What's new

2018 Mac Mini

Looks nice. The price is, as usual, absolutely bonkers, but the build quality and user experience will be second to none I'm sure, and the feature set looks on target for the "one notch under the top of the line" machine. Kind of wish there were i9 options, for no other reason than 9 is a higher number than 7, but perhaps a mid-cycle refresh will address that. As to user-upgradable RAM, keep refreshing the macsales.com website - I'm sure they'll have it sorted within days.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if the next Mac Pro is using Apple silicon and not Intel. That would twist some nipples.

Compared to those $1k used dual-Xeon servers in the Junkie XL video, the Mac Mini price is a laugh, but then again it's silent, tiny, has TB3, and runs MacOS.

I'm always in the habit of looking for the best-built gear, but sometimes this attitude is overkill. I recently did a big studio clean-out and literally gave away a bunch of stuff like Mac Pro 2.1 machines and 16-year-old Panasonic plasma displays. They all still worked absolutely fine and had many years of serviceable life left in them, but the underlying technology was no longer relevant. Those Mac Pro 2.1 machines could only go to MacOS Lion, had FireWire 400 as the fastest external storage connector, and even UsedMac.com did not want them - wouldn't even give $100 for one. Those Panasonic 42" plasma displays were nearly $4k new, had worked perfectly for 16 years, and still looked perfect - but they had no HDMI (composite/component only) and the resolution was 480p (!!!) - and they are so heavy that I had to use SoundAnchors stands for them. They will be replaced by $1,500 75-inch Samsung 4k televisions. The new 4k tvs cost less than the stands that the plasmas were on!

At the time, I thought that the only acceptable decision was to buy Panasonic Industrial displays, the kind used for digital signage in airports and such, because I wanted maximum build quality and longevity.

I probably should have bought no-name Chinese crap, because they would have failed and I would have upgraded twice by now for the same money - and I wouldn't have felt so guilty when I left those Panasonics out on the curb with a sign saying, "42 Inch Plasma - WORKS!".

(They were snatched up by scavengers within minutes.)

So there's something to be said for buying rattly old used Dell servers for VEPro use - they'll probably last as long as they need to and you won't feel guilty just tossing them in the e-waste recycling bin when the time comes.
 
I just called Apple.You can buy third. party RAM and install it.
If that is true, the question remains if you can do that without breaking your warranty.
The other question to me is (I would have considered buying this as an interim main machine), how many Thundebolt 3 busses are on there ... there are 4 ports, ok! But if I hook up two monitors via thunderbolt, how much bandwidth/performance is left for thunderbolt SSDs etc? That would be good to know.
 
If that is true, the question remains if you can do that without breaking your warranty.
The other question to me is (I would have considered buying this as an interim main machine), how many Thundebolt 3 busses are on there ... there are 4 ports, ok! But if I hook up two monitors via thunderbolt, how much bandwidth/performance is left for thunderbolt SSDs etc? That would be good to know.

A ton. And if you need more ports, you can either daisy chain (if your peripherals/monitors have the ability), or buy a Thunderbolt hub....such as the Cal-Digit Thunderbolt 3 hub.
 
If that is true, the question remains if you can do that without breaking your warranty.
The other question to me is (I would have considered buying this as an interim main machine), how many Thundebolt 3 busses are on there ... there are 4 ports, ok! But if I hook up two monitors via thunderbolt, how much bandwidth/performance is left for thunderbolt SSDs etc? That would be good to know.

Would Apple have told me it was permitted if it broke the warranty?
 
The pricing of this is completely ridiculous. Absolutely no one should even consider buying this if you are using it as a server (slave) machine. You can get an Intel NUC with quad core 4.5ghz boost - that's also tiny, silent, and low power draw - with 64GB of RAM and 2TB NVME top-tier solid state storage, for about $1600. Sure, 2 cores fewer, but it's also less than half the price.

So would you rather have one fully specced Mac Mini? Or 2x slave machines with 2x the overall RAM, 2x the storage, and 25% more processing power... plus over $1000 left in your pocket?
 
The pricing of this is completely ridiculous. Absolutely no one should even consider buying this if you are using it as a server (slave) machine. You can get an Intel NUC with quad core 4.5ghz boost - that's also tiny, silent, and low power draw - with 64GB of RAM and 2TB NVME top-tier solid state storage, for about $1600. Sure, 2 cores fewer, but it's also less than half the price.

