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Mac mini

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Re: Mac mini

#221

Post by bradstewart »

emsy wrote: post #182
bradstewart wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally have the opposite experience you've described--I can find exactly what I need in settings/Control Panel on Windows, but rarely on macOS. Could be that I'm just used to the names of things in Windows? Realistically, they both get the job done.

Spotlight is better at understanding multiple languages (accidentally typing the English name on a German System often yields the right result), synonyms and results inside windows. I think this is mainly due to Apples accessibility efforts. Windows is much more picky. But most of the time you just want to start an app anyway.

That is entirely possible. I'm in an English bubble.

Re: Mac mini

#222

Post by FpUser »

bluedino wrote: post #206
FpUser wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am reading this on 32" 4K monitor (2 of them actually are hooked to a gaming laptop). I do not notice any blurriness.

Are you running a non-default resolution?

I am running those at native 4K resolution. Frankly I do not get a point of buying 4K monitor to run it at lower resolution

Re: Mac mini

#223

Post by omni »

yborg wrote: post #205
omni wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My Mac Mini home server cost was zero. I retire my old Minis for these functions, I run an IRC server on my 2009 Core 2 Duo Mini and idle power is about the same there.

Well we don't all get our computers off the back of trucks so I'm not sure this is relevant.

Re: Mac mini

#224

Post by olyjohn »

askafriend wrote: post #151
all_usernames wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, I had no idea eGPUs were a thing!

That's the whole premise of the Mac Mini. It's the only non-Pro designated Mac that has four Thunderbolt 3 ports. I don't think you'd find this level of I/O in any other machine in this price range. That incredibly powerful I/O makes for tons of expansion possibilities. Storage, GPU, etc. (Edited to say "non-Pro designated")

Not all Thunderbolt 3 ports are the same. Good chance that two ports are sharing a single PCIe 3.0 4x controller. Since PCIe 3.0 is good for ~7.8Gb/sec/lane, you're looking at two 40Gb/sec Thunderbolt ports sharing about 31Gb/sec of bandwidth on the PCIe bus. Okay, probably not that big of a deal really.

The point being that a "Pro" system might have 4 individual Thunderbolt controllers, each getting their own 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes.

I think that's why the specs say "Up to 40GB/sec" on the page. It sadly doesn't say which controller it has... But I guess my whole point is really moot in practicality. Good luck saturating that much bandwidth.

Re: Mac mini

#225

Post by nine_k »

hugi wrote: post #176
tabs_masterrace wrote: post #21

Still no real GPU. It's the reason I went back to a MacBook. What drew me in is the desktop class i7. At the time the Mini outperformed all other Macs in benchmarks, and it is noticeable and fast during compile times etc. Once you connect a 4k Screen (or even more screens), an eGPU becomes a must have. The integrated one just can't do smooth UI rendering. For example typing in IntelliJ always felt laggy, because it t…

If IntelliJ can't handle realtime rendering of text on modern hardware, perhaps the problem is with the software? My kid spilled a glass of water on my 2018 MacBook last year ( sob ). At that time, word was out about the 2019 MacBooks with the new keyboards, so I decided to hold out, took out an old 2012 Mac Mini and have been doing my (Java/Swift) development on it for the past few months. It works so well, I've bee…

Yes, the problem must be in software, but not that software.

IntelliJ is quite fast for me both on Windows and on Linux, no typing lag.

Re: Mac mini

#226

Post by nine_k »

izietto wrote: post #136
omnimus wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

desktop grade cpus and gpus have very different thermal characteristics. it quite impossible to have silent + desktop cpu + desktop gpu + very small space.

MacBooks are not desktops, they are laptops

Still they have much more area per unit of volume, so, a better way to dissipate heat.

Minis are compact bricks, with much less surface.

Re: Mac mini

#227

Post by FpUser »

FpUser wrote: post #196
bluedino wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything bigger than 24" or so and the blurriness gets bad. The pixel density just isn't quite there.

I am reading this on 32" 4K monitor (2 of them actually are hooked to a gaming laptop). I do not notice any blurriness.

Yep this definitely deserves downvote. I guess 4K must be blurry by definition

Re: Mac mini

#228

Post by timbo1642 »

everdrive wrote: post #48
tabs_masterrace wrote: post #21

Still no real GPU. It's the reason I went back to a MacBook. What drew me in is the desktop class i7. At the time the Mini outperformed all other Macs in benchmarks, and it is noticeable and fast during compile times etc. Once you connect a 4k Screen (or even more screens), an eGPU becomes a must have. The integrated one just can't do smooth UI rendering. For example typing in IntelliJ always felt laggy, because it t…

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.

It has a 2 year old processor!

Re: Mac mini

#229

Post by [deleted] »

tabs_masterrace wrote: post #21

Still no real GPU. It's the reason I went back to a MacBook. What drew me in is the desktop class i7. At the time the Mini outperformed all other Macs in benchmarks, and it is noticeable and fast during compile times etc. Once you connect a 4k Screen (or even more screens), an eGPU becomes a must have. The integrated one just can't do smooth UI rendering. For example typing in IntelliJ always felt laggy, because it t…

[deleted]

Re: Mac mini

#230

Post by mrpippy »

mceachen wrote: post #100
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. Bu…

Worth remembering: the current non-pro iMac doesn’t have a T2 chip. Non-T2 Macs will be supported by macOS for years to come.
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