
The back side includes quite a few new connections, with a pair of USB 3.0 ports accompanied by a HDMI 2.0 port, a headphone jack, power connection and button, an Ethernet port that can be upgraded to a 10-gigabit connection for an extra $100, and four Thunderbolt 3 ports.
#Promo code apple mac mini 2018 mac#
The casing is also made of a new alloy that allows Apple to make it completely from recycled aluminum, making it probably one of the most environmentally friendly versions of the Mac mini to date. To go with the upgraded internals, the externally visible parts have also been given a bit of a makeover, with the raw aluminum casing switched out for a Space Gray finish. Storage for this model is solely PCIe-based SSDs, starting from 128 gigabytes with options for 256 gigabytes, 512 gigabytes, 1 terabyte, or two terabytes.

The available memory for the model starts with 8 gigabytes of DDR4, but it can be configured to use 16 gigabytes, 32 gigabytes, or even 64 gigabytes at maximum capacity. At the top end is a six-core Intel Core i7 processor clocked at 3.2GHz with a 4.6GHz turbo boost. Powering the new Mac mini is a choice of a quad-core Intel Core i3 clocked at 3.6 gigahertz at the base level and a six-core Core i5 clocked at 3.0GHz that can be boosted to 4.1GHz. While staying a compact unit, measuring 7.7 inches square and just 1.4 inches thick, the specifications haven't been constrained, with Apple making considerable upgrades to the internals. (I've included benchmark results for a couple of Kaby Lake G laptops to give you a sense of performance and speed.) But that also would require some internal redesign and - gasp! - maybe a few millimeters' embiggening.Following a longer-than-expected period between refreshes, the new Mac mini brings Apple's compact desktop Mac up to date.
#Promo code apple mac mini 2018 pro#
Not all software supports the latter, but some notable digital audio editing software, such as Avid Pro Tools, at least take advantage to accelerate plug-ins. (With only four cores, that CPU may not match the performance of the i5 and i7 eighth-generation hexacore processors.) A Kaby Lake G CPU, for example, would be a nice alternative to the i3 simply to make the system low-end VR ready, to take some of the video decoding burden or to help reduce overhead in audio production. I'm not saying it needs a powerful gaming or rendering GPU. So what's the drawback? For many pros, it may be hamstrung by Intel's integrated graphics processor. We didn't rebenchmark the 2014 Mac Mini for comparison, but Apple would have had to actively try to slow it down in order to deliver worse performance than those four-year-old components. But if it's going to be another four years until Apple updates the Mini again, then every little bit of upgradability helps.

This undercuts one of the perks, namely being able to buy less expensive memory elsewhere. Upgradable memory is back, and it takes two industry-standard DDR4 SO-DIMMs.īut like most Apple products, it's not really end-user upgradable, requiring a trip to a service center. In addition to modernizing the connection options with USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, updating to HDMI 2.0 and offering a 10-gigabit Ethernet option, Apple fixed one of the big complaints about the 2014 model: soldered memory. But in the 2018 models, Apple's delivered a great upgrade, with only one possible drawback.

Sarah Tew/CNETĪfter several years of silence on the Mac Mini front, fans of Apple's diminutive desktop computing slab had given up hope of ever getting a replacement. In exchange we gain more Thunderbolt capacity and better venting. Gone are the SD card slot, two of the USB-A connections and audio input. The 2014 Mac Mini's connections (bottom) versus the 2018 model's (top).
