As a fan of faster computers from Apple , I ’m heartened by this workweek ’s liberation of an Intel - found Mac miniskirt . In fact , with the SPECint_rate_base2000 bench mark indicate speeds of up to four time faster than the Mac miniskirt G4 , this Modern crop of minis sound just about perfect . I say “ just about , ” because of one peculiar offspring .
As I cut into into the specs following Apple ’s mini annunciation , I noticed that the new Mac mini feature a 64MBIntel GMA950“integrated ” graphics processor . In English , that means that the mini ’s artwork descend not from a video recording bill ( like the ATI Radeon 9200 in the first - generation mini ) but from a chipset on the motherboard . This root is much chinchy than a dedicated card , but it come at a cost — the card gets its 64 M of read/write memory from the system ’s RAM , and it use CPU business leader to do much of its number scraunch .
In fact , until Tuesday morning , Apple ’s mini pagehad this to sayabout integrated graphics chips :
As this article was posted , the mini Intel Core pagenow study :
So , on Monday , February 27 , an integrated graphics Saratoga chip was something that stole magnate from the mainframe and siphoned off arrangement memory . As of February 28 , it ’s suddenly capable of supporting the latest 3 - D games and is an unbelievable value proposition ? Ah , selling !
The world is that we wo n’t know exactly how good ( or bad ) this resolution is until a miniskirt reach it into Macworld Lab for real - world examination . Personally , I ’m not distressed about gambling , but I ’m curious as to how well it will work with six or seven big lotion black market when it ’s then asked to do something that ’s CoreGraphics - intensive — like opening 10 widgets in rapid - fire way .
Also keep in mind that the mini isnota gamer ’s Mac . Anyone grease one’s palms a miniskirt to toy Quake 4 or Doom 3 is going to be disappoint . It ’s Apple ’s down in the mouth - toll Mac , the starting degree for Mac carrying into action . As such , it ’s important that it do well in typical non - gaming tasks , and support OS X ’s graphics needs well . Beyond that , if it happens to feed some of the 3 - D game in a reasonable style , it ’s a bonus .
But the question about the mini ’s nontextual matter support , although very crucial , is n’t what stuck with me when I read about “ integrated graphics . ” Instead , I found myself remember more about what the move to an unified nontextual matter chip signify for the future tense of Apple hardware . For many years , microcomputer builders have used such chips on their entry - layer machines . But Apple , mainly due to having no such pick with the Motorola / IBM processors , had never gone this road before .
As such , my initial thought about the miniskirt ’s new graphics chip was n’t performance link . or else , it was more like :
“ The Mac mini is the first Apple Dell ! ”
Or to put it another way , I found myself thinking “ cheaper computer hardware in sleazy loge . ” And since that ’s the same thing everyone else offer up , that chair to an immediate keep up - up thought : oh no .
But is that really a valid concern ? Will Apple become nothing more than an industrial designer of gracious - looking box fill up with generic hardware ? And even if that does happen , should that interest me ?
About Dell
As you plausibly know , Dell is one of the largest Peter Sellers of Windows - compatible machine on the planet . And they got to be huge , not by having the salutary R&D department and fabrication lines but by cipher out how to build and deliver machine quicker and sleazy than everyone else . In contrast , Apple had an early chronicle of contrive and building everything itself — the company have its own manufacturing plants in places like Sacramento , Calif. , for many years .
Generalizing a bit ( as I ’m not privy to the intimate workings at Dell ) , Dell purchase motherboards , keyboards , RAM , mice , hard thrust , the operating system and BIOS , candle and videodisk drive , cable television , monitors , speakers , video cards , web chips , and various other microcomputer components as cheaply as potential from any number of suppliers ( well , there ’s onlyoneWindows OS provider , evidently ) . Dell then practice the most effective assembly method potential to put those parts together inside the only matter that really make a Dell a Dell — the suit .
So here we have a company that sells$15 billion worthof Windows computers per year , and yet as far as I know , does n’t manufacture a single thing . Instead , the company is the world ’s most efficient assembler of piece , some of which it specialize the figure for , and others of which are manufacture - standard . That big money of parts is then nicely wrapped up and delivered in a case stamped with the Dell logotype , all power by Windows . And Dell does this very well ; it makes some overnice systems that execute admirably — I had a Dell at my last job , and it was one of the fastest and quiet machine I ’ve ever used .
About Apple
Now consider Apple . For twelvemonth , Apple had a serious slip of using technology that differed from the respite of the reckoner business . The motorcar - eject floppy ( call back those ? ) , the NuBus user interface bus , the Apple Desktop Bus ( ADB ) , Apple ’s seemingly - never - terminate strand of unique proctor interface , and even SCSI disk interfaces were all technologies primarily used by Apple . Many of these were even recrudesce in house , through Apple ’s own R&D department .
These technologies were more pricey than industry - received alternatives , and in many case , connect Apple to a sole supplier . ( Only Sony made the auto - eject floppy , for example . ) Even the motherboards were an Apple - specific part , admit quite a few Apple - designed mix circuits . Most companies that sell Windows PC ( excluding the motherboard firms that have gotten into the microcomputer manufacture stage business ) do n’t do anything with motherboards or microchip beyond purchasing and assembling them .
For the consumer , all this technological genius imply really expensive systems . Remember theIIfx ? Introduced in 1990 , it be around $ 10,000 at the time . correct for inflation , that ’s about $ 15,000 in today ’s dollars . ( grant , costs have dropped greatly on other components since then , so the IIfx would n’t be anywhere almost that much today . ) Even in its fourth dimension , it was a very expensive machine — comparable DOS / Windows machines were substantially inexpensive .
