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Mac mini

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Re: Mac mini

#91

Post by whalesalad »

aikinai wrote: post #89
whalesalad wrote: post #70

Still got my fingers crossed for a desktop machine that isn’t a Mac Pro and isn’t a Mac Mini. Would love iMac Pro firepower without being tied to a set display. I’ve been alive 30 years. A good portion of that was growing up as a PC user, overclocker, teenage hacker, etc. My professional career however has been on Unix and MacOS, and as much as I try to get back to desktop Linux and open source OS’s I just find them…

Ryzen would probably not be worth it if your time is money, but if you build a basic Intel Hackintosh with known compatible parts, you could probably do it in a day (assuming first time; much faster if you have experience).

I built a Hackintosh back when Tiger was hot (on an AMD socket 754 chip!) so I have a little familiarity - but I am sure things have changed a lot.

My current test bench is an i3770k in a pretty popular Z77 Asus board so if I find myself an AMD card I could probably prototype it here first.

Re: Mac mini

#92

Post by [deleted] »

chvid wrote: post #84

So much naysaying here. The Mac Minis are excellent for certain use cases (like a home server) and they last forever. Great that Apple is updating them regularly.

[deleted]

Re: Mac mini

#93

Post by vault »

I hope wikipedia has not been updated yet... The specs are the same as the 2018 model except for the storage! No reason to buy the new one

Re: Mac mini

#94

Post by chvid »

omni wrote: post #86
chvid wrote: post #84

So much naysaying here. The Mac Minis are excellent for certain use cases (like a home server) and they last forever. Great that Apple is updating them regularly.

Intel NUCs are even better for home server use cases. Similar form factor, much cheaper, and you can put your own memory and storage in them. Just built my own last week and it idles at 5W, it's great.

There is no Mac OS X and Apple's service/warranty.

Also if you try to match the boxes spec by spec; the Mini are usually not that much more.

Re: Mac mini

#96

Post by jagger27 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #90
jagger27 wrote: post #6

Only up to 6-core 8th generation CPUs, and it looks like the base 6-core SKU is the i5-8500, which doesn’t have Hyperthreading. Ouch. It’s such a shame that’s the best Intel can do in that thermal envelope. AMD is about to ship Ryzen 4000 mobile chips with lower TDP, great integrated graphics, higher clock speeds and more cores. It would have worked fine in the Mac mini. Imagine how good the desktop APUs will be when…

That's not the best Intel can do. There's 9th generation CPUs which Apple decided not to use.

Yes, they could have gone with the i7-9700 trading 6c/12t for 8c/8t. There's also the question of power, which despite both being marketed as 65W parts do not have the same thermals.

Maybe the i9-9900T would have worked?

Re: Mac mini

#97

Post by endorphone »

rvz wrote: post #5

The Mac Minis are still expensive and underwhelming (even when maxed out) when compared with the top of the range NUCs with even AMD GPUs. The Skull and Ghost Canyon NUCs are great for Linux CIs or building large projects or I could even go far to either Hackintosh a few NUCs to surpass the need to buy a Mac Mini anyway for next 5 years. Thanks, but I would skip this Mac Mini and go for the latest maxed out NUC inste…

"Thanks, but I would skip this Mac Mini and go for the latest maxed out NUC instead."

Neat. Of course of the actual base of buyers for this, the fact that it runs macOS is a critical requirement. Running an outdated, hacked version is not a viable consideration for most (I'm fairly certain that the "I'll run a Hackintosh" comments outnumber people actually running a Hackintosh by at least 1000:1).

I don't think there has ever been an Apple release without a barrage of "Lame. No wireless. Less space than a Nomad" kind of responses. As if we are all unaware that it's a competitive space with lots of options.

Yes, there are alternatives. Lots of people buy those alternatives. But it is absolutely not an orange-orange situation.

As one fun aside -- I had a Mac Mini a few years ago and loved it. The power utilization of thing was absolutely bonkers tiny. It just worked 100% of the time. Bought it for like $799. Sold it after having it for I think five years for $500. The kind of bizarre ability of Apple devices to hold value is really a financial factor that many don't consider.

Re: Mac mini

#98

Post by all_usernames »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #57
everdrive wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac Mini doesn't need a real GPU in my opinion -- what they need is a mid-level desktop that accepts a real GPU. $1000 - $1500 with decent specs. But, we know they won't move into that space.

You can get a new Mac Mini and a Thunderbolt 3 eGPU for $1500 or less.

Thanks, I had no idea eGPUs were a thing!

Re: Mac mini

#99

Post by kristiandupont »

stephenr wrote: post #73
CrazyStat wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the problem most people have I think is that they buy much larger displays and then want to use a higher rendered resolution I'm not going to buy a 4k screen with the intention of running it at 1080p. There are plenty of large 1080p screens out there. If I buy a 4k screen it's because I want to run it at 4k.

... I think you've missed the point. It isn't running at 1080p. It's doing "@2x" pixel rendering (commonly called "Retina") - so it uses 4 physical pixels to render one "screen" pixel, giving you much crisper.. everything.

..crisper as in more visibly pixelated? What is the point in that?

Re: Mac mini

#100

Post by mceachen »

whalesalad wrote: post #70

Still got my fingers crossed for a desktop machine that isn’t a Mac Pro and isn’t a Mac Mini. Would love iMac Pro firepower without being tied to a set display. I’ve been alive 30 years. A good portion of that was growing up as a PC user, overclocker, teenage hacker, etc. My professional career however has been on Unix and MacOS, and as much as I try to get back to desktop Linux and open source OS’s I just find them…

Installing and applying security updates on a Linux desktop is fairly automatic and uneventful.

Keeping a hackintosh updated (for even stuff like graphics card drivers) turns out to be a lot of time doing research, scrolling through endless forum posts, and bricking your install quarterly because you "did the wrong thing" (like absent-mindedly accepting a security update notification).

Yes, you can get it running. But macOS is buggy enough as it is, and is decidedly not-pleasant if you're relying on it as a daily driver and you just can't fix the Bluetooth mouse disconnecting after sleep unless you reboot, or the USB bridge not enabling after suspend, or the diaplayports deciding to not send signal if there are multiple monitors (fixed in the new GPU driver, but that driver requires the OS upgrade you can't apply due to other show-stipping bugs). You shouldn't be relieved every time you step up to your desk that your computer can turn on.

(FWIW: this was ~> year ago, on a machine built with the "best compatability with hackintosh" parts list. The landscape with T2 is most likely less comfortable).

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