An early teardown of the new Mac mini offers our first glimpse at Apple’s new M1 chip and redesigned logic board. The desktop’s internals are much smaller than before, despite the increase in power.
The new model is Apple’s fastest Mac mini to date. In fact, the machine shreds every Intel-based Mac in single-core benchmarks, and is proving to be a powerhouse in real-world performance.
It’s all thanks to that amazing M1 chip, which features an 8-core CPU, an 8-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine. Here’s what it looks like in the wild.
Mac mini teardown spills new M1 chip
There’s not a whole lot to see, thanks to the chipset’s external shield, but the M1 does feature a large Apple logo. It’s also accompanied by Apple’s new unified system memory modules, of which there are two.
Photo: eGPU.io
Those modules are substantially smaller than the more traditional RAM chips found in previous Mac mini models. Apple has also reduced the size of the machine’s logic board.
That’s not just to keep things neat and tidy. Safely placing components as close together as possible improves efficiency and performance, and reduces heat.
Unlike the M1 MacBook Air, the Mac mini still carries a fan that hasn’t changed much. This allows the machine to run faster for longer, matching the M1 MacBook Pro in performance.
Repairs remain too difficult
Unsurprisingly, many of the Mac mini’s components are soldered into place. That means repairing anything that goes wrong is near-impossible, while do-it-yourself upgrades are a definite no-no.
With that being the case, Mac mini buyers should ensure that choose the right RAM and storage configuration at the time of purchase. There is no way to add to these things later.
Source: eGPU.io
Via: MacRumors
