Here’s a quick rundown of the changes to the new lineup. There are now two Core 2 Duo processor speeds to choose from, 2.53GHz or 2.26GHz, up from the 2GHz processors previously offered. The new Mac mini models now offer twice the RAM, 2GB in the 2.26GHz $599 model and 4GB in the 2.53GHz $799 model, up from 1GB in the previous $599 model and 2GB in the previous $799 model. The hard drive capacities haven’t changed, with a 160GB hard drive in the $599 model and a 320GB hard drives in the $799 model. And of course, you still need to provide your own keyboard, mouse and display.
We are still ironing out the details of Speedmark 6, our overall performance benchmark, but we ran a series of 19 different tests on the new Mac minis as well as the systems they replace to let you know how the new and improved specifications affect performance.
With its considerably faster 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 4GB of RAM, it’s no surprise that the new $799 Mac mini was noticeably faster in our tests. When looking at the time it took to run through all 17 of our timed tests, the new $799 model was 10 percent faster than the $599 2.26GHz Mac mini. Once we configured the 2.26GHz Mac mini with 4GB of RAM instead of the stock 2GB, we saw that performance benefit of the 2.56GHz Mac mini shrink to about 7.4 percent. The 2.53GHz Mac mini was about 9 percent faster in our Photoshop CS4 tests suite than the standard configuration 2.26GHz Mac mini, though adding that additional 2GB of RAM to the $599 model closed the performance gap to around 6 percent. The $799 model was 11 percent faster in our Cinebench test and 28 percent faster in our iPhoto import test, though, again, a significant part of that performance difference was eliminated when we added the memory to the $599 system.
New Mac minis (Late 2009)
| Adobe Photoshop CS4 | Cinebench | Mathematica- Mark 7 | Compressor 3.0.4 | Aperture 2.1.4 | iMovie ’09 | iMovie ’09 | iTunes 9 | Call of Duty 4 | Finder | Finder | Finder | Parallels | Handbrake | iPhoto ’09 | Pages ’09 | Complete 17 Tests | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SUITE | RENDER | TEST | MPEG ENCODE | IMPORT | IMPORT ARCHIVE | EXPORT | MP3 ENCODE | FRAME RATE | DUPLICATE 1GB FOLDER | ZIP ARCHIVE | UNZIP ARCHIVE | WORLDBENCH 6 MULTI-TASK TEST | RIP DVD CHAPTER | IMPORT | OPEN WORD DOCUMENT | ALL TIMED TESTS | |
| Mac mini 2.53GHz 4GB | 0:50 | 2:44 | 3.57 | 10:14 | 3:28 | 1:49 | 2:08 | 1:34 | 18.3 | 0:39 | 3:56 | 1:01 | 6:31 | 2:43 | 0:47 | 1:54 | 39:28 |
| Mac mini 2.26GHz 2GB | 0:55 | 3:05 | 3.2 | 10:55 | 3:55 | 2:08 | 2:17 | 1:43 | 18.3 | 0:45 | 4:34 | 1:28 | 7:14 | 2:49 | 1:05 | 2:28 | 43:58 |
| Mac mini 2.26GHz 4GB | 0:53 | 3:03 | 3.33 | 10:48 | 3:26 | 1:59 | 2:11 | 1:44 | 18.4 | 0:45 | 4:28 | 1:32 | 7:18 | 2:53 | 0:57 | 2:05 | 42:36 |
| Mac mini 2.GHz 2GB (Early 2009) | 0:59 | 3:29 | 2.98 | 12:01 | 4:08 | 2:07 | 2:33 | 1:53 | 18.4 | 0:39 | 4:50 | 1:19 | 8:12 | 3:08 | 1:03 | 2:36 | 47:10 |
| Mac mini 1.83.GHz 2GB (Mid 2007) | 1:12 | 4:01 | 2.49 | 15:22 | 6:26 | 5:06 | 3:14 | 2:14 | n/a | 1:22 | 6:10 | 3:32 | 8:10 | 3:18 | 1:37 | 3:03 | 61:36 |
Best results in bold. For Call of Duty 4 and MathematicaMark 7, higher scores are better. All other tests are timed results where lower times are better. Reference systems in italics.
Call of Duty score is in frames per second. MathematicaMark is a performance score. All others are in minutes:seconds. All systems were tested with 10.6.1. RAM as noted. The Photoshop Suite test is a set of 14 scripted tasks using a 50MB file. Photoshop’s memory was set to 70 percent and History was set to Minimum. We recorded how long it took to render a scene with multiprocessors in Cinebench. We used Compressor to encode a .mov file to the application’s H.264 for video podcast setting. We timed the import and thumbnail/preview creation time for 150 photos in Aperture. In iMovie, we imported a camera archive and exported it to iTunes with the Mobile Devices setting. We converted 90 minutes of AAC audio files to MP3 using iTunes’ High Quality setting. We duplicated a 1GB folder, created a Zip archive in the Finder from the two 1GB files and then Unzipped it. We ran WorldBench 6 multitasking test on a Parallels VM. We imported 150 JPEGs into iPhoto. We ripped a DVD chapter to the hard drive and opened a 500-page Word document in Pages ’09.—Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith, Chris Holt and Roman Loyola.
Comparing the new $799 Mac mini to the previous $799 model, the 2.0GHz Mac mini () with 2GB of RAM released earlier this year, we see that the new 2.53GHz Mac mini took 16 percent less time to complete all of the timed tasks we ran on it. The new $799 model was 15 percent faster in our Photoshop tests and 16 percent faster in our Aperture tests. The new 2.26GHz Mac mini was about 7 percent faster overall than the older 2GHz model when tested with the same 2GB of RAM. With Photoshop times on the new 2.26GHz coming in about 7 percent faster, and Aperture a little more than 5 percent faster. The previous $599 model used the same 2GHz processor as the previous $799 model, but came with only 1GB of RAM. And since we test using a minimum of 2GB of memory, we didn’t bother re-running as a reference system the $599 2.0GHz Mac mini () with 1GB RAM released earlier this year.
Comparing the new systems to a August 2007 Mac mini with 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 RAM, the new 2.53GHz Mac mini completed all timed tests 36 percent faster than the 2007 model and the new 2.26GHz Mac mini with 2GB of 1066MHz DDR3 RAM finished the tests in 29 percent less time. The 2007 model, with its Intel GMA 950 graphics couldn’t even run our Call of Duty 4 test.
Also new to the Mac mini line is a server configuration that substitutes a second hard drive for the optical drive. We don’t have the Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server in yet for testing, but we’re working on it.
Check back next week for our complete review of the Mac minis as well as our unveiling of the new Speedmark 6 test suite.
[James Galbraith is Macworld’s lab director.]