Mac mini vs. Mac Studio

[Andropov]

Except that the Cube has a 2"x 4" oval vent in the top, and its logic board, video card and HD are vertical.

Yeah, but it didn't even have a fan, the airflow was generated by convection only. Even a tiny low rpm fan can provide more airflow. And the SoC isn't thermally coupled to the case either, it can't possibly get hot enough to dissipate any meaningful amount of heat. This video shows the case reaching about ~30ºC after a CineBench benchmark. That's a ΔT of what, 10ºC vs ambient? In something that doesn't even have fins to get more surface area (the Cube had a massive internal heatsink to compensate for not having a fan, and was designed to use convection)... I don't think the case material matters much, they have enough headroom to make the case of whatever material they want.

 

[Yoused]

Yeah, but it didn't even have a fan, the airflow was generated by convection only. Even a tiny low rpm fan can provide more airflow.

Actually, in about '06, I replaced my 450 with a 1.2Ghz and a better graphics card, which allowed me to run Leopard – the upgrade came with a small fan, which was steady and all but completely inaudible.

 

[Andropov]

Actually, in about '06, I replaced my 450 with a 1.2Ghz and a better graphics card, which allowed me to run Leopard – the upgrade came with a small fan, which was steady and all but completely inaudible.

Yeah, mine had a fan too. Funny how the Cube shipped with the fan bracket but no fan in there. Mine had a 7447A @ 1.8GHz + Nvidia 6200. Searched for a 7448 for the longest of times, with no luck. Very nice machine. Sadly, the VRM board in mine died, and I haven't replaced it since.

 

[MEJHarrison]

Now I have a May 18th delivery date. The wiggle room is gone if it shows up on time, but I'm ok with that.

First was June 10-20
Then it was May 18th.
Then it go moved to tomorrow for a while.
Then it was moved to yesterday for a couple days.

As of now, it's actually here in Oregon and scheduled to be delivered this afternoon. I do believe this is the day!

 

[MEJHarrison]

I finally got my Mac Studio yesterday. But I wasn't able to play with it till this morning due to waiting on the Migration Assistant to finish. But so far this morning I'm really loving it so far.

 

[MEJHarrison]

I've managed to push the memory pressure to the yellow. I currently have the following opened:

• Messages
• Safari with 7 tabs open
• Activity Monitor
• Slack
• VMWare Horizons
• Microsoft Teams
• Photos
• iMovie
• Music
• Xcode
• Notes
• Mail
• Calendar
• Apple TV
• Visual Studio Code
• Apple Developer
• App Store
• Discord

In fairness, this is WAY more than I would normally have open. But I wanted to get some of the bigger items running. Also, I've got those spread across 10 different desktops.

It's still blowing cold air, no audible fan noise and is cold to the touch. In comparison, the iMac next to it is running Slack and Teams, it's very warm on the back and the fans are quite noticeable. It's also still as zippy as it was when I had a single application open.

This thing is a beast. I'm ready for the future.

 

[fischersd]

Heh...there should be a third option on the survey - wait for the mini that you want.

...which pretty much personifies the "The new Mac mini is most certainly coming..." thread over on MR.

And, yes, I'm one of those waiting. Not thrilled with Apple currently. If I had about $18B in funding, I'd buy BlackBerry outright and create a 3rd ecosystem. (We really do need a secure option that isn't a walled garden)

My latest beef with Apple is that they wouldn't replace my fiancee's iPhone 13 Pro Max under AC+ (dropped, cracked screen under the glass, frame banged up). It turns out if the frame is still functional enough that they can effect a screen repair, then that's all they'll do - regardless of your willingness to pay for the replacement. "AppleCare+ doesn't cover cosmetic damage". Ummm....what?!?!?!
So, we didn't do the screen replacement and now she's running her device naked, until she has a drop that causes enough frame damage that AC+ will do what we want.

And, yes, not buying AC+ again for anything I buy again ever. That's like not repainting your car after repairing the body work.

Because, we don't buy Apple devices for how they look, right? Heh. I'm more than a little pissed about the whole experience.

(and, yes, I'm biased...8 years and 2 months of my life at BB...). If Mike and Jim would have listened to all of us, this would still be a 3 horse race. (or Google wouldn't have even gotten out of the gate)

 

[Andropov]

I've managed to push the memory pressure to the yellow.

Just checked mine (16" MBP M1 Pro), it's orange. Guess I should've gone with the 32GB version

It's still snappy though

 

[MEJHarrison]

And, yes, not buying AC+ again for anything I buy again ever.

I've never purchased Apple Care. I've had multiple iPhones starting with the 3G, 3-4 iPads, 2-3 watches, 2 MacBook Pros, 1 iMac, Apple TV, AirPort Extreme, etc. Out of all those devices, I've needed Apple Care twice. Once my boss pushed me into a swimming pool with my phone in my pocket. The other was a broken screen after dropping my XS Max. I just ended up living with a broken screen for a year.

