Apple Mac Mini gets speed bumps, and slim down too, but no more mouth to eat your disc

The Mac mini is yet another Mac to be updated with Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs and Thunderbolt. The Mini saw its last update on June 15th 2010 so a refresh was widely expected and also a bit overdue in Apple's traditional product lifespan cycle. There are no major chassis changes to the new Mac mini (sans the missing CD/DVD slot). Like the previous generation, there are three models: two consumer variants and a server. The Mac mini lineup has been like this since late 2009 when the server model was first introduced.

The most obvious change is a drop in price: the entry-level Mini is now MYR 1,899 and the high-end is MYR 2,499. The server model retains its MYR 3,099 price tag. This is definitely good news.

As for the hardware updates, the two most obvious ones are Core i5 and Core i7 Sandy Bridge CPUs and Thunderbolt. Those are dual-core Core i5 processors by the way. Every Mini now comes with one Thunderbolt port as well, which replaces the Mini DisplayPort, just like in the 2011 MBPs. A smaller update is that all models now come with 1333MHz DDR3, similar to the rest of the Mac lineup. The consumer models also come with 500GB HDDs instead of 320GB while the server model's storage remains unchanged (2x500GB 7200rpm).

Now let's see what the 'surprise' is this time. First, the high-end Mini now comes with a discrete AMD Radeon HD 6630M GPU. This is the first Intel Mac mini to adopt a discrete GPU. The old PPC Mac minis used discrete GPUs but since the transition to Intel CPUs in 2006, the Mac mini has been stuck with IGPs – first Intel GMAs and then NVIDIA since early 2009. It will be interesting to see how Apple has managed to find space for the discrete GPU and its cooling, especially because the Thunderbolt controller is a discrete chip as well. We applaud the move though. While Intel HD 3000 was great improvement from Arrandale graphics, it's still not all that great for gamers. Talk about a super tiny HTPC that lets you plays games at decent fps.

AMD 6630M is actually based on the same Whistler core as 6750M and 6770M found in MacBook Pros and iMacs. What you get are 480 shaders at 485MHz, which is 115-240MHz (19-33%) less than 6750M's and 6770M's. Thus the graphics performance won't be as good as in iMac and MBP but 6630M will still be a huge step up from Nvidia 320M and Intel HD 3000. There's no word on GPU clocks.

The second intriguing aspect of new Mac minis is the server model: It now comes with a quad core CPU. This appears to be the same i7-2635QM as found in $1799 15" MacBook Pro. The previous generation server model came with a 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo so this will be a huge upgrade in CPU performance. It will again be interesting to see how Apple has handled the extra heat as i7-2630QM has TDP of 45W compared to P8800's 25W.

Third, there is no more SuperDrive (ODD)! This would be the most drastic change around here. Apple is distributing nearly all of their software through Mac App Store now (including new OS versions), reducing the need for an optical drive. This move is logical and I wouldn't be surprised to see MBPs following Mac mini. There is always the option of an external ODD if you really, really need one. But hey, when is the last time you actually use your ODD?

Some of the BTO options are also new. The base model gets the option for a 750GB 7200rpm HDD but the high-end and server model can sport a 256GB SSD. That alone isn't a big deal but the high-end Mini has an option for a 750GB HDD + 256GB SSD. That's not a big surprise given that the ODD is gone now so there is space for a second 2.5" HDD. Whether there will be a second SATA port in one-drive configurations is still unknown but that would leave the option of a 3rd party SSD as a boot drive. The high-end Mini also offers an optional i7-2620M (2.7GHz dual core).

All in all, the 2011 Mac mini update is a good one. There are several welcome additions to the lineup, such as a discrete GPU. The prices are a lot more reasonable now too. Before, it made very little sense to buy Mini because a few hundred more got you an iMac with better specs and IPS panel. At MYR 1,899, the Mac mini makes sense and is a great option for a first time Mac buyer. You get great spec, a very nice package, and even authentic operating system, compared to those PCs.

