Apple Killed the Mac Mini.

[corrado33]

3 minutes ago, Streetguru 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.

Do they now?

https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/dell-laptops-netbooks-and-tablets/xps-13/spd/xps-13-9370-laptop/nxps139370_bt_h617e

 

And yes, AS I SAID, of COURSE you can build a computer for cheaper, but it won't be nearly as small. 

 

Do you REALLY think you have a better cooling solution for something that small than the apple engineers?

 

If the soldered ssd breaks you can just boot from an external HDD........ Sure, they could have put a nice nvme drive in there, but it's not a huge deal.

 

I absolutely disagree. Laptops don't have nearly the same port offerings and why pay for a screen if you're just going to hook it up to a monitor?

[Guest]

@GabenJr Great stuff, nice to see on the show. Is performance impacted if you installed MacOS and boot from an external hard drive for either USB or Thunderbolt? Would think so for USB, but people have been booting from thunderbolt SSDs for a while now, although more so before NVMe -  which would have been nice to include from Apple in the Mac Mini from the beginning lol. 

 

You should be able to just pop one on and install oob, but I wonder if this is impacted by the T2 chip as well?

[corrado33]

13 minutes ago, Hunter259 said:

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.

The NUCs are JUST AS EXPENSIVE, if not MORE EXPENSIVE than the mac mini. And they rely on an external power supply, unlike the internal modular power supply of the mac.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Machine-NUC8i7HVK-Radeon-Graphics/dp/B07BR5GK1V

 

They don't need to make it bigger, the thermals work. It's not that big of a deal. If you're worried about it, buy applecare for 3 years.

 

Yes, he DID complain about it. It was literally written on the screen, and EVERY... SINGLE... SMALL computer I've taken apart has required torx. Calling it a "special tool" is ridiculous. It's a standard tool for anyone who works on computers. Personally I think it's an "idiot proof" screwdriver. If you don't have a torx driver, you shouldn't be taking the computer apart. It's like they were fishing for things to complain about.

 

I was unaware that HDDs had transfer speeds of 2 GB/s, like the latest thunderbolt 3 external drives do. (Here's a hint... they don't.) So your point is entirely wrong. 

 

https://9to5mac.com/2018/09/05/review-samsung-x5-thunderbolt-3-portable-ssd-video/

"Thunderbolt 3, the X5 is turning up the speed rating significantly with up to a whopping 2,800 MB/s read speeds and 2300 MB/s write."

 

So he calls it a good computer, then names the video "Apple killed the mac mini"? Don't you see the dichotomy there? Is that not a bit misleading? I think I have absolutely every right to complain. 

 

They didn't even test it in the configuration that most people be using it, with external everything. This is essentially a "barebones" PC which you can expand however you want. That's.... the.... point.....

 

Would you have been happier if they stuck a shitty DGPU in there and didn't let you use eGPUS? I'm sure you would have complained about that then too. 

[Hunter259]

6 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

-snip-

Uh. It comes with Vega graphics in it. Ram is MUCH cheaper when not from Apple and you can throw a 960 Pro in it and have the ability to upgrade it later if you want. And whats the big deal about external PSU's? It's not like your monitor isn't going to be have it's brick right next to it....

 

"If you don't like your machine running at the limits of temperature just give us more money!"

If you don't realize how stupid that sounds then god help you.

 

Lol. OK. Just keep on gate keeping.

 

External SSD's have higher latency. Also oooo. It has really high sequential reads and writes. Something that is really rare in practice. And never did I say anything about a fucking mechanical drive.

 

Because it's not that small anymore? I'm not big on the click bait title but he praised it many times. You are just trying to cry because you want some attention.

 

[Streetguru]

13 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

 

There are plenty of laptops at $500 with 8th gen i5s, and some $600 laptops with an i5 8300h(4c/8t) and a 1050 or 1050ti

I can for sure make a better cooling solution than the apple engineers, just as how Louis Rossman can make a better PCB or the guys at lenovo can make a better PCB, though the guy making the heatsink may have a very limited budget/size for that heatsink forced by upper management, or it almost looks like they just shoved a macbook pro cooler into the system.

