New Mac mini?

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Steve Davies

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Nov 12, 2020, 3:52:31 PM11/12/20
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I have a 2012 27” iMac which may not be long of this world, nor will it run the next generation operating system.
THINKING about replacing my iMac with a stand alone monitor and a Mac mini but it is not clear to me how much more powerful, (If at all.) the new mini is compared to the old iMac, as Apple do not seem to show the machine spec for the mini in a meaningful way, (At least, not to me.)
Does anyone have a view?
Cheers,
Steve.

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Sam - MacAmbulance

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Nov 12, 2020, 6:15:29 PM11/12/20
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I think from all the reports of M1 macs beating current intel-based Macs in most processor based scores, it’s safe to say the new M1 Mac mini will be many times quicker than a 2012 iMac even with its dedicated graphics card.

_

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On 12 Nov 2020, at 20:53, 'Steve Davies' via Sussex Mac User Group <sm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I have a 2012 27” iMac which may not be long of this world, nor will it run the next generation operating system.
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Steve Davies

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Nov 13, 2020, 1:58:34 AM11/13/20
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Cheers Sam,
I may get the 27” version of the monitor you just bought to go with it, (Shame it only has 2 USB ports.)
Thanks for the response.
Steve.

Sent from my phone


On 12 Nov 2020, at 23:15, Sam - MacAmbulance <in...@macambulance.com> wrote:

I think from all the reports of M1 macs beating current intel-based Macs in most processor based scores, it’s safe to say the new M1 Mac mini will be many times quicker than a 2012 iMac even with its dedicated graphics card.

Steve Davies

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Nov 13, 2020, 2:08:11 AM11/13/20
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FYI Further to the exchange below, these benchmarks just in:


Sent from my phone


On 13 Nov 2020, at 06:58, Steve Davies <steve.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:

Cheers Sam,

nick_p...@mac.com

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Nov 13, 2020, 4:25:13 AM11/13/20
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Apple Silicon M1 Mac Mini vs. Intel Mac Mini Buyer's Guide
This may be of interest as well as there are pros and cons between the 2 Mac Minis now on sale.
Nick

On 13 Nov 2020, at 07:08, 'Steve Davies' via Sussex Mac User Group <sm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

FYI Further to the exchange below, these benchmarks just in:
<image0.jpeg>

Steve Davies

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Nov 13, 2020, 4:28:36 AM11/13/20
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Great, thanks.

Steve.

mac98aop

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Nov 13, 2020, 6:19:15 AM11/13/20
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Yes, this brave new world of Big Sur and M1 will make your 2012 iMac seem like a 1930s MG - a vintage classic and thing of beauty, but going to struggle to keep up with a Porsche Taycan ;)

I'm a few years of replacing my 2019 MBPro, but looking forward to what's in store. I'd thought Apple was heading away from macOS and sending us in to an iOSified future - but I'm less convinced now. It's just a more unified ecosystem, especially for developers, and I'm as excited by it (nerd?!) as I was when we got our first Mac Classic SE. System 6 anyone?!

Jason Davies

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Nov 13, 2020, 6:36:56 AM11/13/20
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I would consider waiting a little while to see if the iMac/Mac Pro chip is a big leap. The M1 machines do look very good and at worse that's what will be in those, but we may see another gear being used for those.

I'm also at the 'do I upgrade?' point ever more emphatically now (still running Mojave). Would a new Mac Mini run three monitors, does anyone know? That's my dealbreaker and that's why I got a mac pro ten years ago...

I don't need 4k (nor can I afford it!) and some of the stuff I've read implies that lower-res monitors can be connected in higher numbers (I can't work out what actually sets the limits, since all the ports seem to be the same now)

Cheers,
J




Cheers,

Jason

A C Crooks

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Nov 13, 2020, 6:45:05 AM11/13/20
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Being adventurous this morning I upgraded our 2014 Mac mini to Big Sur. Huge 12GB download but the update itself was uneventful. The changed appearance will take a while to get used to but on the whole I approve of the simplicity of the UI.

I had expected Big Sur to run more slowly than Catalina but surprisingly it seems rather swifter on this Mac mini, 1.4Ghz version with 4GB memory, with an external SSD System Disk. 

