The new Mac mini offers many
interesting features at this price.
The Mac mini of 2011 brought many
significant changes to compact desktops: a Core i5 has replaced the old Core 2
Duo CPU, Thunderbolt ports, and the abandonment of the built-in SuperDrive. The
new Mac mini may not be as revolutionary as the models in 2011, but its updates
are still considerable.
The Mac mini 2012 introduces the USB 3.0, which
replaces the old USB 2.0 ports available in the former model. It has also
faster integrated graphics and quad-core processors for the first time.
This update holds plenty of physical
aspects that have been introduced with the Mac mini in the middle of 2010,
including a moderate aluminum unibody design (3.6x19.7x19.7 cm). On the front
there is an activity with a pin-hole size and an IR port. The back of this new
model has a power button, power cord input and ports for Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire
800, HDMI, Thunderbolt and USB 3.0. An SDXC card slot and audio-out and
audio-in ports supplement the physical connection types, whereas 802.11a/b/g/n
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and an IR port provide wireless connectivity.
The
back of this new model has a power button, power cord input and ports for
Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 800, HDMI, Thunderbolt and USB 3.0.
As always, you will need to have your own
keyboard, mouse and monitor. The box includes an HDMI to DVI cable, but you may
need an extra adapter – for example, an adapter for DVI – which will cost extra
money.
The Mac mini’s body lies on a round ¼-inch
high black plastic disc that if you rotate ½ inch, it can be removed to expose
two RAM slots. Both the standard $793.5 and $1,080 Mac mini are accompanied by
two 2GB D1600MHz DR3 SDRAM modules (with a total of 4GB) but they can be
upgraded to use up to 16GB RAM.
Drive problems
The ordinary $793.5 model comes with a
rather stingy 5400rpm 500GB hard disc. Besides RAM, it doesn’t have the
optional upgrades available from Apple Store. The high-ranking Mac mini also
comes with a 5400rpm drive; however, with 1TB it has double the capacity. And
this high-ranking model has many options for you to choose from: with an extra
$381, you can upgrade to 256GB of flash storage, or with $318, you can choose a
new 1TB Fusion Drive.
A Fusion Drive combines a 1TB hard drive
and 128GB of flash storage. The operating system and applications are installed
on the flash storage at the factory. As time goes by, the Fusion Drive is
supposed to learn your working habits and move applications and data between
the hard drive and flash storage to provide the best performance. For instance,
if you always use Aperture but occasionally use iPhoto, the Fusion Drive and OS
X may move the iPhoto library and application to the slower part of the hard
drive, and move Aperture to the faster flash storage.
We haven’t tested a Fusion Drive yet, but
we are so curious to see how different it is from other hybrid drives, such as Seagate
Momentus XT ($254.5), which combines an expensive but fast solid-state memory
with a cheap but slow rotational hard drive.
Processor boost
The $793.5 Mac mini has a 2.5GHz dual-core Core
i5 Ivy Bridge processor; last year‘s high-ranking model also had a 2.5GHz
dual-core Core i5, but it originated from the Sandy Bridge family. The choice
of $1,079 has a 2.3GHz quad-core Core i7 Ivy Bridge.
Both the Core i5 and Core i7 support
Intel’s Hyper Threading technology, which allows applications to use four
virtual processing cores on the core i5, and eight virtual cores on the core
i7. They also support Turbo Boost, which allows processors to run faster than
their rated speed, if necessary. Using Turbo Boost, the 2.5GHz Core i5 can
reach to 3.1GHz, and 2.3GHz Core i7 can reach to the top of 3.3GHz. As you
expect, in tasks that use all of the system’s processing cores, the quad-core
2.3GHz Mac mini runs much faster than the dual-core 2.5GHz model.
MathematicaMark test was 72% faster on the quad-core system, and Cinebench CPU tests
spent 51% less time for completing than the dual-core model.
The high-ranking Mac mini can also be
optimized, as the clients require, to use a quad-core 2.6GHz Intel Core i7 ($127)
which can speed up to 3.6GHz using Turbo Boost.
The
high-ranking Mac mini can also be optimized to use a quad-core 2.6GHz Intel
Core i7.
Struggling with graphics
The new Mac mini uses Intel’s HD Graphics
4000 graphics card which has been much improved. It’s an integrated processor –
the graphics processing is built in to the main CPU and shares the main memory
of the computer. On the other hand, discrete graphics are graphic processors
totally distinct and use the dedicated video memory. Generally, discrete
graphics are much preferred by applications that require the best performance.
The HD Graphics 4000 is far better at
bringing high frame rates in games than the HD Graphics 3000 processor that was
formerly used, but it can’t defeat the performance of the discrete AMD Radeon
HD 6630M graphic processor of the previous high-ranking model. In our Portal 2 test,
the new entry-level Mac mini is 27% faster than the previous low-end model.
However, the previous with the AMD Radeon discrete graphics is 24% faster than
the new high-end model with the integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics.
The new $793.5 Mac mini was 31% faster than
its 2011 predecessor in our Speedmark 8 test. It was faster in all the tests
but its processor-intensive test results were just a bit faster. The
interesting thing was that the hard drive test results were much faster on new
systems, though the drives are still only 5400rpm models.
We also considered the performance differences
between the new low-end computer and a mid-2010 ordinary Mac mini with a 2.4GHz
Core 2 Duo processor. The new Mac mini is 68% faster and completed the
Cinebench CPU test with half the time a 2010 model did. The old systems took
about three times as long to complete our Photoshop action script.
The new 2.3GHz Mac mini Core i7 is 37% faster
than its 2011 predecessor. Remember that the previous high-end Mac had a 2.5GHz
dual-core Core i5 processor of the old Sandy Bridge family.
Shopping advice
The new Mac mini continues to be built on
the stable foundation established by the 2011 model. If you prefer desktops to
laptops, and you don’t want to be restrained to the glossy 21.5-inch or 27-inch
screens that come with iMac, the Mac mini is a perfect choice.
The
Mac mini is a perfect choice.
The quad-core Core i7 and the large storage
capacity make $1,079 Mac mini more attractive. The most affordable Mac today, the
$793.5 Mac mini, has made a long step forward on performance and continues to
be the good choice at an affordable price for anyone who wants to experience
Mac without paying too much.
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Information
·
Price: $793.5 (dual-core); $1,079 (quad-core)
·
Manufacturer: Apple
·
Website: www.apple.com
Speedmark 8 scores
·
Mac mini/Core i7 2.3GHz (late 2012): 164
·
Mac mini/Core i5 2.5GHz (late 2012): 131
·
Mac mini/Core i5 2.5GHz (mid 2011): 120
·
Mac mini/Core i5 2.3GHz (mid 2011): 100
·
Mac mini/Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz (mid 2010): 78
Verdict
·
Advantages: USB 3.0; faster graphics; quad-core
processors; Fusion Drive; most affordable Mac
·
Disadvantages: no display; integrated
graphics; only RAM able to be upgraded
·
Ranking: 4/5
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