People buying/using a mac mini very likely do not have the money for thunderbolt accessories, or they just won't use it.

You can stick an R5 2400G into a system like this and have it be about the same size with a better GPU and general upgradability(loses thunderbolt) for less than the mac mini
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2F84N93953&Description=IN WIN ITX&cm_re=IN_WIN_ITX-_-14G-0047-00002-_-Product

Or you can stick any ITX system(even X299) and a mini GPU into something like the elite 110(which should be $30) and have a much better system for the budget.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAFSW7E62700&Description=Elite 110&cm_re=Elite_110-_-9SIAFSW7E62700-_-Product

The only place it really makes sense is as some extension of an existing office space filled with apple products. It does not make much sense as an individual PC for X task.
 

[corrado33]

1 minute ago, Hunter259 said:

Uh. It comes with Vega graphics in it. Ram is MUCH cheaper when not from Apple and you can throw a 960 Pro in it and have the ability to upgrade it later if you want. And whats the big deal about external PSU's? It's not like your monitor isn't going to be have it's brick right next to it....

 

"If you don't like your machine running at the limits of temperature just give us more money!"

If you don't realize how stupid that sounds then god help you.

 

Lol. OK. Just keep on gate keeping.

 

External SSD's have higher latency. Also oooo. It has really high sequential reads and writes. Something that is really rare in practice. And never did I say anything about a fucking mechanical drive.

 

Because it's not that small anymore? I'm not big on the click bait title but he praised it many times. You are just trying to cry because you want some attention.

 

You realize you DO NOT have to buy ram from apple right? It can use any DDR4 ram of the right speed. 

 

Sure, it's not like 90% of us overclock our CPUs to an inch of their thermal limits. No, we would NEVER do such a thing. /s 

 

Oh man high latency... that's such a bad thing, I can see how much trouble that would cause now. /s 

 

Answer me this. Most people have a setup where they have a small SSD used for the OS, then a large either external or internal HDD. So explain to me how.... this is different to what you can get on the mac mini? You have a nice fast internal SSD, then nice fast external ports that are MUCH faster than even an internal HDD, faster than even internal SSDs using SATA. 

 

It is still tiny. It's LITERALLY.... exactly the same size as the 2014 mac mini....

[corrado33]

10 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

There are plenty of laptops at $500 with 8th gen i5s, and some $600 laptops with an i5 8300h(4c/8t) and a 1050 or 1050ti

I can for sure make a better cooling solution than the apple engineers, just as how Louis Rossman can make a better PCB or the guys at lenovo can make a better PCB, though the guy making the heatsink may have a very limited budget/size for that heatsink forced by upper management, or it almost looks like they just shoved a macbook pro cooler into the system.

People buying/using a mac mini very likely do not have the money for thunderbolt accessories, or they just won't use it.

You can stick an R5 2400G into a system like this and have it be about the same size with a better GPU and general upgradability(loses thunderbolt) for less than the mac mini
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2F84N93953&Description=IN WIN ITX&cm_re=IN_WIN_ITX-_-14G-0047-00002-_-Product

Or you can stick any ITX system(even X299) and a mini GPU into something like the elite 110(which should be $30) and have a much better system for the budget.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAFSW7E62700&Description=Elite 110&cm_re=Elite_110-_-9SIAFSW7E62700-_-Product

The only place it really makes sense is as some extension of an existing office space filled with apple products. It does not make much sense as an individual PC for X task.
 

I would LOVE to see you try to make a better cooling solution than the apple engineers. I would pay you $1,000,000 if you could in the same size restrictions they had. Thinking you can is absolutely ridiculous. 

 

So you're assuming that the mac mini will only be sold to poor people? People who... you know... probably don't need tons of storage or a DGPU? People who... you know... just want a normal web browsing machine? Your assumption is wrong. With proper expansion the mac mini becomes a powerful little computer.

