New Mac Mini

[fmr]

All of these factors play an important role in my preference. None of them mean that Windows is bad, none of it means that macOS is generally better, none of it means that Windows users are broke idiots, consumers rather than creators, none of it means that Apple is holy and Windows is Satan. None of it means that you must share the same experience or preference.

It just means there are more important requirements to me than the flexibility of what damned USB3 chipset to put into my build. That's why I'll just bite down and pay the price of admittance every 7-8 years, if it gives me another 7-8 years of inner peace, that's money well spent. Plus, I won't have to stick to the TonyMac buyer's guide when I pick next year's PC upgrade.

I used to think like that, until my last purchase. It was in 2012, and I bought an iMac 21", customized with more RAM, a larger HD AND an i7.

A little past the two year warranty, my Mac simply "died". I could hear the fans quietly working, but the screen remained black. Bought it to the service, and the diagnosis was that the "logic board had to be replaced). The repair costed me like two thirds of the price I had paid to purchase it new.

Bought it home. It was working, but things didn't feel the same anymore. Since I had updated the OS in the meanwhile, I thought that it was the new OS. Then fans started to blow like crazy, every once in a while (this in a machine that was repaired - basically renewed - about a year before).

Stupidly, I decided to not to bring it back to the service facility, because I needed it to work. So, I searched on the Internet and found a control panel that would control the fans. Installed it, and got peace again.

It wasn't until last year (again, a couple of month AFTER the two years over the repair date), that I ran a utility (in Windows, because I know nothing alike in macOS) to check the hardware.

Much to my surprise, the CPU, which should be running at 2.5 GHz, was merely running at 1.6 GHz.

I brought the machine to service again, filing a complaint. The diagnosis was that the CPU sensor on the "logic board" was malfunctioning, and giving the OS bad readings. That was also the reason the fans started to work at full speed. This was in the second logic board.

So, I had one logic board death, and another, that I paid an arm and a leg to get replaced, malfunctioning. This is a time window of five years. Solution? Yep: Replace the "logic board" (I had to replace - and pay - an entire logic board because of a malfunctioning sensor). (????)

Apple neglected responsibility. So, I had two options:

1. Running the current iMac with a crippled CPU because of a stupid sensor which Apple refused to assume responsibility about;

2. Buy a new machine.

I chose to buy a new machine second hand (I was fortunate to find a good deal) and gave the old computer to my youngest daughter.

This is to show you that your 7-year time window may or may not be true. I have been using Macintosh for more than 25 tears. I never had this kind of problems before, The worst thing I had was a power supply in a Power Mac G5 Quad that had to be replaced. But current Macs aren't built as they used to be, anymore. So, counting on a 7-8 year lifespan for your Mac is a bet. You may win or you may lose. And the odds you have to win aren't that good anymore.

[tehlord]

Honestly I'm buying a new Mac Mini just so I don't have to piss about with Hackingtosh. Life is too short.

That's what I'll be doing. I don't need a gaming PC for music production or everyday computing. I have a lump of fast enough Windows hardware here, one SSD has macOS running well on it. But I've had that damn little red "1" stuck on the App Store icon for a while now (for Windows users: it means "macOS update available"), and I'll be f*cked before I go through the hell of messing about with a black screen after booting, slow nVidia web drivers, Clover kext patches or those buggy Realtek audio hacks again. Or rebooting to get the Thunderbolt interface to connect.

I'll spend most of my time at the machine coding, browsing, reading or doing "light multimedia" like Netflix or KVR, so why would I need a GTX1070 or something like that. Gimme something that's quiet, uses hardly any power, is fast as hell (dat PCIe flash tho), can handle a bunch of plugins and 4K at 60 Hz. The new Mac Mini will be able to do that, so who cares if it can run Battlefield One or the latest Far Cry.

Exactly

A new £1250 Hackintosh would be much more powerful than a Mac mini. Actually, it would be more like TWO Mac minis combined. A three year old Hackintoh would still outperform your NEW Mac mini. If you could sell your three year old Hackintosh (which was what was discussed a few posts back) you would probably sell it for more than what you spent assembling it.

So, BAD comparison, really

It's not a bad comparison, it's a comparison of getting 'into' the OSX environment. Just because you build a HAckingtosh, it doesn't have to be powerful, and we already know that going down the Apple route is going to be more expensive.

