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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CharonPDX - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
People talk about how Apple is incapable of switching to the i3/i5/i7 plus a discrete GPU because of size constraints...Yet they forget that the original MacBook Air and the original Mac MIni were both three-chip solutions, with CPU, Intel Northbridge, and Intel Southbridge. If they could fit all three at some time in the past, why can't they fit three now? (CPU, Intel chipset, and nVidia/ATI GPU.)
Especially the mini, whose motherboard has GAINED area. (Not much, since it doesn't fill the whole newly-enlarged chassis, but it did gain a little.)
james.jwb - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
Aggressive profit requirements per sale at Apple is probably a major reason.Penti - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
Of course they can, redesigning the boards. But for a discrete mobile gpu too, they also need room for the added memories just like in the MBPs. (Well there's two sides of a PCB). It's a design choice not a limit. They could probably put something like Mobility HD5650 without upping the price and up the ram to 4GB and still make a lot of money. i5-520M 2.4GHz and HM55 costs $265 from Intel, though they also have a much higher power usage. P8600 goes for $209 plus nVidias 320M chipset. The same money + gpu. But it's worse in europe any way since they priced it when the dollar was high, so the mac mini is 809 euros (incl 19% sales tax) that's 900 US dollars before taxes. So we pay over a thousand dollars for something that goes for 699 in the states. For that kind of money 4-8GB, Mobility HD5650, faster drive etc should be standard. It should rather be something like €630. So we pay almost a 30% overprice. On a product that has a 20-30% margin easily.GeorgeH - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
The current MacBook Air has a bigger battery than the original, so 3 chips (and the extra cooling hardware that would be required for a discrete GPU) wouldn't fit without sacrificing battery life.Penti - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
Yes it's pretty busy already, http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/AaB5PK5d35HGTsZ... & http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/KJJyYGCKwbfhmAJ... in the Air. Much more room in the Mac Mini. Enough for discrete graphics I would say, with a serious redesign. Higher density DRAM (x16) might help (some) in the MB Air though.Penti - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
And the redesigned board (later mid 2009), http://cart-products.ifixit.net/cart-products/ULXA... & http://cart-products.ifixit.net/cart-products/Ti4N... No more room there.Penti - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
Just to add, mobile discrete GPU will be too much for a 40Wh battery as the macbook Air is using any way.solipsism - Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - link
YOu seem to be forgetting the rounder edges on the case reducing the footprint over a square 7.7”x7.7” footprint, the placement of the components and the PSU which now resides inside the Mini for the first time.Unless it’s using TARDIS technology that MoBo isn’t likely to be big enough.You also have to account for the engineering of larger heat sinks, more or bigger fans and potentially increased power needs. It’s not the simple achievement you are making it out to be.
My guess is that these small machines will get the Core-i when they remove the ODD. They aren’t going to add a $500 9.5mm slot-loading Blu-ray drive and they haven’t added AACS to Mac OS X so you all can stop scratching your head over what should be obvious. They are going to drop ODDs from notebooks and small PCs and move forward from there.
farhadd - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
You can use any keyboard you like, not just an Apple. F12 functions as the eject key on non-apple keyboards. And you can customize the keys to make the command / option keys whatever you like, not just the windows / alt key that it defaults to.farhadd - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
Apple still sells white macbooks with 2GB of RAM standard.