 

And yes, AS I'VE ALREADY MENTIONED TWICE. Yes, you can build your own pc cheaper, but not nearly as small. Both of those links are probably 10x the volume of the mac mini and the performance would be marginally better? Again, you cannot compare a normal PC using standard atx or ITX boards with a tiny computer such as this. Do the same comparison for the NUC and you'll come to the same conclusion. 

 

This makes sense in SO many places.

 

Need a load of macs for a computer lab in school? Buy mac minis. Need a simple FCP machine but can't afford an iMac, buy a mac mini. (Because rendering is 90% cpu... remember) Need a web browsing machine and want MacOS? Buy the mac mini. Need a media computer for your TV? Buy the mac mini. Need a PC to stick on the back of a public screen to run advertisements or what not? Buy a mac mini. The ONLY thing this computer isn't good at is gaming, and even then it COULD be good at it with an eGPU. 

 

You guys are just complaining BECAUSE it's apple. 

[Streetguru]

6 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

 

The issue is that you need to buy extra things and have external things to add more storage, there should be room for a 2.5" hard drive in the machine, the size argument starts to not matter if you have an external hard drive hanging off of it all day.

In addition does the average person buying a Mac Mini even know you can upgrade the RAM yourself?

Or where on earth does it make sense to charge $200 for a .2ghz faster CPU?

The laptops are actually faster than the mac mini, since they can have 4 core 8 thread CPUs at the same price or less. The base $700 mac mini has an i3.

[corrado33]

11 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

The issue is that you need to buy extra things and have external things to add more storage, there should be room for a 2.5" hard drive in the machine, the size argument starts to not matter if you have an external hard drive hanging off of it all day.

In addition does the average person buying a Mac Mini even know you can upgrade the RAM yourself?

Or where on earth does it make sense to charge $200 for a .2ghz faster CPU?

The laptops are actually faster than the mac mini, since they can have 4 core 8 thread CPUs at the same price or less. The base $700 mac mini has an i3.

 

That's.... the... point.... So how do normal people upgrade the storage on their computer? They buy an external hard drive......

 

There is NO room inside the machine, did you even LOOK at the teardown? Not a mm of space is wasted. 

 

Does the average person buying a normal computer know you can upgrade the ram yourself? No.Why on earth do you think dell/hp is so popular?

 

Did you miss the fact that it's also a hyperthreaded CPU (so 6 cores, 12 threads), and is literally the fastest embedded intel processor you can buy right now? Yeah, there's going to be markup.....

 

Again, this statement makes no sense when you can get a 6core... 12 thread CPU in the mac mini. There are no embedded 8th gen i7 CPUs with 3.2GHz base clock and 4.6 GHz turbo clock without hyperthreading.

 

Would you like to nitpick some more?

 

Or tell me how you can "build yourself one cheaper." (Which is true for every... prebuilt.... ever... made.)

[Streetguru]

9 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

 

You could either just use an external power supply and then that frees up a whole lot of room for a hard drive and or bigger heatsink.

You can extend the heatsink outside of the system a bit

You can make it like 5mm taller and help fix the thermal issues.

 

You can make the chassis part of the heat sink by giving it some surface area on one side and a thermal pad underneath.

There's also the latest Intel NUCs in competition now, just needs an 8th gen refresh still I think, and they come with GPUs near the RX 570 in performance
https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Machine-NUC8i7HVK-Radeon-Graphics/dp/B07BR5GK1V/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1545089405&sr=8-3&keywords=Intel+NUC+mini+PC

[poochyena]

What is even the point of it being such a small form factor? just make it slightly bigger and you'd be able to put a GPU and better cooling in there.

1 hour ago, corrado33 said:

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.

There are laptops that are smaller/thinner, have a dedicated GPU, AND have better thermals.

[corrado33]

13 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

You could either just use an external power supply and then that frees up a whole lot of room for a hard drive and or bigger heatsink.

You can extend the heatsink outside of the system a bit

You can make it like 5mm taller and help fix the thermal issues.