Which makes wonder if Big Sur will be blindingly fast on an M1 Mac mini when mine arrives next week. 

Regards,

Tony
Sent from my iPad

On 13 Nov 2020, at 11:19, mac98aop <adamp...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, this brave new world of Big Sur and M1 will make your 2012 iMac seem like a 1930s MG - a vintage classic and thing of beauty, but going to struggle to keep up with a Porsche Taycan ;)
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A C Crooks

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Nov 13, 2020, 9:27:48 AM11/13/20
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One thing I have noticed with Big Sur is that if you use Time Machine and you have APFS formatted volumes then by creating an APFS Time Machine volume the backup process runs much more quickly. 

I’m also going to run Carbon Copy Cloner soon which seems ready to run on Big Sur to see if this is equally speedier. 


Regards,

Tony
Sent from my iPad

On 13 Nov 2020, at 11:52, 'Phil Ward' via Sussex Mac User Group <sm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

You are a mighty brave man Tony!

I suspect I’ll be living with daily update notifications for about 9 months before I dare take the plunge on my Mac Mini!

Phil


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On 13 Nov 2020, at 11:44, 'A C Crooks' via Sussex Mac User Group <sm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Being adventurous this morning I upgraded our 2014 Mac mini to Big Sur. Huge 12GB download but the update itself was uneventful. The changed appearance will take a while to get used to but on the whole I approve of the simplicity of the UI.

I had expected Big Sur to run more slowly than Catalina but surprisingly it seems rather swifter on this Mac mini, 1.4Ghz version with 4GB memory, with an external SSD System Disk. 

Which makes wonder if Big Sur will be blindingly fast on an M1 Mac mini when mine arrives next week. <image0.jpeg>

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itsa...@icloud.com

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Nov 13, 2020, 10:02:52 AM11/13/20
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FYI: After last night’s horrendous debacle I left it until today to install Big Sur.

I’m using an Early 2015 13” MacBook Pro, 8GB RAM, 500GB storage. The whole process from clicking update to logging in took about 2 hours - around 60% download/40% install at a rough guess.

It’s definitely more rounded and brighter than Catlina with much more white everywhere. I’ve had two warnings about legacy extensions but that’s it. Everything is running normally including MS Teams and MS Excel and everything else I’ve tried so far. Performance seems about the same.

The Notification Centre & Widgets seem an immediate improvement on Catalina.


There are two detailed reviews of Big Sur:


They both have different approaches so if you want to geek out a bit then go for it!

OK - back to work.

Happy updating (if you do)

Stephen

It's hard to get a man to understand something when his income depends on him not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair

On 13 Nov 2020, at 11:19, mac98aop <adamp...@gmail.com> wrote:

Martin

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Nov 17, 2020, 10:01:12 AM11/17/20
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I too also have a 2012 27" iMac (with fusion drive) which I'm booting off of a 1TB external ssd running Catalina. Could I update the ssd to Big Sur, boot and run the iMac off of that?

Martin

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Tony Crooks

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Nov 17, 2020, 12:00:18 PM11/17/20
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C41BA189-38F7-4336-9696-F439F6A79D32.jpegArrived lunchtime. Super speedy. Currently working through which apps need Rosetta 2. 

Sam - MacAmbulance

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Nov 17, 2020, 12:38:05 PM11/17/20
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A 2012 iMac won’t run Big Sur I’m afraid. It’s 2014 onwards


_

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Sam Mullen

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On 17 Nov 2020, at 15:02, Martin <martin...@gmail.com> wrote:



Steve Davies

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Nov 17, 2020, 1:18:14 PM11/17/20
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Great to hear
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Tony Crooks

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Nov 18, 2020, 5:08:30 PM11/18/20
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Apart from the £300 premium you might consider that the Air has no fan and the mini does. Therefore the mini more resistant to thermal throttling. Depends on how important portability is for your needs.