The precise reason I don't mind spending the premium is because that it WILL work, without me having to fvck about for a week, or worrying about an OSX update bricking my machine.

Don't get me wrong, I'm mainly a PC guy, I've been building them for 20 years and have 4 at home. My main work machine is a PC, but I run into constant problems using it for the work that I do. The work is specific, and is one of the things that is MUCH easier to undertake on Mac, hence me buying another one.

Furthermore, a 6 core Mac Mini with 16GB of self installed RAM and a 256GB SSD with external storage is way more power than I need for the work I do, so having a MORE powerful self built Hackingtosh is a red herring. It would mean I would have 90% CPU spare instead of 70-80%.

I can tax write off a Mac Mini and sell it for a minimal loss in a couple of years. During that time I would spend more on my Dropbox account fees.....

[Jace-BeOS]

I thought people ceased playing video games when they entered adulthood.

Jk.

I know a few people who play video games at age 40-45.

I’d like to still be able to play games. I’m almost 43. Right now, all I have is a PC that can play games from 2008. I’d love if Apple’s next Mac Pro was robust enough to be a decent (not even amazing, just decent) Windows gaming machine (Bootcamp). I get the impression that Apple has shrinking interest in maintaining Bootcamp, though, and I’m sort of expecting it to be killed off by the time the mythical new Mac Pro comes out (which I probably won’t be able to afford anyway).

I’m not remotely a hardcore gamer, but I do like games. There’s nothing wrong with being a gamer at any age.

[Jace-BeOS]

I had a serious problem with the fan on my 2011 mini-server. It became unuseable for audio work. This was an i7, quad. The fan would engage with iTunes playing mp3s, ffs.

Another reason I would pass on the new mini is lack of dedicated GPU card. I play Civ VI, and it wouldn't run on these. In fact, Civ VI is the only app that will engage thefan on my iMac. I may stop playing it to preserve the computer.

Which is now about 4 days away from Applecare expiring.

I’m fairly confident that gaming on my first MacBook Pro (the 3,1 model) is what killed it. Half-Life 2. Fan constantly running. It worked fine. Then the GPU failure started happening. I was unaware of the NVidia lawsuit and settlement while free replacement mainboards were a possibility (Apple never informed me), and the replacements had the same defect anyway. By the time mine failed, it was just e-waste. I couldn’t even sell it for $50 for parts.

So yeah, gaming on an Apple machine with laptop style construction is a no no to me.

[keyman_sam]

All of these factors play an important role in my preference. None of them mean that Windows is bad, none of it means that macOS is generally better, none of it means that Windows users are broke idiots, consumers rather than creators, none of it means that Apple is holy and Windows is Satan. None of it means that you must share the same experience or preference.

It just means there are more important requirements to me than the flexibility of what damned USB3 chipset to put into my build. That's why I'll just bite down and pay the price of admittance every 7-8 years, if it gives me another 7-8 years of inner peace, that's money well spent. Plus, I won't have to stick to the TonyMac buyer's guide when I pick next year's PC upgrade.

I used to think like that, until my last purchase. It was in 2012, and I bought an iMac 21", customized with more RAM, a larger HD AND an i7.

A little past the two year warranty, my Mac simply "died". I could hear the fans quietly working, but the screen remained black. Bought it to the service, and the diagnosis was that the "logic board had to be replaced). I paid like two thirds of the price I had paid to purchase it.

Bought it home. It was working, but things didn't feel the same anymore. Since I had updated the OS in the meanwhile, I thought that it was the new OS. Then fans started to blow like crazy, every once in a while (this in a machine that was repaired (basically renewed) about a year before.

Stupidly, I decided to not to bring it back to the service facility, because I needed it to work. So, I searched on the Internet, and found a control panel that would control the fans. Installed it, and got peace again.

It wasn't until last yeat (again, a couple of month AFTER the two years over the repair date), that I ran an utility (in Windows, because I know nothing alike in macOS) to check the hardwar.

Much to my surprise, the CPOU, which whoulçd be running at 2.5 GHz, was running merely at 1.6 GHz.

I brought the machine to service again, filing a complain. Diagnosis was that the CPU sensor on the "logic board" was malfunctioning, and giving the OS bad readings. That was also the reasons the fans started to work at full speed. This was in the second logic board.