 

You can make the chassis part of the heat sink by giving it some surface area on one side and a thermal pad underneath.

There's also the latest Intel NUCs in competition now, just needs an 8th gen refresh still I think, and they come with GPUs near the RX 570 in performance
https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Machine-NUC8i7HVK-Radeon-Graphics/dp/B07BR5GK1V/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1545089405&sr=8-3&keywords=Intel+NUC+mini+PC

So what you're saying is that you can't... in fact... design a better cooler than what apple has implemented? Apple chose to have an internal power supply for easy of use. I don't think any apple product aimed at the desktop market has ever had an external PSU. 

 

"Extend the heatsink outside the system" What is this? Scrapyard wars? No.... not going to happen.

 

Please watch the teardown and tell me exactly how they're going to connect the chassis to the chips since... you know... the whole computer SLIDES in.

 

They chose the size they chose. Could they have made it bigger? Sure. Would people have complained, probably. They chose to stick with exactly the same size as the last gen mac minis, which I think is a respectable decision because any device made to mount on/with the mac mini will still work with the new ones. If they had changed the size everyone would have said "They're just doing that to make money on accessories." 

 

Yes, and as you can see, the NUCs are JUST AS EXPENSIVE as the apple products, and are AIMED AT GAMING. You're comparing a gaming mini pc to a general task mini pc. 

[corrado33]

4 minutes ago, poochyena said:

What is even the point of it being such a small form factor? just make it slightly bigger and you'd be able to put a GPU and better cooling in there.

There are laptops that are smaller/thinner, have a dedicated GPU, AND have better thermals.

And there are laptops that are bigger/fatter/more expensive and DON'T have a dedicated GPU and worse thermals. What's your point? 

[poochyena]

3 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

And there are laptops that are bigger/fatter/more expensive and DON'T have a dedicated GPU and worse thermals. What's your point? 

And those laptops would be considered trash, just like the mac mini.

[Streetguru]

8 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Yes, and as you can see, the NUCs are JUST AS EXPENSIVE as the apple products, and are AIMED AT GAMING. You're comparing a gaming mini pc to a general task mini pc. 

The NUC is not aimed at gaming, and there are other NUCs without dedicated GPUs for less

 

you do realize GPUs accelerate render by a lot right? especially in applications that really use them?

Sony Vegas 15 uses 100% of my RX 580 while rendering, and it can spit out 4k 60fps renders at a rate of 5 seconds to render 1s of footage which is pretty good.

I don't think anyone would complain about 5mm if it meant it didn't have to thermal throttle. *Oo..or if it were like 8mm you could slot in 2 2.5" hard drives on top I think

You can connect the chassis to the heatsink with a simple thermal pad, obviously it would be engineered into the design. the whole bottom would need to come off in that event.

Extending the heatsink out of the system could also be part of the design, since you have to plug things into the top anyways, so stuff will be hanging off of it.

anyways, as I said earlier it's an alright addition to extend an apple filled office, it is not a very good stand alone PC, especially for the money.

[Blademaster91]

2 hours ago, corrado33 said:

The NUCs are JUST AS EXPENSIVE, if not MORE EXPENSIVE than the mac mini. And they rely on an external power supply, unlike the internal modular power supply of the mac.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Machine-NUC8i7HVK-Radeon-Graphics/dp/B07BR5GK1V

 

They don't need to make it bigger, the thermals work. It's not that big of a deal. If you're worried about it, buy applecare for 3 years.

 

Yes, he DID complain about it. It was literally written on the screen, and EVERY... SINGLE... SMALL computer I've taken apart has required torx. Calling it a "special tool" is ridiculous. It's a standard tool for anyone who works on computers. Personally I think it's an "idiot proof" screwdriver. If you don't have a torx driver, you shouldn't be taking the computer apart. It's like they were fishing for things to complain about.

 

I was unaware that HDDs had transfer speeds of 2 GB/s, like the latest thunderbolt 3 external drives do. (Here's a hint... they don't.) So your point is entirely wrong. 