Steve Davies

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Nov 19, 2020, 5:23:18 AM11/19/20
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Good point Tony, thanks.
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Jason Davies

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Nov 19, 2020, 10:11:30 AM11/19/20
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As a misophone I'm fascinated at the prospect of a truly silent Mac. John Gruber has emphasised that even the 'with-fan' Macbook Pro is utterly silent. But I need three monitors so the M1 Mac Mini is sadly not going to work, so am waiting for the big guns (iMac and Mac Pro) to update.

<https://daringfireball.net/2020/11/the_m1_macs>

"...it isn’t making even a whisper of noise.

No Intel-based laptop with vaguely comparable performance to these machines can possibly match that silence. If you care about noise, the game is already over."

You cannot believe how long I've waited to read that;)

cheers,
J

Sam - MacAmbulance

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Nov 19, 2020, 11:03:33 AM11/19/20
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Just a thought, how are you going to connect three displays to a MacBook Pro with 2 USB-C ports?

_

Regards
Sam Mullen

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Jason Davies

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Nov 19, 2020, 3:38:42 PM11/19/20
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I'm not;)

The current Intel Mac mini will do three monitors (the m1 only does two) so I'm thinking that will become an Apple Silicon Model at some point and perhaps retain that. I assume a Mac Pro (hefty hole in the budget for that) will support at least three. What I'll have to do is look into how much I should use adaptors/hubs and how much I should just also trade up monitors to newer ones. I also have a USB 2 displaylink kit which theoretically lets me run another monitor (so eg an iMac M1 might support a second monitor but displaylink would give me the third). It needs a decent CPU - running it on my work Macbook Air kills the machine.

I don't need great monitors, it's all text, but I need a lot of room (and my eyesight is gradually failing so I often have them at lower resolutions than 'recommended'). Most of the time I'm writing in one, consulting another and compiling/previewing output on the third. One buge monitor doesn't work, I spend all my time fixing window sizes (if only macOS could treat a large screen as two, subdivided, iPad style...)

PS one of the monitors, the one I'm reading this on, is the one I bought from you - vintage Apple display still going strong!
Cheers,
J

Stephen Watson

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Nov 19, 2020, 4:47:24 PM11/19/20
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You can easily have two apps or windows iPad style. Click on the green traffic light button and choose the left side then click on another window for the right side.

You may care to look at an app called Magnet on the Mac App Store which allows for easy setting of window sizes just by dragging windows or using a shortcut key.

Cheers,

Stephen

You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it. ~ Carl Jung

On 19 Nov 2020, at 20:38, 'Jason Davies' via Sussex Mac User Group <sm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



Jason Davies

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Nov 20, 2020, 5:33:00 AM11/20/20
to 'Stephen Watson' via Sussex Mac User Group

yeah, it doesn't really work for me (and I don't fully understand your instructions - clicking on the green button zooms, no option to click on the left, but maybe that's a 'still on Mojave' problem). I'm also using Spaces in complicated but viable ways. If anyone creates a way to have the two screen halves be truly independent, I can get one huge monitor (much easier on the desk!)

cheers,
J



Cheers,

Jason

Rob Beattie

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Nov 20, 2020, 8:11:29 AM11/20/20
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Works as advertised on Catalina. See attached.

Rob
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2020-11-20_13-10-27.jpg

Stephen Watson

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Nov 20, 2020, 8:44:00 AM11/20/20
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Sorry - yes, you don’t get a green button menu until Catalina I think but the same functionality existed prior to that but it didn’t have menu options. 

Magnet will work fine I’d think

Stephen

You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it. ~ Carl Jung

On 20 Nov 2020, at 10:33, 'Jason Davies' via Sussex Mac User Group <sm...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



Stephen Watson

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Nov 20, 2020, 8:46:21 AM11/20/20
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I’ll get my coat ...


You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it. ~ Carl Jung

On 20 Nov 2020, at 13:11, Rob Beattie <rob.b...@gmail.com> wrote:



Jason Davies

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Nov 20, 2020, 8:49:30 AM11/20/20
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ah, thanks. I did wonder if that was why. Guess it's time to go to Catalina;)

(I already have a window-snapping setup (via BetterTouchTool) but it can be messy on multiple monitors, and gets really complicated in comparison when using different Spaces.)

Cheers,
J

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