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Thread: Mac Mini?

  1. #51
    Excommunicated baldrick's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    Christ, how fucking puerile
    Flying Spagetti Monster , how fcuking stupid are you

    graphics cards are very good at large parallel computations and thus are used for mathematical modelling and video processing

    there is even a operating system which you can use to turn multi graphics card computers into DIY supercomputers to use in a laboratory on the cheap

    stick to wailing about the cost of sausages now the great british peso is tanking

  2. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by baldrick View Post
    what games do you intend to use to benchmark it
    I've never really been a gamer in that sense... I do like a bit of Super Mario Kart once a decade or so.

    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    Christ, how fucking puerile. How old are you?
    Getting on for 50 although I look a lot younger.

    Quote Originally Posted by NamPikToot View Post
    Gent, do keep up. Betty said right at the start that it was for Research at his Uni that gave him a grant toward it, its feasible he may use it outside of work......
    This is correct, Sir.

    Heaven Benchmark seems to be a reasonable one, and I've seen some folks with i7 Mac minis getting around 4fps - they must be trying to drive a huge 5k screen or something ridiculous, as my i5 with 32GB RAM averaged 12fps and got over 30fps at times, and looked fairly smooth and nice on my 29" 2560x1080 IPS monitor (seems to be a nice balance between good quality picture and not requiring too much from the computer).

    I want/need a balanced system, and the shitty Intel onboard graphics are miles below everything else. A bit like an audio system, you're sometimes only as good as the weakest part, so I wanna bring the GPU up to a reasonable standard and an RX580 8GB should get me there. I'll see how it goes on the Heaven benchmark as well as the Geekscores - even though they record different areas in theory, the weakest link does seem to dramatically affect the other parts (CPU/RAM/SSD type/GPU - probably in that order for my requirements; I think the T2 controller really helps to speed things up too; should help with the thunderbolt 3 to eGPU as well).

    I have the first 3 weeks of February off and will need to be getting into simulations at that time, so I thought I might as well go for the eGPU now and have everything ready. I should be in the ballpark of a top specs'd iMac which would cost about $4000 at Apple RAM/SSD prices (actually, my Mac mini is a lot higher on multi-core score as the 8th generation Intels are so much better than the 7th generation - you'd need to be spending around 3 times what I paid and get an iMac Pro to stomp on the little Mac mini - I highly recommend them, depending on your system needs).

    Actually, an i9 MacBook Pro with the Vega 20 would also be around my system levels, but the thermal throttling and low wattage chips would be problematic, never mind the lack of upgradability and $4500 price tag; lots of nice thunderbolt 3 ports though...

    https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks
    Last edited by Bettyboo; 23-01-2019 at 10:05 PM.
    Cycling should be banned!!!

  3. #53
    A Cockless Wonder
    Looper's Avatar
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    Sexy rig betty.



    I recently upgraded my machine but I went for the most bang I could get for minmum dollar so I did not win big in the style stakes.

    Asus S406UA
    i7 8th generation coffee lake 4 cores 8 threads
    16Gb
    512 GB SSD
    14 inch FHD
    $1276 australian shekels

    Only problem is the keyboard build quality is a bit rattly and shit and also it started blue-screening and had to go back for servicing and is currently wending its way back to me with a new motherboard under warranty.

    I will see how it goes once it is back.

  4. #54
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    ^ looks like a nice system; great bang for buck all round. Good CPU scores, nice SSD, decent RAM, lots of ports and great price. Good buy, Looper.
    (you do have similar onboard intel graphics to mine, but the good news is that I might be able to sell you a nearly new eGPU in a few weeks time... )

  5. #55
    or TizYou?
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    I found an article today regarding enabling eGPU usage on my old iMac.

    https://github.com/mayankk2308/purge-wrangler#recovery

    purge-wrangler.sh enables unsupported external GPU configurations on macOS for almost all macs.

    I'm pretty happy really with my old iMac, except for its GPU performance.

    Might be worth trying this before I upgrade the lot..

    My old iMac has thunderbolt 1, which is only 10 Gbit/s (T3 is 40 Gbit/s), so that still might be a bottleneck.

  6. #56
    Excommunicated baldrick's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Looper View Post
    512 GB SSD
    Quote Originally Posted by Bettyboo View Post
    nice SSD
    no - you need m2 SSD not sata SSD - they are literally 10x faster and the new 500gig samsung evo plus is RRP 150 USD

  7. #57
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    Better to build your own PC.

    That way when it goes wrong you will know how to fix it yourself.

    No more difficult than Lego.