So, I had one logic board death, and another, that I paid an arm and a leg to get replaced, malfunctioning. This in a time window of five years. Solution? Yep: Replace the "logic board" (I had to replace - and pay - an entire logic board because of a malfunctioning sensor). (????)

Aple neglected responsibility. So, I had two options:

1. Running the current iMac with a crippled CPU because of a stupid sensor which Apple refused to assume responsibility about;

2. Buy a new machine.

I chose to buy a new machine second hand (I was firtunate to find a good deal) and gave the old compouter to my youngest daughter.

This is to show you that your 7 year time window may or may not be true. I have been using Macintosh for more than 25 tears. I never had this kind of problems before, The worst thing I had was a power supply in a Power Mac G5 Quad that had to be replaced. But current Macs aren't build as they used to be, anymore. So, counting on a 7-8 year life span for your Mac is a bet. You may win or you may lose. And the odds you have to win aren't that good anymore.

That's quite scary and hopefully a one-off experience rather than the norm. With the Mac mini, there are less things to go wrong with, especially without an integrated display. I would also consider third-party Mac repair centers after the warranty is exhausted.

[ghettosynth]

I'm not a mac-fanboi, but I've had macs regularly since about 2002/2003 or so, whenever the switch campaign came out. To be completely clear, I've always had as many Windows AND Linux machines as I've had macs. In a perfect world I'd only run Linux, but audio on linux is shit and I predict that will always be true in my lifetime.

I think that the mac hardware reliability argument is overrated. I've had a LOT of problems with mac hardware reliability and Apple rarely wants to take responsibility even when it is clearly their responsibility. I don't feel like typing a bunch of stories, but, I view the Apple tax as something to deal with in order to be able to continue to develop for macs. I prefer OS X and would buy multiple copies of it to run on PC hardware if it were sanctioned. I'd say that I'd never run Windows again, but that wouldn't be true, I would just treat Windows machines like I now treat macs.

All that said, I agree with those defending the cost of the mini. It's not great but it's not that much of an apple tax really and you get powerful enough hardware. To me, it's much better than the cheap and slow mac minis of old. In reality, it is the cheapest mac desktop machine that doesn't include a monitor, which, if you're concerned about reliability and being able to keep things going when your mac takes a shit, isn't a bad thing.

So yeah, I'll keep buying macs, but no, the koolaid tastes like shit and they're not good value, but yes, the sky is not falling because an 8700 machine costs a few hundred more, that's the price you pay to run OS X without hassle.

[tehlord]

I think that the mac hardware reliability argument is overrated. I've had a LOT of problems with mac hardware reliability and Apple rarely wants to take responsibility even when it is clearly their responsibility.

I get this, I've had nothing but stellar reliability from my self built PC's running W7. In fact in 7 years and 3 computers I've only ever had one thing fail, which was a single hard drive. All my Mac's were 100% reliable too. The only reason I want a Mini is for the screencast/voice stuff I do where OSX really does make it SO much easier with Core Audio. I can (and do) easily do it on PC, but there's always a bit of fiddling about or gremlin chasing to do in order to get it just the way I want it. Screenflow/Mac.....beautiful solution and worth the price of entry alone.

[Sascha Franck]

Fwiw, this doesn't look like much fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UrSLnnMyeg
Less trouble than what I went through to replace the fan of my old Macbook, still not exactly desirable when all you want is some more RAM without getting robbed by Apple.

[bmanic]

All of these factors play an important role in my preference. None of them mean that Windows is bad, none of it means that macOS is generally better, none of it means that Windows users are broke idiots, consumers rather than creators, none of it means that Apple is holy and Windows is Satan. None of it means that you must share the same experience or preference.

It just means there are more important requirements to me than the flexibility of what damned USB3 chipset to put into my build. That's why I'll just bite down and pay the price of admittance every 7-8 years, if it gives me another 7-8 years of inner peace, that's money well spent. Plus, I won't have to stick to the TonyMac buyer's guide when I pick next year's PC upgrade.

I used to think like that, until my last purchase. It was in 2012, and I bought an iMac 21", customized with more RAM, a larger HD AND an i7.

A little past the two year warranty, my Mac simply "died". I could hear the fans quietly working, but the screen remained black. Bought it to the service, and the diagnosis was that the "logic board had to be replaced). The repair costed me like two thirds of the price I had paid to purchase it new.

Bought it home. It was working, but things didn't feel the same anymore. Since I had updated the OS in the meanwhile, I thought that it was the new OS. Then fans started to blow like crazy, every once in a while (this in a machine that was repaired - basically renewed - about a year before).

