unless something crazy happens. And Mac Pro won't use non Xeons.

[AngryBeaver]

I still think you are better off building or buying a non-apple prebuilt with higher specs for the same price then tossing on something like : Elementary OS, Solus, or Ubuntu Budgie.

 

Much better machine with a OS that very closely resembles that of Mac.

[Streetguru]

25 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

I still think you are better off building or buying a non-apple prebuilt with higher specs for the same price then tossing on something like : Elementary OS, Solus, or Ubuntu Budgie.

 

Much better machine with a OS that very closely resembles that of Mac.

Naturally, for the $700 of the base mac mini you can get a R5 2600, 16GBs of RAM, and an RX 570/580

[corrado33]

Jesus christ what a shitshow. Why on EARTH is the video named "Apple Killed the Mac Mini". This is the most blatant click baity title every. 

 

The bad things linus had to say were:

 

No integrated gpu: Uh yeah, neither do 80% of all laptops and small form factor PCs out there. But they often don't support thunderbolt egpu so.... Only AMD support? Oh boo wooo... it's not like AMD doesn't have decent offerings now-a-day.

Thermals aren't great: No shit, it's a tiny fucking computer. What did you expect?

Upgradeable with only the right tools: Is this not fucking true for every fucking laptop and SFF PC ever? What a shitty thing to complain about. And the "special tools" he's talking about are a pair of torx bit drivers. Wow.... real special.

 

The hatred of apple by LTT is so blatantly obvious in this video it's painful. They literally nitpicked every single thing they could then titled the video "Apple killed the mac mini" when a much more reasonable title would have been "Apple Mac Mini, great performance in a small package with tons of expansions options available." (Which is essentially what linus concluded.) 

 

Let's skip over saying anything nice about the computer and just pick on all the quote "bad things" unquote. 

 

Oh the storage isn't user upgradeable... oh boo wooo... it's not like the thunderbolt 3 connections don't offer fucking 40 Gb/s transfer rates, much faster than any mechanical hard drive and faster than SATA. No, it's such a shame that the storage isn't upgradable /s

 

The mac mini is a good freaking computer. Sure, it may be a bit overpriced right now, but it's brand freaking new. Give it a few months. 

 

It's meant to be either A. an entry level mac, or B. essentially a "docking" station for people who don't want to buy a real mac. Want a GPU, use an eGPU, want more storage? Get some external storage. Want more monitors? Use the other thunderbolt ports.

 

This makes me so angry. This is probably the BEST computer apple has released recently, and you guys decided to make people believe it was a shit computer. 

 

Of COURSE you can build a desktop for cheaper. That's true with ANY LAPTOP or SMALL FORM FACTOR pc out there. People who buy this are people who WANT the smallness of it, so they pay more for it. 

[Streetguru]

2 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

 

The laptops that don't have a GPU cost less than the mac mini, and the main issue with it as with most apple products is that you can get better hardware(even with an ITX PC build) for less than the mac mini's base price.

A small PC doesn't have to have poor cooling, you could any cooler like this on it(with proper design naturally) and it wouldn't have any thermal issues, or make it like half an inch taller and stick an even bigger cooler in it.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0037AKXKM/?tag=pcpapi-20

If the soldered SSD breaks you have to replace the entire motherboard, it would be a very simple matter to just have an M.2 slot instead.

Even apple users are likely better off just buying an older macbook to use instead, at least it's portable and has a built in display with most of the same features.

[AngryBeaver]

4 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Jesus christ what a shitshow. Why on EARTH is the video named "Apple Killed the Mac Mini". This is the most blatant click baity title every. 

 

The bad things linus had to say were:

 

No integrated gpu: Uh yeah, neither do 80% of all laptops and small form factor PCs out there. But they often don't support thunderbolt egpu so.... Only AMD support? Oh boo wooo... it's not like AMD doesn't have decent offerings now-a-day.

Thermals aren't great: No shit, it's a tiny fucking computer. What did you expect?

Upgradeable with only the right tools: Is this not fucking true for every fucking laptop and SFF PC ever? What a shitty thing to complain about. And the "special tools" he's talking about are a pair of torx bit drivers. Wow.... real special.

 

The hatred of apple by LTT is so blatantly obvious in this video it's painful. They literally nitpicked every single thing they could then titled the video "Apple killed the mac mini" when a much more reasonable title would have been "Apple Mac Mini, great performance in a small package with tons of expansions options available." (Which is essentially what linus concluded.) 

 

Let's skip over saying anything nice about the computer and just pick on all the quote "bad things" unquote. 

 

Oh the storage isn't user upgradeable... oh boo wooo... it's not like the thunderbolt 3.1 connections don't offer fucking 40 Gb/s transfer rates, much faster than any mechanical hard drive and faster than SATA. No, it's such a shame that the storage isn't upgradable /s

 

The mac mini is a good freaking computer. Sure, it may be a bit overpriced right now, but it's brand freaking new. Give it a few months. 

 

It's meant to be either A. an entry level mac, or B. essentially a "docking" station for people who don't want to buy a real mac. Want a GPU, use an eGPU, want more storage? Get some external storage. Want more monitors? Use the other thunderbolt ports.

 

This makes me so angry. This is probably the BEST computer apple has released recently, and you guys decided to make people believe it was a shit computer. 

Except there is much more to a machine than just having the apple logo on it.

 

I think the biggest point here is that for the price of this mini you can get another prebuilt machine that checks all of the boxes outside of an apple product. Hell if you want one so bad just toss on an apple sticker and use one of the linux distro's I mentioned that have a very mac feel to them.

[Hunter259]

13 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

-snip the crying-

Calm down dude jesus.

 

No integrated gpu: Which is why they compared it to the Hades Canyon NUC which is actually impressively powerful and smaller (although taller).

 

Thermals Aren't Great: Again. See NUC which it was compared against. Make it a bit bigger so it won't burn itself up. This isn't hard.

 

Upgradeable with only the right tools: He didn't really complain about that? It's a slight jab that you need a torx screw driver. Not everyone has one.

 

He called it beautiful and impressive in size. So much for saying nothing good. Has, once again, praised Apple for cheap 10Gbit Ethernet.

 

Not having upgraded able storage is a serious downside as thunderbolt based drives are still going to be slower than an internal one.

 

Lol. Apple dropping prices. Thats hilarious. It took them 4 years to drop the Mac Pro's price and that wasn't even much of a drop.

 

It's a good computer. He calls it that. Is it great? Possibly. They could make it a bit taller, use Phillips heads instead of torx, and stick a DGPU option into the machine. You just seem to be pissed off for exactly 0 reason.