All the Apple Care I've not purchased over the years probably paid for my Mac Studio.

 

[Colstan]

I finally got my Mac Studio yesterday. But I wasn't able to play with it till this morning due to waiting on the Migration Assistant to finish. But so far this morning I'm really loving it so far.

That's great to hear, I'm jealous, but can't justify replacing my 2018 Mac mini, just yet. I do have a question, we've heard reports of a slight whining or hissing sound coming from the fans inside of some of the Mac Studios. Those who have reported it have often said that it is more annoying than standard case cooling, others say it doesn't bother them, while some claim to not experience any sound. In your testing thus far, what has your experience been with the cooling solution?

 

[MEJHarrison]

That's great to hear, I'm jealous, but can't justify replacing my 2018 Mac mini, just yet. I do have a question, we've heard reports of a slight whining or hissing sound coming from the fans inside of some of the Mac Studios. Those who have reported it have often said that it is more annoying than standard case cooling, others say it doesn't bother them, while some claim to not experience any sound. In your testing thus far, what has your experience been with the cooling solution?

I can't say I've really noticed any noise. Not a problem for me.

 

[MEJHarrison]

View attachment 13909

If you look at that original screenshot, there's a process called bird taking 17GB. It seems that's related to iCloud syncing. So that was bugging me. Now that it's had a few days to settle down and get rebooted, I repeated the test with a far different outcome this time.

I'm not going to list everything. I added a tons of new apps as you can see in the screenshot. Also, I've got 2 different Xcode projects going. I have a lot open, but not a lot of "work" is happening, so it's not surprising that the CPU is 71% idle.

All my apps feel just as responsive, but I will say swiping between desktops is beginning to feel just a touch laggy. But I have all those apps spread out across 15 different desktops and have 6 full-screens apps going as well.

 

[Colstan]

Now that the Mac Studio has had time to "settle in", how does the general qualitative experience and overall responsiveness feel compared to your old iMac? Which model are you comparing it to? You seem to be enjoying it, now that it has "made itself at home". (That also means that it'll eat all your junk food when you aren't around and invite all the other Macs over for a party while you're on vacation, but such are the sacrifices we take for performance.)

 

[Roller]

Now that the Mac Studio has had time to "settle in", how does the general qualitative experience and overall responsiveness feel compared to your old iMac? Which model are you comparing it to? You seem to be enjoying it, now that it has "made itself at home". (That also means that it'll eat all your junk food when you aren't around and invite all the other Macs over for a party while you're on vacation, but such are the sacrifices we take for performance.)

At home, a Mac Studio Ultra replaced my 2017 Core i7 iMac. It's much more responsive and quicker, especially with multiple applications open, and it's made a real difference for video editing in Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, and Lightroom. At work, I got a Studio Max, but it replaced an even older iMac that had become very slow, so the improvement there was even greater. I back up both Macs with external SSDs, so it's convenient to have a couple ports on the front. I will say, though, that disconnecting USB C cables takes a lot more effort than I expected, even compared to my MacBook Pro. I have to hold the Mac Studio in place with one hand while pulling with the other to prevent the computer from sliding around the desk.

Actually, I wouldn't mind if the Mac Studio at home ate some of my junk food — I'd probably be healthier that way. But it's shown restraint so far.

 

[MEJHarrison]

Now that the Mac Studio has had time to "settle in", how does the general qualitative experience and overall responsiveness feel compared to your old iMac? Which model are you comparing it to? You seem to be enjoying it, now that it has "made itself at home". (That also means that it'll eat all your junk food when you aren't around and invite all the other Macs over for a party while you're on vacation, but such are the sacrifices we take for performance.)

I'm coming from a 2017 iMac with an i5. It was basically the entry-level iMac with a 1TB fusion drive. I added my own memory to bump it up to 16GB. In some tasks, I don't notice much difference. Browsing photos for example. But if I'm playing with something like Xcode, it's a night and day difference. Much more responsive and fun to play with. On the old Mac getting a SwiftUI project up and going was a painful process that would include multiple rebuilds before it would preview my pages. I was trying to get a screenshot a week or two back and after 15 minutes of trying to get the project going, I just gave up. Obviously the new box has no issues are all with Xcode. I've been playing with it all week.

One area where I've really noticed a difference is with Photos, and it's a little strange. When I had Slack, Teams and VMWare open for work, I could take a bunch of photos, but my iMac wouldn't sync them till all that work stuff was shut down. So it would sit there all day without trying to get photos from the cloud. If I really wanted them to sync, sometimes either putting the machine to sleep or just a reboot would solve the issue, sometimes not. The new machine works as expected. If there are new photos to sync, it syncs them. It doesn't care what else might be running. That's actually come in handy. I can snap pictures of the new computer or whatever and send them to the guys at work over Slack. I don't need to hop onto another device to do so. It's a super odd edge case, but there you are. That one bugged the snot out of me.

I've not taken the time to experiment with Unity yet. But like Xcode, I would expect a lot of improvements in that area.