  8. #58
    A Cockless Wonder
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    Quote Originally Posted by baldrick View Post
    no - you need m2 SSD not sata SSD - they are literally 10x faster
    I am a trailing edge technology adopter.

    This is my first ever SSD of any description!

  9. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by TizMe View Post
    I found an article today regarding enabling eGPU usage on my old iMac.

    https://github.com/mayankk2308/purge-wrangler#recovery

    purge-wrangler.sh enables unsupported external GPU configurations on macOS for almost all macs.

    I'm pretty happy really with my old iMac, except for its GPU performance.

    Might be worth trying this before I upgrade the lot..

    My old iMac has thunderbolt 1, which is only 10 Gbit/s (T3 is 40 Gbit/s), so that still might be a bottleneck.
    Yeah, give it a go. My Gigabyte should turn up early next week then I'll do a small review, just in case you're thinking about that model - it seems to be the cheapest quite powerful GPU around. My Macbook only has Thunderbolt 2, so I'll also try the eGPU through that for comparison.

    Quote Originally Posted by baldrick View Post
    no - you need m2 SSD not sata SSD - they are literally 10x faster and the new 500gig samsung evo plus is RRP 150 USD
    The Samsung evo/pro 560/570 SSDs are superb, 'tis true - really decent prices for the 250/500GB models, but get expensive above that.

  10. #60
    Excommunicated baldrick's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bettyboo View Post
    but get expensive above that.
    250 USD for a 970 EVO plus 1 TB seem quite reasonable - I have a 500g 960 EVO in my desktop and it is a marvel of data serving speed - the CPU is actually the bottleneck now

  11. #61
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    You geeks wanna get out some more

  12. #62
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    ^ noooo, there's so much to do on the computer...

    ^^ that is a good price. I suppose I was thinking of the external SSD with the same/similar chip which is so expensive for 1TB.

  13. #63
    A Cockless Wonder
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bettyboo View Post
    Good CPU scores, nice SSD, decent RAM, lots of ports and great price. Good buy, Looper.
    My craptastically cheap and nasty Asus is back from the shop with a new motherboard and has been up for 36 hours now with not a single bluescreen to to be seen. Hopefully the back-room tech-monkeys at the asus repair sweatshop have cracked it.

    They also did not make any wisecracks in ther problem report about the several GB of hardcore goat porn which was still on the HD. Had been deleted but not wiped so I am sure they found it.

    Mac Mini?-o2r5b-jpg
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Mac Mini?-o2r5b-jpg  

  14. #64
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    Hmmm, and not a trotter in sight - I suppose you keep that for your exclusive stash...

  15. #65
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    OK, the eGPU turned up today. It was boxed well, came with a nice Thunderbolt 3 cable of nearly decent length, is well made and solid.

    Mac Mini?-20190130_132209-jpg

    Mac Mini?-20190130_132454-jpg

    Mac Mini?-20190130_132723-jpg

    Mac Mini?-20190130_132733-jpg

    Nothing about GPUs, GPU enclosures, fans, PSUs or eGPUs are cheap - blame the bitcoin miners, but for $400 this is as probably as good as you'll get. I plugged in the power supply, connected the HDMI from the monitor to the eGPU, connected the Mac Mini to the eGPU with the supplied TB3 cable, restarted the Mac mini and everything was go - as easy as that. It just worked.

    I would recommend the product if it's what you need. It's not too noisy at idle, a bit noisy when going at in (in fact it gave me a headache), but not noticeable over any sound you have going from a game, movie, music, etc. It's not silent, but it's no whiner or screamer.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Mac Mini?-20190130_132209-jpg   Mac Mini?-20190130_132454-jpg   Mac Mini?-20190130_132723-jpg   Mac Mini?-20190130_132733-jpg  

  16. #66
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    Benchmarks...

    First, here is my MacBook 12" 2017, very low spec: Intel m3, 8GB RAM, 615 Intel graphics - not impressive, but very light and works perfectly work making documents, email, etc; by far the best laptop I've ever owned for simple business day to day stuff.

