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Still no real GPU.

It's the reason I went back to a MacBook. What drew me in is the desktop class i7. At the time the Mini outperformed all other Macs in benchmarks, and it is noticeable and fast during compile times etc.

Once you connect a 4k Screen (or even more screens), an eGPU becomes a must have. The integrated one just can't do smooth UI rendering. For example typing in IntelliJ always felt laggy, because it takes so long to redraw I guess. Or things like Google Maps on satellite view in a big browser window will stutter a lot. All the subtle macOS animations aren't smooth and so on.

Bothered me so much I had to sell it. Was thinking about keeping it as media center for the TV, but again, no GPU makes it less then ideal, and its way too powerful for the job otherwise.

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If IntelliJ can't handle realtime rendering of text on modern hardware, perhaps the problem is with the software?

My kid spilled a glass of water on my 2018 MacBook last year (sob). At that time, word was out about the 2019 MacBooks with the new keyboards, so I decided to hold out, took out an old 2012 Mac Mini and have been doing my (Java/Swift) development on it for the past few months. It works so well, I've been in no hurry to pick up a new MacBook. Definitely don't feel animations or anything is laggy.

Indeed it is a software problem. In my experience, JetBrains IDEs perform terribly on macOS as soon as you use a 5K/scaled 4K screen.

A good GPU doesn't help. I've just upgraded to a new 16" MacBook Pro with the maxed-out GPU hoping it could handle CLion on a 4K screen, but it's still worse than anything that I've ever seen on Linux. (Not to mention that this laptop generally suffers from input lag.)

One of the many bug tracker threads about this issue: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JBR-526?p=JRE-526

There's a linked ticket about rewriting the renderer to use Metal on macOS, hopefully that will solve the issue once and for all.

IntelliJ tools always felt like molasses to me. Maybe has something to do with them being done in Java. Most of my dev tools are native and the feeling is totally different.

Well, my two primary tools are Xcode and Eclipse. Xcode is native but Eclipse is much, much faster. I doubt appliction performance has much to do with the language they're written in.

Not the language but what it compiles to and of course some sorcery that few people possess.

Anyways I had actually used Eclipse and did not find it particularly responsive. Been a while so maybe it is faster now.

yeah they have a bunch of open bugs about performance making it unusable, they are even rewriting their rendering to use Metal underneath

Yes, the problem must be in software, but not that software.

IntelliJ is quite fast for me both on Windows and on Linux, no typing lag.

IntelliJ is unusable on my Mac Mini hardware.

I'm afraid it's partly the problem of macOS and the Java implementation for it. That's what I meant speaking about "other" software.

But Eclipse and all other java software is amazingly fast. It's just IntelliJ that's really slow. I can't see how that can be blamed on "the java implementation"?

But is it a fact that the macOS Java implementation is bad? Do you have benchmarks or something else to support that?

Mac Mini doesn't need a real GPU in my opinion -- what they need is a mid-level desktop that accepts a real GPU. $1000 - $1500 with decent specs. But, we know they won't move into that space.

You can get a new Mac Mini and a Thunderbolt 3 eGPU for $1500 or less.

In fact, you can get the new entry-level Mac mini plus the Sonnet Breakaway Puck RX 560 [0] for US$1100, now that the eGPU has dropped in price to $300. Whether any given person would be satisfied with that configuration is, of course, open to debate.

[0] https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HMT22ZM/A/sonnet-egfx-bre...

Does anyone make a "case" that holds a Mac mini and eGPU in an attractive desktop-sized package?

While this is probably too niche to make economic sense as a product, this seems like a perfect use case for a vertically-mounted PCIe slot, creating a tall GPU pedestal for the Mini in a similar vein to the G4 Cube.

http://animaionic.com/

Thanks, I had no idea eGPUs were a thing!

That's the whole premise of the Mac Mini.

