[Tomaburque]

I love my 2012 i7 Mac Mini. Bought it a year ago for dual purpose music production and home theater PC service and it's great. Dead quiet and powerful. I got the Ivy Bridge i7 quad core with Hyper Threading with it's 8 logical cores which makes quick work of converting music files. I noticed that the new MM is only offered in dual core. Apple why?

It's pretty obvious why. They neutered the high end MMs so they won't compete with more expensive computers like the Mac Book Pro, the iMac and the new Mac Pro. And more disappointment, they made the ram non user upgradable. It is so easy to upgrade the ram in the 2012 MM. Pop off the bottom and stick it in. Now you have to buy the factory Apple ram. Taking the i7 model from 8 to 16 gigs costs $200 more than double the cost of an upgrade from Crucial.

If you're in the market for a MM and you do something like music or video content creation and need all the cores you can get, you should buy the 2012 model, not the 2014. Being a consumer of Apple products is like being in love with a beautiful woman you sometimes cannot stand

[Just_Me_D]

Thanks for the insight and the tip...

[mactracker1138]

I just picked up a 2012 dual core i5, 8gigs of ram and a nice 24 inch Asus monitor for 750. From there I'm going to later add an SSD drive and maybe boost the ram to 16 gigs. While not the i7, the ability to be able to do this is well worth it for me and I simply can't rationalize getting the current offering despite the modest increases in speed, lower power consumption and better graphics. The SSD and ability to add memory will keep the 2012 Mini I purchased useful for some years to come.

[Algus]

I expected the RAM to be soldered but the lack of a quad-core option was a real killer for me. I don't mind paying Apple premiums but I really don't want my monitor and machine rolled into a single device, which is why I avoid iMacs. Mac Pro is super overkill for me so I'm kind of stuck.

I did upgrade my 2012 Mini to 16 GB RAM so I'm sure I can easily hold out until the next hardware iteration but if Apple isn't going to sell me the processor I need in the form factor I want, I might have to go to an Intel NUC and just run Linux again.

In their defense though, the $500 2014 MM is a pretty sweet machine if you're looking to get into a desktop Mac experience

[2ndAmendNut]

I love my 2012 i7 Mac Mini. Bought it a year ago for dual purpose music production and home theater PC service and it's great. Dead quiet and powerful. I got the Ivy Bridge i7 quad core with Hyper Threading with it's 8 logical cores which makes quick work of converting music files. I noticed that the new MM is only offered in dual core. Apple why?

It's pretty obvious why. They neutered the high end MMs so they won't compete with more expensive computers like the Mac Book Pro, the iMac and the new Mac Pro. And more disappointment, they made the ram non user upgradable. It is so easy to upgrade the ram in the 2012 MM. Pop off the bottom and stick it in. Now you have to buy the factory Apple ram. Taking the i7 model from 8 to 16 gigs costs $200 more than double the cost of an upgrade from Crucial.

If you're in the market for a MM and you do something like music or video content creation and need all the cores you can get, you should buy the 2012 model, not the 2014. Being a consumer of Apple products is like being in love with a beautiful woman you sometimes cannot stand

I couldn't agree more. I'm so glad I bought my i7 2012 MM last year! Upgrading with SSD and more RAM in a few weeks. It makes an AWESOME media center!


John

I carry a gun because I can't carry a cop." ~ Bob Mayne

[PortCity79]

I can understand the changes Apple made to the Mac Mini. It is geared towards general computing use (word processing, Internet browsing, watching Netflix etc). The users for this market are not concerned about quad cores or upgradable ram. Most of them don't even know what those terms mean. For those who need higher levels of computing power should look for the iMac or Mac Pro. If you are looking for a power computer for a cheap price, Apple is not the manufacturer for you.