The updated Mac mini comes with Lion pre-installed (Lion Server in server model) and is available from the Apple Online Store with estimated shipping time of 24 hours.
source: 2DayBlog.com

New 27-inch Core I5 IMac/3.1GHz Speed Results

On Tuesday, Apple released an updated line of iMacs, featuring quad-core Sandy Bridge Intel processors and Thunderbolt ports. Macworld Lab has all four standard configuration models, and the results for the $1999 27-inch iMac are in. The results do not disappoint, with the new iMac besting the previous generation of standard-configuration iMacs. The new 3.1GHz iMac even bested the performance of some impressively-equipped build-to-order models we've tested previously.

The $1999 iMac was the first to arrive in our lab and the first to be tested. At the heart of this iMac is a 3.1GHz Core i5 quad-core processor. This iMac also has a 1TB 7200-rpm hard drive, and AMD Radeon HD 6970M graphics with 1GB of video memory.

Our overall system performance test suite, Speedmark 6.5, shows the new system to be 16 percent faster than the previous high-end standard configuration iMac, a 27-inch 2.8GHz Core i5 quad-core model with a 1TB 7,200-rpm hard drive, and ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics with 1GB of dedicated RAM. (Apple considered the older 27-inch 2.8GHz Core i5 iMac a BTO option, but the online Apple Store didn't treat it like one, so we decided to treat it like a standard configuration model.)

In our iTunes encode test, the new iMac was 22 percent faster than the 27-inch 2.8GHz Core i5 iMac. The new iMac was also 18 percent faster in our Handbrake test, 20 percent faster in the Cinebench graphics test, 21 percent faster in the Cinebench CPU test, and 16 percent faster in our MathematicaMark tests.

Like the older 27-inch 2.8GHz Core i5 iMac, all of the new standard-configuration iMacs support Turbo Boost, which can give more processing power to individual cores when needed. And also like the older 27-inch 2.8GHz Core i5 iMac, all of the new standard-configuration iMacs don't have Hyper Threading, a technology that presents the OS with two virtual cores for each physical core.

Comparing the new system to last year's BTO models, we see less of a difference in performance. Just two Speedmark points separate the new 3.1GHz Core i5 iMac from the 2.93GHz Core i7 quad-core BTO iMac. The 2.93GHz model, like all 2010 iMacs, does not use Sandy Bridge processors, but it does support both Hyper Threading and Turbo Boost. In applications such as Cinebench and MathematicaMark, which can take advantage of eight virtual cores, the 2.93GHz BTO iMac outperformed the new 3.1GHz iMac.

Another 2010 BTO model, the 27-inch 3.6GHz Core i5 iMac, used a dual core processor at a faster clock speed. In terms of overall performance, the new standard 3.1GHz Core i5 iMac outperformed the 3.6GHz 2010 BTO iMac by 14 percent. In applications that make efficient use of four processors (Cinebench, Mathematica, and Handbrake), the new iMac was dominant, finishing 35 percent, 67 percent and 42 percent faster, respectively. In many tasks, however, having faster but fewer processors is an advantage, as can be seen in zipping and unzipping folders, and opening a Word document in Pages.

Compared to the 15-inch 2.2GHz Core i7 quad core MacBook Pro, the new 3.1GHz Core i5 iMac was 10 percent faster overall, and a few seconds faster in almost all of our individual application tests.

Compared to a recent six-core 3.33GHz Xeon Westmere Mac Pro with 8GB of RAM, the Mac Pro was about 15 percent faster overall than the new iMac. The iMac was a little faster in the graphics tests and iTunes encode tests, but considerably slower in most tasks, especially MathematicaMark and Cinebench CPU tests.

We're busy testing the other new models, so check back for more benchmarks soon. (The wait for Thunderbolt performance results will be longer, however, as the first few drives announced won't be available until this summer.) We're also working on the full review of the new iMacs.

PCworld