It's the only non-Pro designated Mac that has four Thunderbolt 3 ports. I don't think you'd find this level of I/O in any other machine in this price range.

That incredibly powerful I/O makes for tons of expansion possibilities. Storage, GPU, etc.

(Edited to say "non-Pro designated")

Not all Thunderbolt 3 ports are the same. Good chance that two ports are sharing a single PCIe 3.0 4x controller. Since PCIe 3.0 is good for ~7.8Gb/sec/lane, you're looking at two 40Gb/sec Thunderbolt ports sharing about 31Gb/sec of bandwidth on the PCIe bus. Okay, probably not that big of a deal really.

The point being that a "Pro" system might have 4 individual Thunderbolt controllers, each getting their own 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes.

I think that's why the specs say "Up to 40GB/sec" on the page. It sadly doesn't say which controller it has... But I guess my whole point is really moot in practicality. Good luck saturating that much bandwidth.

Mac mini, iMac Pro, and Macbook Pro all have two Thunderbolt 3 controllers.

The Mac Pro starts with two controllers but can be configured up to six.

The I/O is actually pretty good and provides for a ton of headroom for expansion down the line (I'm thinking primarily storage and GPU for my use-case).

I can see a pretty high powered eGPU saturating the lanes.

4K 60Hz is 8Gbps at 8bit/channel 4:2:0 color. If you go to 16bits and 4:4:4, teach of those double the data rate.

Currently shipping Macs with four Thunderbolt 3 ports:

* Mac Pro

* Mac Mini

* iMac Pro

* MacBook Pro 16"

* MacBook Pro 13"

You're totally right, I should have said non-Pro designated Mac.

I must have mixed it up in my head.

Head to https://egpu.io/ then

kinda negates the whole mini part.

I never understand this argument.

If you "want" a mid-level "box with slots", that's going to be bigger anyway.

I don't think that's the point: if you can ship 16" MacBook Pros with dedicated GPU you could do the same with MacMini; why don't you give me such option? ("you" stands for "Apple" here btw)

desktop grade cpus and gpus have very different thermal characteristics. it quite impossible to have silent + desktop cpu + desktop gpu + very small space.

Yes, which is why it would be good if they had a mac mini that had laptop grade CPU and GPU instead.

They do. It also includes a screen, and a keyboard and trackpad. It's called.. a laptop.

Putting the cpu/gpu of the 16" MB Pro would enhance the mini greatly. The thermals would be be much better than in a laptop resulting in better performance. Yet, you wouldn't have to pay for an unused screen/battery. Also, while you can use the MP Pro in clamshell mode, it is making the thermals even worse. So why should one get a laptop, if one wants a compact desktop?

Apple's hardware business model is driving margins by bundling unnecessary features in the "trim levels". They don't want you picking and choosing only the parts you need.

Well we are talking about the Mini vs. a laptop, so entirely different devices. There is no trim level of the Mini with a reasonable graphics chip.

MacBooks are not desktops, they are laptops

Still they have much more area per unit of volume, so, a better way to dissipate heat.

Minis are compact bricks, with much less surface.

So you're saying that the MacBook shape is more thermally efficient than the MacMini shape? Why don't they do MacMinis with the MacBook shape?

I am not sure what you don't understand. There is no way you can cram desktop grade cpu and gpu in such a small space. You could put laptop line of cpus + gpus there which are slower and probably shouldn't be run 24/7 (apples usecase is NAS). Or you put just desktop cpu which has ok integrated graphics already.

Can't you use a laptop GPU with a desktop CPU? Logically I'd say "yes", but I'm not an hardware expert, just asking

You probably can but maybe it still just doesnt make sense to add it because of heat/money cost. The integrated gpus nowdays are pretty good you can connect 3x4K screens in that mac mini.

So if you need real graphic power mobile gpu doesnt help much and just for output for most people integrated is enough.

In some ways that egpu approach (if it works) is nice.

It probably doesn't, and in some sense, that's the problem.