Stupidly, I decided to not to bring it back to the service facility, because I needed it to work. So, I searched on the Internet and found a control panel that would control the fans. Installed it, and got peace again.

It wasn't until last year (again, a couple of month AFTER the two years over the repair date), that I ran a utility (in Windows, because I know nothing alike in macOS) to check the hardware.

Much to my surprise, the CPU, which should be running at 2.5 GHz, was merely running at 1.6 GHz.

I brought the machine to service again, filing a complaint. The diagnosis was that the CPU sensor on the "logic board" was malfunctioning, and giving the OS bad readings. That was also the reason the fans started to work at full speed. This was in the second logic board.

So, I had one logic board death, and another, that I paid an arm and a leg to get replaced, malfunctioning. This is a time window of five years. Solution? Yep: Replace the "logic board" (I had to replace - and pay - an entire logic board because of a malfunctioning sensor). (????)

Apple neglected responsibility. So, I had two options:

1. Running the current iMac with a crippled CPU because of a stupid sensor which Apple refused to assume responsibility about;

2. Buy a new machine.

I chose to buy a new machine second hand (I was fortunate to find a good deal) and gave the old computer to my youngest daughter.

This is to show you that your 7-year time window may or may not be true. I have been using Macintosh for more than 25 tears. I never had this kind of problems before, The worst thing I had was a power supply in a Power Mac G5 Quad that had to be replaced. But current Macs aren't built as they used to be, anymore. So, counting on a 7-8 year lifespan for your Mac is a bet. You may win or you may lose. And the odds you have to win aren't that good anymore.

Are you familiar with this guy?

https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup

Yeah, even though I too own a Mac I must say I'm struggling to justify another one in the future. The problem is, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.. Windows 10 being so utterly shoddy as well. Sure, you can perhaps get great PC hardware (I got super lucky with my Clevo laptop 5 years ago and it's still running amazingly well and can still run tons of plugins) but that damn software side of things is really starting to bug me majorly.

[Sascha Franck]

Windows 10 being so utterly shoddy as well. Sure, you can perhaps get great PC hardware (I got super lucky with my Clevo laptop 5 years ago and it's still running amazingly well and can still run tons of plugins) but that damn software side of things is really starting to bug me majorly.

Amen to that.
I made the switch to OSX when Windows XP was pretty mature (a while after SP2 was released I think), and I was always kinda hoping to get back to Windows one day because OSX never felt as good (and I still miss certain things) once I found a sequencer to replace Logic.
But uhm, I also maintain my wifes PCs and Win7 already didn't look too healthy to me anymore. And Win10 is almost shockingly bad once you have to deal with anything regarding system configuration. Or with Explorer - I once prefered that a LOT over Finder, but ever since Win7, forget about that pile of bloat.
Sure, all that doesn't matter much once you're inside whatever application (and usually that should be the case 99.99% of all the time), but boy oh boy, while probably being quite ok under the hood, Windows sure doesn't look or feel like a mature OS anymore. OSX however is really showing some strengths - even if Apple is constantly on whatever crusade to re-invent the wheel (and coming up with a triangle instead...), they're also adding things and there's plenty of stuff Windows users can only dream of, at least without installing heaps of 3rd party stuff. And in case it's there, MS' developers surely hide it so well nobody will ever find it.

[bill45]

Windows 10 being so utterly shoddy as well. Sure, you can perhaps get great PC hardware (I got super lucky with my Clevo laptop 5 years ago and it's still running amazingly well and can still run tons of plugins) but that damn software side of things is really starting to bug me majorly.

Amen to that.
I made the switch to OSX when Windows XP was pretty mature (a while after SP2 was released I think), and I was always kinda hoping to get back to Windows one day because OSX never felt as good (and I still miss certain things) once I found a sequencer to replace Logic.
But uhm, I also maintain my wifes PCs and Win7 already didn't look too healthy to me anymore. And Win10 is almost shockingly bad once you have to deal with anything regarding system configuration. Or with Explorer - I once prefered that a LOT over Finder, but ever since Win7, forget about that pile of bloat.
Sure, all that doesn't matter much once you're inside whatever application (and usually that should be the case 99.99% of all the time), but boy oh boy, while probably being quite ok under the hood, Windows sure doesn't look or feel like a mature OS anymore. OSX however is really showing some strengths - even if Apple is constantly on whatever crusade to re-invent the wheel (and coming up with a triangle instead...), they're also adding things and there's plenty of stuff Windows users can only dream of, at least without installing heaps of 3rd party stuff. And in case it's there, MS' developers surely hide it so well nobody will ever find it.

