Apple Mac mini Review (Mid 2010)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 9, 2010 3:37 AM ESTGaming Performance
Two years ago Apple (and NVIDIA) sent a clear message to Intel - its integrated graphics was no longer good enough. For the second largest consumer of semiconductors in the world to publicly tell Intel that its graphics wasn’t enough had to be a wake-up call. I was surprised that it took Intel until this year to really heed the call. The Larrabee announcement and subsequent increase in integrated graphics investment tells us that Intel is finally trying to win this business back. But today, Apple definitely values putting more money towards GPUs than CPUs. The 2010 13-inch MacBook Pro was our first example, where Apple opted against moving to a Core i3/i5 in order to ship with a NVIDIA GPU. The Mac mini continues the trend as Apple sticks to last year’s Penryn based Core 2 Duo P8600 instead of moving to a Core i3. In fact, one look at the mini’s box reveals Apple’s thinking:
iLife, NVIDIA graphics and WiFi are the only things mentioned on the packaging. There’s not a single mention of Intel being inside the Mac mini. Even on Apple’s website, the Intel shoutouts are limited. If I were a betting man I’d say that Apple is gearing up to eventually support AMD CPUs as well as Intel. The first Fusion parts might be a logical starting point.
With a growing installed user base and a higher guaranteed minimum GPU level, the Mac platform is becoming more attractive to game developers. Steam is now alive and well on OS X and last month’s Starcraft 2 release ships with both OS X and Windows versions on the same disc.
The 2010 Mac mini is basically a 13-inch MacBook Pro in a different form factor. The GeForce 320M GPU isn’t fast, but it’s fast enough to run things like Half Life 2 at playable frame rates. Unfortunately Starcraft 2 came out after I already sent the mini back so I couldn’t get a feel for how well it would run on the mini. For what it’s worth, Apple’s current NVIDIA drivers included in OS X 10.6.4 are absolutely horrible for performance in Starcraft 2. Even a GeForce GTX 285 runs like garbage under OS X with those drivers, you need to use the latest betas from NVIDIA which unfortunately only work on the GTX 285 (at least the installer portion).
Performance is a bit lower than the 13-inch MacBook Pro in our OS X Half Life 2 Episode Two test, presumably because of the meager 2GB of memory the system ships with by default compared to the 4GB you get with the MBP.
The 2008 iMac is still considerably faster since it uses a faster CPU and a much faster dedicated GPU. The 8800M GS has more shader horsepower and runs at a higher clock than the GeForce 320M. There’s also the matter of the dedicated frame buffer (512MB) vs. the shared memory setup on the Mac mini.
The mini is good enough for today’s games on the Mac (although not at 1080p). I would expect its GPU to feel slow after another year.
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DaveGirard - Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - link
seriously - I use a Mac Pro Nehalem for Maya and if I had to build a network of headless slaves, this would be an expensive and underperforming option. You could make a vanilla i7 for less and it would destroy this machine for rendering. Nice to see this is a great mini server/HTPC but it's not for performance.name99 - Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - link
Why would you engage in such a stupid enterprise?Apple is NOT selling you a bunch of MIPs here at the lowest possible cost. They are selling you a device that runs MacOSX, with IO options adequate for most users, that is low power and small.
If you do not need any of these capabilities, then buying such a computer is stupid.
Or, to put it another, don't buy a package of, what, 10GFlops AND a reasonable quality GPU AND two video ports AND FW8000 AND OSX AND a small form factor, and then complain that the package costs more than this other package consisting of 10GFlops and nothing else.
But if this device meets your needs, it's great --- I got a previous gen mini for HTPC, and it does what it is meant to do, at a price I found acceptable.
JAS - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
I bought one of these to run a public kiosk display (Apple Keynote program on a loop). Beyond its good looks, the new Mac Mini provides more than enough horsepower for what most "normal" people use computers for -- web browsers, media playback, e-mail, word processing and so forth. I like how access to the RAM has been made easy and the addition of the HDMI and SD connectors.My only significant criticism of the new Mac Mini is its retail price. It ought to be $50 to $100 less to be considered an "entry level" Macintosh.
nafhan - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
I agree from a computing aspect, but it really ought to be about $200 - $300 less to be considered a good computer for the average home user. Especially since they will have to spring another $100+ for a monitor/mouse/keyboard right off the bat.Steve W - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
The idea behind the Mac Mini is that you DON'T have to spring for a "monitor/mouse/keyboard" if you are the average switcher. If you need a monitor, then the iMac is a better buy.Ratman6161 - Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - link
Given that it does not come with those items? The only way you would not need them is if you just happened to already have them. But if you were buying this as a second computer etc that might not be the case.tipoo - Friday, September 10, 2010 - link
Exactly. Once you add a monitor, keyboard and mouse into the price, you are into iMac price territory, and the iMac is still alot faster.LtGoonRush - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
I don't understand why 7200rpm 2.5" HDDs aren't more popular. The cost difference isn't very large, on a 320GB drive it only amounts to $5. The performance difference isn't Earth-shattering, but given the price of the system it seems hard to justify cutting this corner, along with shaving off 2GB of RAM as called out in the review.Minion4Hire - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
I've heard both power and noise concerns given as reasons (besides cost as you mentioned) why 7200s aren't as popular. Both are pretty minor, but those are valid reasons.Shark Tek - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
The main reason of why they aren't popular is a very valid one.HEAT...
A good example is one about the PS3 HD upgrade. They recommend 5400rpm disks due to problems of overheating using a faster one.