 

https://9to5mac.com/2018/09/05/review-samsung-x5-thunderbolt-3-portable-ssd-video/

"Thunderbolt 3, the X5 is turning up the speed rating significantly with up to a whopping 2,800 MB/s read speeds and 2300 MB/s write."

 

So he calls it a good computer, then names the video "Apple killed the mac mini"? Don't you see the dichotomy there? Is that not a bit misleading? I think I have absolutely every right to complain. 

 

They didn't even test it in the configuration that most people be using it, with external everything. This is essentially a "barebones" PC which you can expand however you want. That's.... the.... point.....

 

Would you have been happier if they stuck a shitty DGPU in there and didn't let you use eGPUS? I'm sure you would have complained about that then too. 

The external PSU is a good thing,IMO. Less heat for the rest of the hardware, and in case the PSU fails it is replaceable.

But Apple does need to improve on the thermals, I wouldn't call the CPU getting up to 95C "not that big of a deal" because components getting to near 100C is terrible for reliability. And sequential SSD speeds are good for large file transfers that you might do once in a while,and it looks nice on paper, but 4k reads/writes are what matters in daily use that makes the system feel fast.

But most users aren't going to have a torx set,and even if they do they're not going to want to do it themselves after taking the bottom panel off, realizing the ram can't be upgraded without tearing down the whole case.

1 hour ago, corrado33 said:

That's.... the... point.... So how do normal people upgrade the storage on their computer? They buy an external hard drive......

 

There is NO room inside the machine, did you even LOOK at the teardown? Not a mm of space is wasted. 

 

Does the average person buying a normal computer know you can upgrade the ram yourself? No.Why on earth do you think dell/hp is so popular?

 

Did you miss the fact that it's also a hyperthreaded CPU (so 6 cores, 12 threads), and is literally the fastest embedded intel processor you can buy right now? Yeah, there's going to be markup.....

 

Again, this statement makes no sense when you can get a 6core... 12 thread CPU in the mac mini. There are no embedded 8th gen i7 CPUs with 3.2GHz base clock and 4.6 GHz turbo clock without hyperthreading.

 

Would you like to nitpick some more?

 

Or tell me how you can "build yourself one cheaper." (Which is true for every... prebuilt.... ever... made.)

Just buy an external drive and GPU? That really ruins the point of a small compact desktop if you need to add a bunch of external accessories, compared to when you can buy a something like a NUC that has a very decent GPU and allows you to add your own M.2 SSD, or just build an ITX system.

There is some space wasted though, the internal speaker seems pointless, and the RAM is angled instead of being vertical on the motherboard.

 

[corrado33]

1 hour ago, Streetguru said:

The NUC is not aimed at gaming, and there are other NUCs without dedicated GPUs for less

 

you do realize GPUs accelerate render by a lot right? especially in applications that really use them?

Sony Vegas 15 uses 100% of my RX 580 while rendering, and it can spit out 4k 60fps renders at a rate of 5 seconds to render 1s of footage which is pretty good.

I don't think anyone would complain about 5mm if it meant it didn't have to thermal throttle. *Oo..or if it were like 8mm you could slot in 2 2.5" hard drives on top I think

You can connect the chassis to the heatsink with a simple thermal pad, obviously it would be engineered into the design. the whole bottom would need to come off in that event.

Extending the heatsink out of the system could also be part of the design, since you have to plug things into the top anyways, so stuff will be hanging off of it.

anyways, as I said earlier it's an alright addition to extend an apple filled office, it is not a very good stand alone PC, especially for the money.

Video rendering is limited by CPU performance. Period. Go google it. When I render in FCP my CPU is pinned at 100% and my gpu is barely used at all. It all depends on whether or not you're adding effects to the video. most of the time (90% of the video) where there are no effects or titles, the GPU is barely used. 

 

You keep suggesting design changes apple was simply not willing to make. They wanted to make the mac mini the same exact size as the last one, which they did. What do you mean you have to connect stuff to the top of it? All of the connections are on the back....