Really hoping that the next major redesign of this looks less like an Intel NUC and more like a slightly smaller Mac Pro.

An actual mini tower! What a concept.

A "Mini Pro" is what I've been wanting from Apple forever (in tech years). Just a small tower with room for a graphics card and two or three SSD/NVMe drives. I'd be fine with paying Apple's customary 100+% hardware premium for something like that.

That's exactly what I want to.

Is there a Mini Pc that would be similar to this now?

You can do all that now with the mini, it has 4 thunderbolt ports.

I thought it was pretty clear I was talking about something much different from hanging multiple external devices off the back of a Mini.

Thunderbolt isn't nowhere near close in performance to built-in PCI express slots.

I guess it depends on the width you need. Indeed you won't be able to run x16 or x8 but x4 is possible which is enough for full-speed nvme or dual 10GbE

iMac covers that for most people. eGPU’s also lets you extend the Mac Mini at the cost of more wires and boxes.

But, the Mac desktop gaming ecosystem is fairly anemic so I doubt most people get much from a better GPU. IMO, a Mac Mini + KVM + 500+$ gaming PC is probably the best all around option.

"Mac Mini doesn't need a real GPU in my opinion ..."

I tend to agree, but then I also see 4x thunderbolt 3 ports and 1x HDMI 2.0 ports and think how nice it would be to drive all four of my monitors from that one tiny system ...

However the specifications dictate that only 2x 4k monitors can be driven, simultaneously (at 60hz ?) ... ?

Which brings up the same old, tired question:

Just who is it that works as an engineer, at Apple, and has such boring, inexact, low-power-user use-cases that they, the actual creators of this kit, are happy with it ?

How do you do your jobs ? Why don't you need these things ?

Remember, there were years where multi-monitors were completely, totally broken - in OSX, for all models - which suggests that nobody inside Apple uses multiple monitors.

That's weird ... who are these people ?

Thunderbolt 3 ports are multipurpose: disks, external GPU's,etc. Just because you have 3 of them does not mean you should plug in a monitor to each one. And if you really need 4 screens that eGPU will probably handle it.

MacBooks don't have real GPUs either (I assume you mean Macbook Pros). Running the default HDRP Unity scene on a MacBook Pro runs around 30fps, Running on a 3yr old Razer 1060 runs at 180fps.

I use my MBP more than my Razer but I'm disappointed Apple no longer makes the power house laptops they used to.

the 15" macbook pro has a dedicated gpu, the mac mini only has integrated gpu.

The performance depends very greatly on the resolution you run the 4K screen at.

If you're using a non-evenly scaled resolution (i.e. not exactly 1x or 2x rendering) it's not gonna be fantastic. Running at 'default' 2x my 2018 runs 2x 24" 4Ks without issue - the problem most people have I think is that they buy much larger displays and then want to use a higher rendered resolution, which is where the iGPU will struggle.

> the problem most people have I think is that they buy much larger displays and then want to use a higher rendered resolution

I'm not going to buy a 4k screen with the intention of running it at 1080p. There are plenty of large 1080p screens out there.

If I buy a 4k screen it's because I want to run it at 4k.

> I'm not going to buy a 4k screen with the intention of running it at 1080p.

He is not talking about not running 4k. He is talking about running more than 4k framebuffer scaled down to 4k (the "more space" option in Display control panel).

I'm using a 4k display on a mac mini, but I've got it set halfway between the 'larger text' (1080p x2) and 'more space' (4k with no pixel doubling).

This doesn't mean I'm running it at a lower resolution - behind the scenes, the mac is actually rendering the display at 6016x3384 and then smoothly scaling it down to the native 4k of 3840x2160.

Because it's having to draw everything at a higher resolution than the actual screen, performance does take a hit, but I find everything still works perfectly smoothly and responsive (just don't try playing games at this resolution on the mac mini!)

Mac Mini user here also: What display are you using?

