Hi All,
I am considering getting an i7 version of the Mac Mini and wonder if anyone out there already has one and how well it works with Blender?
Thanks!
Not a great a machine for 3d creation, and severely hampered by the Intel chipset. Also, the hard drive is a slow 5400rpm drive - you can’t get any slower than that. Lastly, the base model comes with a paltry 4gb - again, 8gb is a minimum, and 16gb is probably the best choice.
The 16gb version of the Mini with a 256gb ssd and a keyboard with numeric keypad (essential for Blender) is $1374! And with that best configuration you would STILL not have a good 3d creation machine because the video hardware is that limited.
For that money you can get much better hardware. Either invest more money, and get an iMac with dedicated graphics hardware, or get a Windows/Linux machine with far better specs for the same or less money.
If MacOS is important to you: build a hackintosh instead.
Avoid the Mac Mini - you pay a lot for the small form factor.
I got my Mac Mini today and I love it. The 2.6ghz i7 reports 8 cores. I have 16Gb of ram running at 1600Mhz. I also went with the 256SSD hard drive option so there are no moving parts at all. It is completely silent. The GPU has 1Gb of Ram even though Cycles can not use it at this time. With my options it came in around $1,450.00.
I needed some kind of Mac so I could mess around with Xcode app development so Windows and Linux options were out of the picture. I was curious about the SSD technology as well. I considered the iMac but all Apple offers are i5 chips on those machines. I thought if I was going to be stuck with CPU rendering I should at least have an i7. I did not necessarily buy it as a Blender machine but I think it will be OK for basic 3D work.
The Cycles benchmark renders 2:06, on the Mac mini, using CPU.
On my Windows 7 2.7ghz AMD 6 Core it takes 4:24 in CPU mode.
On my Windows 7 2.7ghz AMD 6 Core it takes 1:34 in GPU mode using the 460GTX.
So if I am working with OSL (which does interest me) it is already 2X faster than my current Windows box.
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Ah, so you never meant to do more complex 3d modeling on it - and your motivation to get a mac for xcode dev makes sense. I was able to run and use xcode in a virtual mac running on vmware, but I can tell you that getting it to work with an actual iPad took too much work and proved extremely frustrating, and even I thought about getting an Mac Mini at some point.
Luckily a friend of mine owns a macbook pro, and I could test properly on his machine.
I do still think the Mac Mini is too expensive for what you get - you pay premium for the small form factor. Granted, it does have its benefits.
Thanks for the feedback Herbert. I am enjoying getting into xCode but I have yet been able to transfer an app to my iPad yet.
Thanks for the feedback Herbert. I am enjoying getting into xCode but I have yet been able to transfer an app to my iPad yet.
Happy for you,
I love macs anyway.
I think I’ll go for xCode soon.
To have my own blender builds.
Any help is needed, totally unexperienced.
Since Mac is a kind of Linux you are not too far away with: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Doc/Building_Blender/Linux/OpenSUSE/CMake
I failed the first time i tried it.