 

You do realize there is a thing called "Making money" and you can't implement every single thing you want right? What's more expensive... a clamshell case that perfectly fits together with very little effort or a single piece of machined or pressed aluminum? Besides... the chips are on the wrong side of the board to be connected to the chassis as a heatsink. Did you even look at the teardown? The computer is RUBBER on the bottom, where the chips would have to connect....

[PlayStation 2]

[Streetguru]

3 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

 

My 1950X only gets 30% utilized in Vegas Pro 15, while my GPU is at 100%, it depends on what software you're using, Final Cut for example should be utilizing the GPU more to speed up rendering, but if you have a machine with Intel Quick Sync, your iGPU is still being used.

 

Spoiler

Just because apple wants it to be poorly designed and thermally constrained, does not mean they couldn't make a far better version of the device.

You could make the top of the heatsink flat like it already is, put a thermal pad on it, and it would dump heat into the top of the chassis, assuming you engineered it right.

Apple can make money, while making actually good machines, instead of just "Small" "Sleek" "HOT" ones, and it wouldn't even need to look much different.

They make their money from ripping people off on the upgrade options seemingly, 16GBs should be the minimum when the machine costs $1099

[corrado33]

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

The external PSU is a good thing,IMO. Less heat for the rest of the hardware, and in case the PSU fails it is replaceable.

But Apple does need to make the thermals better, I wouldn't call the CPU getting up to 95C "not that big of deal" because components getting to near 100C isn't good for reliability. And sequential SSD speeds are good for large file transfers that you might do once in a while,and it looks nice on paper, but 4k reads/writes are what matters in daily use that makes the system feel fast.

But most users aren't going to have a torx set,and even if they do they're not going to want to do it themselves after taking the bottom panel off, realizing the ram can't be upgraded without tearing down the whole case.

Just buy an external drive and GPU? That really ruins the point of a small compact desktop if you need to add a bunch of external accessories, compared to when you can buy a something like a NUC that has a very decent GPU and allows you to add your own M.2 SSD, or just build an ITX system.

There is some space wasted though, the internal speaker seems pointless, and the RAM is angled instead of being vertical on the motherboard.

 

An external PSU is not something apple would do for a desktop. It doesn't fit. It's not right. People would just complain of the proprietary connector and that the brick is too heavy blah blah blah. 

 

As for thermals, yes, I'm sure that 90% of people will be using synthetic loads for hours at a time on their computer. /s Actual thermals are likely lower. 

 

Why would you want a nuc with a crappy internal GPU? What's the point? Tell me. Gaming? No it's not good enough for that.... general web browsing? Then you really don't need a gpu do you? If someone is scared of taking all of like 10 screws out to take something apart (that's 6 more than you need to remove to replace a GPU in a normal desktop) then they shouldn't' be opening up the case anyway. 

 

The mac mini is two things.

 

1. A relatively cheap mac that can be used out of the box for light use, like 75% of people would use it. (Web browsing, netflix, school work, etc.) These people don't need GPUs.

2. An expandable platform for a more power user to take advantage of. Tell me, how else are you going to get a mac with the best GPU AMD has to offer without spending $6000? What other apple computer can you even upgrade the ram? What other mac gives you this much flexibility in the build. This is as close as we get to being able to build our own sanctioned apple computer without spending a fortune. Why are you being so blind to this? 

 

You make it sound like adding an external drive would be the end of the world... when in reality I bet you have one sitting on your desk right now. It's NOT a big deal, and NVME external drives are freaking TINY. You keep saying that the sequential SSD speed doesn't matter but that wasn't the point. The point was thunderbolt 3 has the throughput to equal performance of typical internal hard drives. Period. Fast enough that a user wouldn't notice a difference. 

[corrado33]

2 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

My 1950X only gets 30% utilized in Vegas Pro 15, while my GPU is at 100%, it depends on what software you're using, Final Cut for example should be utilizing the GPU more to speed up rendering, but if you have a machine with Intel Quick Sync, your iGPU is still being used.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Just because apple wants it to be poorly designed and thermally constrained, does not mean they couldn't make a far better version of the device.