It's a BenQ EW3270U, 4k @ 60hz, connected via USB-C. It's been working just fine, I'd recommend it.

I have a second monitor which is not high-DPI but 2560x1440, connected with a USB-C => displayport cable. Surprisingly, the mix of high-DPI and normal DPI monitors works really well, with no problems, even when moving windows from one display to the other.

... I think you've missed the point.

It isn't running at 1080p. It's doing "@2x" pixel rendering (commonly called "Retina") - so it uses 4 physical pixels to render one "screen" pixel, giving you much crisper.. everything.

..crisper as in more visibly pixelated? What is the point in that?

It is not more pixelated. It's like scaling up all fonts and widgets by 2x, but still rendering them at 4k. So, the fonts and widgets are retina-sharp. Imagine using 4k as the resolution, but rendering all 14pt fonts as 28pt.

Though I get why you might think it's pixelated from stephenr's description.

Crisper as in everything has 4x antialiasing.

I run my 2 27" 4Ks (off a Hackintosh) at 1080p HiRes. Is for me the best balance of aesthetics and resolution.

Isn't "4K" the resolution??

Macs have the option to run a 4K screen at different "effective dpis" via scaling. The default ~200% scaling factor gives you a 1920x1080 work area that is twice as sharp. A lot of folks (myself included) choose to draw larger work surfaces (I use a 5120x2880 canvas with 2560x1440 work area on my 24 inch 4Ks). A 4K screen is high enough DPI that when scaled text still looks very nice (nicer than a native res 1440p display). Doing this (especially on multiple displays) requires a lot of GPU power.

As others have said it is the physical resolution, which is why the term used in macOS is "Looks like X by Y". The default of "looks like 1920x1080" is straight "@2x" - so the rendering is pixel doubled in both axis, giving a crisper image than a same size "real" 1920x1080 display.

Yes, but since you can get 4k on everything from 24" to 84" you'll want to choose between more space or bigger fonts depending on the setting. macOS can do 'fractional scaling' when the integer scaling isn't to your preference, but the implementation works by rendering to a much higher resolution internally and then scaling down which needs a beefy GPU to run without noticeably overhead.

Anything bigger than 24" or so and the blurriness gets bad. The pixel density just isn't quite there.

Depends how close you are to it, though, I would think

I am reading this on 32" 4K monitor (2 of them actually are hooked to a gaming laptop). I do not notice any blurriness.

Are you running a non-default resolution?

I am running those at native 4K resolution. Frankly I do not get a point of buying 4K monitor to run it at lower resolution

Yep this definitely deserves downvote. I guess 4K must be blurry by definition

Yes, but I guess just like I don't know anyone who runs their retina macbook at the native resolution, you don't need to run a 4K screen at 4K. For instance 1080p gives you perfect 2x2 scaling with no blurriness at all since every pixel perfectly translates into 4. I have no idea why you'd do that, but I can see why that's a valid consideration for some people.

Just chiming in here and endorsing the eGPU add-on to resolve 4k monitor performance for non-standard resolutions / pixel density. Without it things get pretty chunky. With it, smooth as butter.

Are you already running Catalina? I observed a huge UI performance increase with the current Mac Mini on Catalina. The lagginess and stuttering you described bothered me to no end, but it feels (almost) completely fine on Catalina.

Edit: I have a 5k screen connected

> Still no real GPU.

What is a 'real' GPU? Why is this one not 'real'? If it can be used to run a rendering API and it outputs graphics fast enough to use the computer with a realistic number of monitors then it's a real GPU.

Well there's an integrated GPU sure - it does 'technically have a real gpu'.

But there no options for CUDA applications, and no options for similar applications on the AMD side. Depending on your use case, the iGPU might not be powerful enough for your needs even without ML programs if you have multiple monitors (and one is 4k).

Intel GPUs generate artefacts in FCPX and Motion 5 under heavier load.

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