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Comment by everdrive | Hacker News Reader

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

Head to https://egpu.io/ then

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")

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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