You could make the top of the heatsink flat like it already is, put a thermal pad on it, and it would dump heat into the top of the chassis, assuming you engineered it right.

Apple can make money, while making actually good machines, instead of just "Small" "Sleek" "HOT" ones, and it wouldn't even need to look much different.

They make their money from ripping people off on the upgrade options seemingly, 16GBs should be the minimum when the machine costs $1099

Oh yeah, compare a top of the line fucking 32 thread cpu to what most people have and say that it's not "CPU bound." That's ridiculous and hilarious that you can't see the error in your logic there. 

 

The chassis is no where NEAR the chips. It's literally on the opposite side of the board. The chassis under the chips is RUBBER. You saying that the mac mini is poorly designed is the same as saying that lebron james' shooting form sucks. I guarantee you couldn't do a better job. 

 

16 gigs minimum? For gaming sure, for a general use machine? No, 8gigs is plenty. You're spoiled by your multi thousand dollar machine. 

[Streetguru]

19 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

for a general use machine?

Who buys a $1099 "general use machine" ? A chrome book is like $250 and does word processing, web browsing, and netflix

30% of my CPU being used means I could turn off half of the cores to have an R7 1700, and only 60% of it would then be utilized

Here's a proof of concept for you, if you didn't know, energy/heat will naturally move to colder locations, it's how a heat sink works, so you could run heat pipes to the normal exhaust and top of the chassis, and if you made the metal thicker and added a thermal pad it would transfer heat to the top(or bottom) and out of the system. Or just make the fin stack tall enough to contact without additional heatpipes.

You could even connect both sides of the Chassis to the heatsink assembly and get some addition headroom as well.



Mac Mini owners can already just throw a heatsink on top of the mac mini to cool it better, Linus N Crew should test this

 

[captain_to_fire]

4 hours ago, AngryBeaver said:

Hell there is probably a linux distro out there that feels Mac enough for people...

There is. Unless you want to siphon your data to the great leader of North Korea. It looks a lot like Mac OS X Snow Leopard. 

 

[corrado33]

52 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

Who buys a $1099 "general use machine" ? A chrome book is like $250 and does word processing, web browsing, and netflix

30% of my CPU being used means I could turn off half of the cores to have an R7 1700, and only 60% of it would then be utilized

Here's a proof of concept for you, if you didn't know, energy/heat will naturally move to colder locations, it's how a heat sink works, so you could run heat pipes to the normal exhaust and top of the chassis, and if you made the metal thicker and added a thermal pad it would transfer heat to the top(or bottom) and out of the system. Or just make the fin stack tall enough to contact without additional heatpipes.

You could even connect both sides of the Chassis to the heatsink assembly and get some addition headroom as well.



Mac Mini owners can already just throw a heatsink on top of the mac mini to cool it better, Linus N Crew should test this

 

Jesus you're just not getting it are you.

 

LOOK.... WITH YOUR EYES....

 

2014 Mac Innards

 

2018 mac innards

 

 

Notice anything?

 

THE CHIPS ARE ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE BOARD, THERE IS NO CHASSIS NEAR THE HEATSINK TO USE THE CHASSIS AS A HEATSINK.

They would LITERALLY have to have a heat pipe move AWAY from the fan and hot air exit in order to use the chassis as a heatsink. 

 

 

Oh and sure, let's ignore the cheaper mac mini. Sure, someone buying a general use machine would buy the more expensive one.

 

Your CPU, even with half the cores disabled, is still better than 95% of everybody's CPU out there, and we know that doesn't scale linearly. Linus proved it in a video.

[Streetguru]

5 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

 

It's going to work with the newest one too, but they could make it more efficient if they designed the whole chassis as a heatsink, and thermally connect it to the heat generating components, air inside will transfer some heat to the case, but if it's not connected it won't be efficient.

Do you not know how thermodynamics work?