Apple Killed the Mac Mini.
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,959 words · ~9 min read
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when i first laid eyes on the 2018 mac mini the first words out of my mouth
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were does apple make it bigger and i actually wasn't the only one
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so i got myself all pumped up to be like yo so it's not so many anymore is it you
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know what we should just call it the mac
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but but as it turns out they actually didn't make it bigger it's just been so
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long since apple has updated the mac mini that either you think of this
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or this or this
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which is the original mac mini not this
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i guess we've just been spoiled by the Intel nook and all the third-party
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derivatives but so you know what i'm actually gonna stick with it this
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product shouldn't be called the mac mini
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it should be called the mac but
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that might not be a bad thing
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so we stumbled upon the first reason that this is a mac
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not a mac mini during the ordering process
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unlike previous mac mini models the 2018
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mac is not cheap it starts at 7.99 for
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the quad core experience with a piddly 8 gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage
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now obviously i'm no pleb so i poked around on the ordering page some more
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and ended up ponying up for the second reason that this is a mac the desktop
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class 6 core processor option
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yes my friends starting at 1099 us you
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can get the same performance as your diy pc building chump roommate in a device
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this big the unboxing experience certainly was
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pretty legendary but things were looking up from there and isn't it beautiful the
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thing weighs only about three pounds and is completely clean aside from the
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glossy apple logo on the top oh well
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around back we've got this air vent that apple says doubles air flow over the
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last gen and above the io which impressively is nearly identical to the
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imac pro and includes four Thunderbolt 3
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ports which have all kinds of uses display usb external docks whatever
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we've got HDMI usb a and a headphone
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jack hey is that where they've been keeping them
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anyway what we've also got is the main event for me right here a 10 gigabit
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networking port and this is not only available on the mac but even reasonably
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priced at about 100 bucks for the upgrade so now we can finally edit ak
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footage over the network without needing an imac pro or an expensive Thunderbolt
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to 10 gigabit networking adapter so why don't we do it
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ah macOS my old friend
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macos not my favorite in no small part though due to my lack of familiarity
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with it but to its credit it's actually remarkably smooth on this machine with
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its mere eight gigs of RAM with that said the experience isn't all it could
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be with a more reasonable amount of system memory and i've got some good
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news with about half an hour and a handy dandy guide off of ifixit anyone with a
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screwdriver should be able to perform a memory upgrade on the 2018 mac remember
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that's what i'm calling it by themselves
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so i called in a friend to help me out he knows all about disassembling apple
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products it's actually easier than you might think to get inside this thing you just
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need the right tools here are the steps the bottom lid just pops right off the
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antenna plate is just a few screws make sure though that you mark where the
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larger ones go for reassembly later you unscrew the wi-fi connector and
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carefully pry it up then unscrew the fan pry its connector
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up and remove it these two cables need to be carefully removed
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then you can take out the two large tr-10 screws that keep the motherboard
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fastened to the chassis give the rear i o plate a gentle push and it'll pop up
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and then out there's a cage around the RAM to reduce emi but four t6 screws
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later and we have regular old sodium
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slots just repeat this process in reverse once the RAM is in and you're
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done but i have some bad news too remember
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how i mentioned that you should buy as much storage as you will need when you order
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yeah about that so the uh let's call them rumors about
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apple blocking third-party operating systems from the mac mini and other t2
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chip enabled devices turns out to be false but only from a
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literal standpoint thanks to the t2 chip Linux isn't
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blocked from booting only from installing
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so if you fire it up into recovery mode and disable secure boot
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you can still boot Linux if you're into that even with the t2 chip but without
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access to the internal storage so we're booted back up here let's go
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into about this map boom there it is 32 gigs of ddr4 memory so at least the
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RAM upgrade worked and this was just with random memory
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that we had lying around in our warehouse so all that's left now then is to see
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how the 2018 mac stacks up with the competition in terms of its performance
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we're going to test it alongside the macbook pro 2018 the macbook air 2018 a
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hades canyon nook and a similarly priced
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desktop pc also while we aren't focusing on games
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today we're going to throw a few in there just to round out our testing as
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one might expect well relying on integrated graphics does the mac no
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favors even at 720p medium details it
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absolutely chugs in shadow of the tomb raider meaning that you're basically sol
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for all but esports titles and even then
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it's not a great experience until you plug in an external GPU via
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Thunderbolt 3. just bear in mind though that only AMD graphics cards are
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officially supported in macOS
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anyway that's not why you're buying a mac and when it comes to productivity
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thankfully the mac here occupies a niche much closer to the 2018 macbook pro than
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the 2018 macbook air thanks to its hefty
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CPU horsepower but while it does beat out our hades
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canyon nook in CPU performance it sadly doesn't come close in GPU and loses out
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entirely to our similarly priced stock
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desktop except actually for one case where macOS's aggressive boost factors
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in though this lack of performance compared to a
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full-size desktop would be a much bigger problem in our eyes if it wasn't for the
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max diminutive form factor speaking of which by the way it does
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have a reasonable looking ventilation hole but it got really hot like
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really hot while it was working hard like over 90 degrees hot
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which comes a little too close to literally smoking the competition for
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our liking i mean stock chips start to throttle around 85 degrees or so and
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yeah the mac manages to keep it going above base clock with surprisingly
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minimal noise so that's good but remember it's got that t2 chip that
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we're all familiar with by now so if some component of your system dies a
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heat death or the board flexes or something especially as dust accumulates
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inside over the years remember apple might not upgrade this thing for four
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years so even if you buy on every release cycle
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at least the good news is that it sips power compared to our desktop i'm just
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saying i would recommend setting up time machine just to be safe
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which honestly is a pretty good way to sum up the whole experience one giant
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asterisk yeah it's a small mac
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but you're going to have to deal with no dedicated GPU when similarly priced kits
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have them yes it's fast but it's thermal
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solution while improved is not designed for sustained loads yes it's upgradable
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and cleanable but only if you have the right tools and that upgradeable thing
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it only applies to RAM not the internal storage that is held
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ransom by the t2 chip like it really seems like apple designed this new
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generation of mac with something like final cut or adobe premiere in mind
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where the igp can accelerate some of the transcoding work and then the CPU cores
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themselves can handle the much burstier timeline editing work that's even more
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apparent with the inclusion of 10 gig Ethernet for connecting to a high speed
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nas though we're not saying that's the only thing it could be used for because on
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that subject you could actually use this thing as a high speed nas thanks to that
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10 gig Ethernet though for the price and considering
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that you'd need a separate Thunderbolt enclosure for true mass storage well
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it's not a great value in spite of the compromises though
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per apple tradition there's nothing in this form factor that quite matches the
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capability and the connectivity of the
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2018 mac and the price while
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higher isn't entirely outlandish either
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so if you need its unique blend of form and function
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or if you just plain need a mac and don't feel like paying more to have a
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screen pre-attached to it seriously actually this occurred to us only while
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we were finalizing the script for this video this is the only thing that runs macOS
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and doesn't include a screen that has been refreshed by apple in the last five
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years anyway it's a pretty neat little machine
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just make sure you keep regular backups of all of your files
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though i mean that's pretty good advice across the board
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