#2012 mac mini i7 quad core pro
#2012 mac mini i7 quad core plus

Other factors to consider besides speed when deciding between the new Quad-Core Mac mini and the new Quad-Core iMac: And, no, you can't speed up the Mac mini with an external GPU inside a Thunderbolt expansion chassis. It offers the choice of a GeForce GTX 675MX or GTX 680MX GPU. The GPU performance gap will grow even more if instead of the 21.5' screen, you choose the 'late 2012' iMac Quad-Core i7 with the 27' screen. If you make heavy use of those apps, consider yourself warned.

#2012 mac mini i7 quad core pro

Though not included in this test session, Premiere Pro CS6 and After Effects CS6 also have functions that benefit from a fast standalone GPU. This weakness is clearly seen in the GPU intensive Photoshop CS6 'Iris Blur,' Final Cut Pro X 'Directional Blur,' and Motion 5 'Playback' and 'RAM Preview' tests. However, the Intel HD 4000 GPU in the 'late 2012' Mac mini is weak in comparison to the Retina MacBook Pro (and vicariously, the 2012 iMac with 21.5' screen). The 'late 2012' Quad-Core i7 Mac mini is a true contender when it comes to CPU power. ( HIGHER number in Frames per Second is FASTER) The Mac with the 'real' GPU pre-renders twice as fast as the mini. Both test units had 16GB of RAM so that wasn't an issue. You have to have at least 12GB of RAM to render all 600 frames in RAM. One way to get the Mac mini to playback the project in real time is to pre-render the 600 frames in RAM. It is not able to maintain the 'real time' frame rate of 29.9 FPS. The weak GPU of the Mac mini is apparent here. ( LOWER number in seconds is FASTER)ДЄpple Motion 5 attempts to playback a project while rendering on the fly. We applied it to 50 RAW images of a Soccer match. It is a must-have tool for anyone shooting in low-light or fast-action situations. Noise Ninja is a Plugin for Aperture for removing noise and grain from digital photographs. ( LOWER number in seconds is FASTER)ДЄpple Aperture 3's first task was to convert 50 RAW images to original size JPEG and export them. ( LOWER number in seconds is FASTER)ДЄpple Final Cut Pro X leans hard on the GPU when rendering the Directional Blur effect on our sample project made up of eight HD clips. ( LOWER number in seconds is FASTER)ДЄ Photoshop CS6 filter that's more CPU intensive is 'Reduce Noise.' The mini does better on this test - actually beating our RMBP.

The OpenCL advanced setting is grayed out in the case of the Mac mini so its CPU has to do the heavy lifting. Mac mini quad i7 = 2012 Mac mini with 2.6GHz CPU Quad-Core i7 and integrated Intel HD 4000 GPUДЄdobe Photoshop CS6 uses OpenCL acceleration on certain filters like Field Blur, Iris Blur, and Tilt/Shift. Therefore we believe some insights can be gained by the Mac faithful trying to decide whether to jump on the Mac mini to run their pro apps or sit tight until the 'very late 2012' iMac ships.ДЎ5' RMBP quad i7 = 2012 Retina MacBook Pro with 2.7GHz Quad-Core i7 CPU and GeForce GT 650M GPU - (Surrogate for the soon-to-be released 21.5' iMac with similar specs)

#2012 mac mini i7 quad core plus

Plus the 2.7GHz RMBP has a core clock speed very close to our 2.6GHz Mac mini test unit. Now the 'late 2012' iMac with the 21.5' screen will have a Quad-Core i7 'Ivy Bridge' processor running at a higher clock speed (3.1GHz) than the RMBP, but it will have the same GPU (GeForce GT 650M). Since the 2012 iMac isn't available yet, we decided to use a 'surrogate': the 2012 Retina 15' MacBook Pro which has similar 'guts' - an 'Ivy Bridge' Quad-Core i7 and discrete GeForce GT 650M GPU. Mac mini with a Quad-Core i7 processor can match the performance of a 'late 2012' iMac with Quad-Core i7 processor when running real world applications. Some readers are asking if the 'late 2012'