Such as?

[Sascha Franck]

Such as?

Go to your system settings in Windows. It's a mess. It's all over the place. Under OSX, it's one page. Sure, the entries are taking you to sub categories, but it's heaps easier to configure things.
Try to properly adjust monitor color schemes under Windows - yuck!
There's mass renaming straight in Finder. Rightclick and rename a bunch of files incl. replacement of some characters and what not.
Need to kinda batch process a row of operations often? Well, there's Automator built into OSX. Tell it to do pretty much anything and it'll do just that. Comes with an easy to grasp graphical interface.
Regarding audio, you don't need multi-client ASIO compatibility. You can open as many programs as you like, all using the same audio hardware (whether that's making sense - well, sometimes it just does).
There's possibly lots more.

Then: Backing up stuff. Godawful under Windows. Needs 3rd party tools and still won't work even remotely as well. With OSX, both complete system backups (disk tool) and incremental backups (Time Machine) are built in straight. 3rd party tools are only there to make the process more comfortable. Plus they're cheap (some even free) and happen to really "just work". Your backups are bootable. Yes, straight from your external backup drive. But it goes even further (and that's possibly the biggest advantage of your OS and hardware coming from one company): You can create a backup from, say, your own iMac or Mac Pro at home. Slap it onto an external drive. Go to, say, a studio running a Mac (absolutely doesn't matter which one it is, unless it's way older, at least usually). Connect your external drive and boot up your system the way you're used to (admittedly, Apple just changed that because several older Macs won't be able to run Mojave due to incompatible graphic cards).
When I switched from my Macbook to a Mac Pro, I just took an image and copied that to the internal drive of the new machine. Back up and running every bit the same as before in a matter of minutes. That's simply not possible with Windows.
And fwiw, it literally saved my ass 2-3 times. At one time, my Macbooks fan went havoc. Had to order a replacement from China (sure, you could complain about that part, and you bet that I *certainly* did). Took over 3 months until they were back in stock and ready to be delivered, plus, I got the wrong one on the first attempt, so that was 4-5 months. But a colleague gladly offered me his old, almost retired Macbook he still had and I simply slapped my system drive into it - back up and running in 5 minutes.
In a nutshell: In case your living relies on using a computer, with Macs you can usually arrange things in a way that there's pretty much zero downtime. Doing the same with Windows requires you to buy two literally identical machines as you can't just borrow any PC and boot it from your backup drive.

Really, I have loved Windows up to XP pretty much. I have configured a whole bunch of machines for myself, for friends, for my wife and sometimes even for money - so I think it's fair to say I was (and partially still am, but on a reduced level) pretty familiar with the OS. And I hated OSX for many reasons at first (and still do, some window operations, or lets better say some window-based behaviours, are just plain horrible). And I'm the first to bash Apple big time for a whole plethora of things (and IMO deservedly so).
But the recent incarnations of Windows, while probably better than previous versions under the hood, simply drive me bonkers in almost all aspects. Ugly, bloated and a mess to configure, back up and maintain. Doable? Sure. And you don't need to be a rocket scientist, either. But with OSX it's a no-brainer, even if your machine blows up completely, you could be up and running the next day. Yes, that *does* come at a cost. And yes, that cost *is* unjustifiably (is that a word?) high at times due to Apples street-robbery-ish prices. Yet, this is a very good reason to like OSX, especially in case you've been there (such as me).

[keyman_sam]

Some wonderful points there on the advantages of MacOS. I didn't realize you could just clone your Mac drive and boot from it elsewhere/restore it. That's been a dream of mine on the PC world. You could create a boot disk of your PC and boot from it later. But to my knowledge you can't boot ANOTHER pc with that boot disk.

[chk071]

Such as?

Go to your system settings in Windows. It's a mess. It's all over the place.

Actually, it's gotten a lot better with Windows 10. It's rather that Mac OS has a lot less options.

[Sascha Franck]

Actually, it's gotten a lot better with Windows 10. It's rather that Mac OS has a lot less options.

So, which options are you missing?