To keep down costs and meliorate part availability , Apple has been slowly move off from Apple - created applied science towards manufacture - standard . Hence , NuBus became PCI and PCI Express ; ADB became USB ; monitor lizard are now get in touch via DVI or VGA standard plugs ; and surd driving plug in via ATA or SATA . In other cases , Apple has helped its technologies become standards ( FireWire ) , which help guarantee multiple manufacturers and downcast costs . These changes have helped lower the damage of the Mac , though they ’re still more high-priced ( in general ) than a typical PC .
The switch to Intel
According to Apple , the electrical switch to Intel chips was justified on a “ business leader per watt ” analytic thinking of Intel versus IBM chips . However , there are other advantages as well — namely , access to even more diligence - standard engineering . Intel is a huge fellowship that ride a plenty of activity around the Intel standard . For Apple , this signify access to lots of technologies that are already in use of goods and services on trillion of PCs . The integrated graphics chip is a sodding illustration .
With the G4 check , Apple did n’t have this option useable , unless it require to tradition - pattern an onboard artwork chipset itself . That would clear be an expensive proposition , so sticking a third - party add-in in the humiliated - end mini made the most sense . But with an Intel - ground miniskirt , Apple suddenly had access to an already - developed , quick - to - use integrate graphics solution . Economically , it make a lot of sense for an introduction - level auto , given the mark interview . Performance - wise , we ’ll have to wait and see if it was a reasonable conclusion .
Is the new mini a ‘cheap’ machine?
As I mentioned earlier , the mini isnotthe machine to buy if you want to toy the newest 3 - D games . Nor is it the machine to buy if you want to act in Final Cut Studio all day , produce the nextStar Wars . It ’s Apple ’s entry level Mac , the crummy one you may buy . ( award , it ’s missing a keyboard , mouse , and screen , but it ’s still middling cheap . ) As such , cost thoughtfulness do come into playing period .
That said , I must take that when I read “ graphics chipset , ” I cringed and immediately thought of nothing but abysmal graphic processing . In so doing , however , I made a yoke of major mistakes .
The first mistake was not lie with anything about the GMA950 ’s carrying out . On newspaper , at least , this chipset is technically at least as fast as ( if not quicker than ) the Radeon 9200 it supplant . And the 9200 was also not much of a card for 3 - D games use either — I found a couple of Doom 3 benchmark that showed the 9200 score around nine frames per secondment at 800 - by-600 resolve , while the GMA950 handle to reach all the mode to 13 or so . Ugh .
literal world trial will show , of course , if the new chip will trump the old bill of fare in daily utilisation . I still greatly dislike the concept of sharing RAM and CPU with the computer graphic placard , and the 80 MB of Aries the Ram reserved for the video board ( 64 M for the add-in and 16 MiB for a frame buffer storage ) will effectively turn the mini into a 432 MB motorcar .
Setting aside the performance question for the moment , my second mistake was a classic “ ca n’t see the forest for the trees ” mentality . By focalise on the art change , I missed everything else that Apple seems to have done right with the new miniskirt :
For all of that , the toll increased $ 100 for the cornerstone model . The AirPort card alone is a $ 99 retail item , so they ’ve distinctly added a lot of value and performance to the machine .
My chief business is still the operation of the graphics chipset . Will the improvement in arrangement bus , CPU speed , cache , and store stop number make up for the sharing of CPU and RAM with the graphics chipset ? And how well will the chip treat CoreGraphics ’ requirements with a number of applications running and using up tup ? If the GMA950 can do an acceptable job in these area , then the new mini will be a actual winner in my Good Book . I have one on gild , and will commence running my “ Rob Griffiths ’ benchmark rooms ” once it arrives . Macworld Lab also has a machine in house to do more official testing and evaluating of the mini ’s public presentation .
So is the new mini really an Apple Dell?
In many way , it is . It ’s go a lot of diligence - standard engineering , including the new onboard graphics chip . As remark , this is what I originally focalize on when I discover about the fresh mini . In so doing , though , I overlook the one fact that will keep Apple fromeverturning into just another box God Almighty . It ’s also the reason I ’m quite comfortable with my decision to put a miniskirt in themacosxhints’labs for daily use . And that fact is …
OS X.
The key difference between Dell and Apple is that Apple also own , get , and modifies the magnetic core operating system of rules that runs their machines . Dell , on the other helping hand , basically gets whatever Redmond sends them every few years . As much as Dell would belike love to ship a machine with Vista on it today , it ca n’t . The release schedule for their first Vista box seat lie completely in Microsoft ’s ascendance . Dell will get the same version of Vista as every other vendor , leave alone only price , computer hardware features , and case purpose as differentiating gene .
Apple , on the other hand , owns the operating system . If it want a new feature to support some new hardware design direction , it can simply tot up it in as needed . They can also create those surprisingly compelling applications ( iPhoto , iMovie , iTunes , iDVD , Mail , Safari , etc . ) that make using OS X on Apple hardware such a joy . Add - in the best industrial designers in the business sector , and you have the recipe required for Apple to continue building nerveless , utilitarian hardware and software program . Inside the boxful , the part may look more like a Dell , but in terminus of use , a Mac will always be a Mac as long as it ’s run an Apple - designed operating system .
So despite my worries about the nontextual matter performance of the young mini , I ’m not concerned that this is the general “ beginning of the end ” of Apple ironware as I know it . As long as the company still owns the OS , designs awful applications , and wraps them together in great industrial designs , I ’ll continue to be a glad customer .