    Geekbench CPU score (pretty bad...):

    Mac Mini?-geekbench-score-jpg

    Open CL score for graphics (pretty much as bad as it gets):

    Mac Mini?-open-cl-jpg

    Heaven Benchmark - this is like a very graphics intensive game, so it pushes the graphics hard. Knowing the MacBook is poor I just started on Medium settings (there's low, medium, high and ultra), but because the score was better than I thought (must be that small screen) I then tested on the Ultra setting (this is a tough ask...):

    Mac Mini?-heaven-medium-jpg

    Mac Mini?-heaven-ultra-jpg

    OK, now you can see what a low spec laptop can do, lets look at the Mac mini scores:

    Geekbench CPU (these scores are high - you'd need to spend $5000+ on an iMac Pro to beat them):

    Mac Mini?-32gb-png

    Open CL and Heaven Benchmark on Ultra setting (these scores are terrible...):

    Mac Mini?-open-cl-png

    Mac Mini?-heaven-ultra-jpg

    Now the same CL and Heaven Benchmark with the RX 580 eGPU plugged in. It's also worth noting that the Mac mini CPU temperature dropped significantly from around 60 degrees when pushed to about 40 degrees when pushed, so that'll help the CPU to run at higher speeds.

    Mac Mini?-cl-580x-png

    Mac Mini?-heaven_ultra_rx580-jpg

    These scores are decent, very decent, a big improvement.

    Let's compare to a top end iMac i7 which costs about $3000+ These run hot and noisy and thermal throttle quite a lot. My i5 really doesn't thermal throttle, it consistently stays fast high speeds even under heavy loads.

    Geekbench single core: 5681
    Geekbench multi core: 19354
    CL score: 111823
    Heaven Benchmark: 1041

    Conclusion. The Gigabyte box is very good, a reasonable price and gives me nice results.

    Just out of interest, I will plug the Gigabyte eGPU into my MacBook 12" and see what kinda scores it gives out, but interestingly, at medium setting, the Macbok has surprisingly good (or less bad than I thought anyways) GPU real work performance.

    It really depends what you're doing and what you need from your computer. I have already boxed up the eGPU and will only plug it in when I need it for heavy simulations or the occasional game. If you need this kinda device then I'd say go for it, but buy a 2m/3m active thunderbolt 3 cable to get the fan noise away from you.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Mac Mini?-geekbench-score-jpg   Mac Mini?-open-cl-jpg   Mac Mini?-heaven-ultra-jpg   Mac Mini?-heaven-medium-jpg   Mac Mini?-32gb-png  

    Mac Mini?-open-cl-png   Mac Mini?-heaven-ultra-jpg   Mac Mini?-cl-580x-png   Mac Mini?-heaven_ultra_rx580-jpg  
    Last edited by Bettyboo; 30-01-2019 at 02:33 PM.

  17. #67
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    I think, upon Mr Sausages advice, I will go out and get a Mac keyboard (I really don't like this salmon colour beastie...).

    &, I've ordered up a proper little computer table to make it all look nice. Should be here by the end of the week, so there's a photoshoot you can all look forward to.
    Last edited by Bettyboo; 30-01-2019 at 02:36 PM.

  18. #68
    Thailand Expat lom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bettyboo View Post
    &, I've ordered up a proper little computer table to make it all look nice. Should be here by the end of the week, so there's a photoshoot you can all look forward to.
    I barely can't wait to see it, tables are soo interesting..

  19. #69
    Excommunicated baldrick's Avatar
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    will the table have the USB powered ball scratcher option ?

  20. #70
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    Heavy simulations of what exactly?

  21. #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    Heavy simulations of what exactly?
    I'm currently running through the EU permutations, outcomes, etc.

    This machine is just a dream to use in all ways. The workload will be stuff like little autonomous robots running around sending back real-time information via bluetooth on one screen segment, and some software simulations of neural networks on a platform such as Nengo on another screen section (I could do this on their cloud, but I don't want them having my information, so I wanna run it locally), and I still want my central screen section running smoothly for my TD workload...

  22. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by baldrick View Post
    will the table have the USB powered ball scratcher option ?
    It's only a little small table, nothing too exciting, just to raise the screen and give plenty of space under it.

  23. #73
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bettyboo View Post
    I'm currently running through the EU permutations, outcomes, etc.

    This machine is just a dream to use in all ways. The workload will be stuff like little autonomous robots running around sending back real-time information via bluetooth on one screen segment, and some software simulations of neural networks on a platform such as Nengo on another screen section (I could do this on their cloud, but I don't want them having my information, so I wanna run it locally), and I still want my central screen section running smoothly for my TD workload...
    He's playing games, downloading movies and watching porn while posting interminable shite on what appears to be a plethora of boards.

  24. #74
    Thailand Expat lom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    downloading movies and watching porn
    He needs the GPU for real-time depixelating of Jap porn!

  25. #75
    Excommunicated baldrick's Avatar
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    ^ if he had ordered the table from japan he could have probably gotten the warm water ringpiece stimulating option

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