So would you rather have one fully specced Mac Mini? Or 2x slave machines with 2x the overall RAM, 2x the storage, and 25% more processing power... plus over $1000 left in your pocket?

I may indeed replace my 2013 iMac as my main machine with this, once OWC has third party RAM that can be in stalled at a reasonable price. 64 GB will get it done for me these days with what I am hired to do.
 
I may indeed replace my 2013 iMac as my main machine with this, once OWC has third party RAM that can be in stalled at a reasonable price. 64 GB will get it done for me these days with what I am hired to do.

As a main machine it still seems like shoveling money into a fire for what you're getting. If you're going to spend over $4k on an Apple machine, why not get an iMac Pro which includes an incredible 5k display, more expandability, a better processor w/ more cores, more ports, etc...?
 
A ton. And if you need more ports, you can either daisy chain (if your peripherals/monitors have the ability), or buy a Thunderbolt hub....such as the Cal-Digit Thunderbolt 3 hub.
I was talking about TB busses, not ports! That is relevant regarding the bandwidth when using multiple devices. The Mac Pro 2013 has 3 separate TB2 busses (and 6 physical ports).
 
Just got an email from OWC... here are the upgradable RAM prices:

bnr-mem-mini.jpg


Note: I'm not affiliated with OWC/Mac Sales at all. Just wanted to add this here to this thread...
 

Attachments

  • image.png
    image.png
    139.9 KB · Views: 2
But is user upgradeable so you can get 32GB for about £250 if you do it yourself. Can't find any 32GB SODIMM but guess they will become available in time, might be better getting the 8GB RAM model upgrading the RAM myself.
I do wonder about this also. Because I know they said 64GB for the 2013 Mac Pro, but in truth it takes 128GB. Though I am not sure if the i7 6-Core would support 128GB...

Thought as much, looks like the top-end chip is an i7 8700
https://ark.intel.com/products/126686/Intel-Core-i7-8700-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4-60-GHz-
 
As a main machine it still seems like shoveling money into a fire for what you're getting. If you're going to spend over $4k on an Apple machine,


Because I won't be? The fastest i7 6 core version with 8 GB of RAM. and a 256 SSD,m which is what I presently have, is $1499. Assuming I spend even $1400 on third party RAM, I am way under $4k. I already have monitors, a Thunderbolt dock, 2 external SSDs and three HDs, so for me it may make sense.
 
Looks nice. The price is, as usual, absolutely bonkers, but the build quality and user experience will be second to none I'm sure, and the feature set looks on target for the "one notch under the top of the line" machine. Kind of wish there were i9 options, for no other reason than 9 is a higher number than 7, but perhaps a mid-cycle refresh will address that. As to user-upgradable RAM, keep refreshing the macsales.com website - I'm sure they'll have it sorted within days.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if the next Mac Pro is using Apple silicon and not Intel. That would twist some nipples.

Yup to all of that.

$1100 for the base 6-core is great, or $1300 for the faster chip. No problem dropping an additional $100 to get 10 Gigabyte Ethernet, because it's 9 numbers higher. $1400 for a studio machine is very reasonable.

But then $1400 to bring it up to 64GB of RAM, another $1400 to increase the SSD to 2TB?! Fuck you!
 
I wish the storage and RAM was user upgradable. As Apple's prices are nuts as always! As everyone else has said so far too. Was looking forward to potentially getting 2 for a portable daisy-chained rig that would work very well for sure. Will wait for 8th Gen Intel NUCs and stick to Windows again for now I'm thinking. Or may just get the lowest end model to simply use macOS again. So many choices yet all cost crazy prices!

Edit: Does anyone know if the i7 in these models are 6 cores / 12 threads or 6 cores / 6 threads?
 
Last edited:
By the way, the new MacBook Air looks like a nice machine for "general computing" use - assuming its keyboard is good.
 
I'm sure that the price for 3rd party ram will drop once there is competition.

To me, the new Mini seems like a great alternative to patching my 5,1, buying and upgrading a 6,1, or waiting for the new Mac Pro (whose price is sure to make my eyes water).

I'm in no big rush to replace my machine so I'll be interested to see how early adopters use them.
 
Top Bottom