The new Mac Mini is out!

I just saw the tech specs are out on the new Intel based Mac Mini's

http://www.apple.com/macmini/whatsinside.html

Note the change in the Video card in addition to the change in the CPU, Now its a Intel chipset with shared memory vs the Radeon 9200 with its dedicated memory in the G4 based Mini's.

I was all excited until I read about the change in the video, I had hoped for something like in the new iMac and Macbook Pro's.

The GMA950 is coming in similar PC systems, like the Shuttle SD31P, but usually you'd buy an add-in video card (impossible on a Mac Mini).

I wouldn't expect to play any modern game on the new Mini, but then it's not meant to.

What's particularly amusing/sad is that the ad copy for the previous Mini mocked on-board Intel video as being slow...

I use a Mac Mini G4 currently, and it runs SL minimally, mostly limited by graphics power. I wouldn't expect to use the new one for SL even after it gets a universal binary.

I would have to agree. Much as I like my own Mac Mini, the current 32MB VRAM card is very marginal for SL. There are places I simply can't go, because the texture overload crashes me every time.

When I buy my next system, it will have at least 128 MB VRAM. 64 wouldn't be enough, from what I have seen, no matter how good the rest of the system is.

I am very let down by the Mini's graphics specs. Graphics are how computers provide most of their information to us... Dumbing down the power there was a stupid move.

Yeah, I'm a little bitter, but I've been anticipating a Mini update for 8 months now. Finding out it will be even LESS inclinded to run Second Life than the previous model is a real bummer.

the mac mini is for people that dont do much with their computer.. its entry level. Its cheap for a reason.

Here's a quote from Macs Only, which did some looking into the video situation. http://www.macsonly.com/

Alright, enough of the Intel self puffing. Just how do the Intel GMA 950 specs compare with those of an ATI card that we know about?

The closest performance match that we could find is the relatively new ATI Mac & PC Radeon 9600 Pro and it is nearly identical. It has a 400MHz engine clock speed, produces a fill rate of 1.6Gpixels/sec and uses up to 256MB VRAM via 128-bit memory interface. The ATI Mac & PC Radeon 9600 Pro is no slouch. It is much faster than the ATI Radeon 7200 graphics used in the G4 Mac minis but falls short of the more recent ATI 9800, X800 and X1600 Radeons for the Mac.

So our conclusion, on paper, is that Apple has answered our wish for "...decent graphics hardware..." that is likely to do well with everything just short of high-end video processing and fast 3D gaming.

We'll soon see how the 1.66GHz Mac mini Core Duo actually performs when ours arrives and, of course, we'll post the results here. [Bill Fox]
I]

I have to say I am excited and will be picking up one of the new Intel Mac Mini to go with my Mac Book Pro. The thing to remember is that the speed will more than make up for the graphics issues.

The new Mac mini has *no* VRAM. Not 64M, Zero. It accesses all memory over the system bus in contention with the CPU. Now... the system bus is faster, but that faster system bus is a huge part of the performance improvements in the new chips... don't expect to get those "4.7x faster" benchmark results while you're doing anything with the video card.

$600-$800 isn't "cheap".

Cheaper than an iMac, yes, but still a premium-priced computer.

Exactly.

And the GMA950's fill rate is it's ONLY redeeming quality. Check out this comparative review of it at extremetech.com for the full picture.

Because it is only half a video processor (no video-only memory, so it has to steal from the CPU's) AND it just isn't anywhere near as powerful (the almost-year-old review notes a $60 card that is better, not an option in the Mini, though)... Coupled with the increase in cost...

I'm not getting a Mini to slap on a shelf behind my big screen TV like I had hoped for so long. I'd rather pay $400 more and get the low-end Intel iMac which is vastly superior. EVEN if I never look at its screen directly.

its sad they chose to skimp on a video card to save around $50 to $75...

but the intel 950 is slightly better overall than the radeon 9200, so at least its not being downgraded like some people are screaming about. still dissappointing though... guess no Mac mini for me unless next version has decent video... or a CTO video option

I would have liked to have seen atleast an ATI X300SE for the video option. They could have made use of the hyper meomry option to use system RAM. A CTO option for it even would have been nice.

What strikes me as odd is now the Mac Mini seems overpriced, and the iMac is a great deal for the 17". I used to feel it was reversed.

I was looking at PCs and to get a X1600, a Dual Core CPU and a 17" Widescreen LCD on a PC you were looking at $1800 ish.

But to get a Single Core, intergrated graphics in a budget box I found em as cheep at $299.

Just kinda struke me as funny.

But you can get a nice fast Athlon64 and a 17" widescreen LCD, name brand, for around $1100. Your choice: 16 64-bit registers or two sets of 8 32-bit registers.

Thats for s single core Athlon 64, I was compareinf Dual Core X2's

This was the best price I could come up with for an X2, and it was with an ATI X1300 not even an X1600.

HP m7300e
price $1,439.99 *

Operating System Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Media Center Edition edit
Processor AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3800+ (2.4GHz / 512KB L2 cache) edit
Memory 512MB DDR-400MHz dual channel SDRAM (2x256) edit
Hard Drive 160GB 7200 rpm SATA Hard Drive edit
Primary CD/DVD Drive SAVE $50! LightScribe 16X DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti dr edit
Front Productivity Ports 9-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB 2.0, 1 IEEE 1394 edit
Speakers HP Stereo Speakers edit
Networking None edit
Graphics Card 256MB DDR ATI Radeon X1300 Pro, TV-Out and DVI edit
Sound Card Integrated 5.1 Sound with front audio ports edit
Keyboard and Mouse HP Keyboard, HP Scroller Mouse edit
Productivity Software Microsoft(R) Works 8.0/Money 2006/MSN Encarta Plus edit

your additional options:


Click "edit" to modify. NOTE: These items are in stock and will ship immediately.

Monitors HP vs17c 17" LCD Flat-Panel Monitor edit

So like I said the 17" iMac is a good buy for the compoents you get where as I felt the Mac Mini is not at all.

Apple's performance specs for the Core Duo are based on multithreaded benchmarks where the advantage of avoiding context switches is massively overstated - you note that they don't provide any benchmarks for the Core Solo version of the Mac Mini, and for software like Second Life I'm inclined to believe it's the straight out single-core CPU speed that's more important.

actually, they had SPEC cpu benchmarks for the Core Solo 1.5ghz in the low end mini at the release announcement. it was scoring about 2X higher numbers than the 1.42ghz G4