Not the upgrade we were hoping for: The 2014 Mac Mini reviewed

Mid-tier 2014 Mac mini, as reviewed
OS	OS X 10.10.0
CPU	Dual-core 2.6GHz Intel Core i5-4278U (Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz)
RAM	8GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 (soldered, upgradeable to 16GB at purchase)
GPU	Integrated Intel Iris 5100
Storage	1TB Fusion Drive (128GB PCIe SSD + 1TB 5400 RPM HDD)
Networking	Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
Ports	HDMI, 2x Thunderbolt 2, 4x USB 3.0, audio line-in minijack (digital/analog), audio line-out/headphone minijack (digital/analog), SDXC card slot
Size	7.7×7.7×1.4" (19.7×19.7×3.6 cm)
Weight	2.7 lbs (1.22 kg)
Starting price	$699 ($499 for base model)
Price as reviewed	$899

It's easy to feel sorry for the Mac Mini. Apple went through all of its Macs last year, updating them with new Intel Haswell CPUs and 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapters and faster SSDs and (sometimes) Thunderbolt 2, while the Mini sat and waited for an upgrade that never came.

Apple quickly announced a new Mini at its media event in October, two years after the 2012 Mac Mini was introduced. Desktops and laptops haven't advanced a whole lot in the last year, so for the most part the Mini is just getting 2013's upgrades a year late. If that was all that was happening, the Mac Mini would be a welcome-if-overdue update to the desktop. The 2014 Mac Mini is more interesting than that but unfortunately for people who have been waiting for this refresh, it's more notable for the stuff it's missing than its upgrades.

We typically like to review the base models of computers when possible, but in the Mac Mini's case the upgraded $699 configuration is more interesting, and it's the one you ought to get if you care about performance (more on that later). We'll provide benchmarks representative of the $499 Mini, too, but know ahead of time that it uses the same guts as the base-model MacBook Airs and the $1,099 iMac. To evaluate the computer's SSD performance, we've also equipped our review unit with a 1TB Fusion Drive, a $200 upgrade—we won't be recapping how this feature works, but our deep dive is over here.

What hasn't changed

Visually, the Mac Mini looks the same as it has since Apple stopped shipping SuperDrive-equipped models back in 2011. It's an unadorned, flattened aluminum box with sharp edges and rounded corners. The front face is broken up by a small white power LED and an IR receiver, and the sides are perfectly smooth. A separate piece of black plastic on the back of the unit houses the fan vent and a reasonably impressive complement of ports, which has changed only a little from last year.

The FireWire 800 port has finally been jettisoned (the 2012 Mini was the last of the Macs to include the aging interface, though Thunderbolt-to-FireWire dongles still exist), and there's a second Thunderbolt 2 port in its place. Returning from last year are the gigabit Ethernet jack, HDMI port, four USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader, and audio in and headphone jacks. It's still annoying that Apple insists on placing all of the ports for its desktops on the back of the computers. It's no surprise at all for longtime Mac users, but PC switchers (a group the Mini specifically targets) may need to change their behavior.

Finally, the new Mini is exactly the same size and weight as the old one. If you were hoping for some kind of reduction here, keep hoping.

What has improved

Delays to high-end Intel CPUs based on the new Broadwell architecture mean that most of the 2014 Mini's improvements came to every other Mac in the lineup in 2013, so the box's insides do little to surprise. We're looking at Intel Haswell CPUs instead of Ivy Bridge, which should reduce power consumption while improving CPU and GPU performance. 802.11ac Wi-Fi bumps the maximum theoretical link speed to 1.3Gbps, roughly three times the 450Mbps 802.11n in the 2012 model.

Thunderbolt 2 raises transfer speeds to 20Gbps, and the included DisplayPort 1.2 spec brings 30Hz 4K display support to the Mac Mini. The HDMI port can also drive 3840×2160 displays at 30Hz and 4096×2160 displays at 24Hz. This Apple document has more information on external display support, but the most important thing you should know is that the Mini does not support multi-stream transport (MST) displays, meaning that 4K output at 60Hz is impossible. The forthcoming DisplayPort 1.3 standard is necessary to drive 60Hz displays using a single connector, and Thunderbolt 2 only includes support for DisplayPort 1.2. Update: Lack of 60Hz 4K support on the 2014 Mini is actually an Intel GPU limitation, not a DisplayPort limitation. This document outlines the resolutions and refresh rates supported by various Intel GPUs.

Of the other substantive improvements, the GPUs and the improved storage speeds are probably the biggest. 2012's Minis all included Intel's HD 4000 GPU, the best integrated GPU that shipped with Ivy Bridge processors. The GPU you get in the 2014 Mini depends on the configuration you spring for—the $499 base model includes the Intel HD 5000, the same one you'd get in the 2013 MacBook or the $1,099 iMac. The $699 and $999 models include the Iris 5100, a somewhat faster integrated GPU like what you'd see in a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. Unlike the Iris Pro 5200, the 5100 doesn't include any dedicated eDRAM, which limits its speeds. It's still probably worth the extra cash if you want the fastest Mini you can get.

A quick note about these charts: the HD 5000 results come from a 2013 MacBook Air with a 1.7GHz Core i5-3317U in it, since we don't have numbers for the 1.4GHz model on hand. The base Mini will score a little differently, but the numbers should be more-or-less the same.

Neither of these new integrated GPUs will turn the Mac Mini into a gaming machine, but they bring the kind of improvements we'd expect in a generational jump. The HD 5000 improves on the HD 4000 by about 50 percent in the GFXBench T-Rex test and about 25 percent faster in the Cinebench R15 GPU test. The Iris 5100 further improves those numbers, beating the HD 4000 by 98 percent in the T-Rex test and about 45 percent in the Cinebench test. Scores in the heavier GFXBench Manhattan test improve as well, though by a much smaller margin—obviously the amount you stand to gain will vary from game to game and task to task.

The jump from SATA III to PCI Express-based solid-state drives provides a nice generational performance boost too, the same one we saw when the various iMacs and MacBooks made the same jump in 2013. Both our 2012 and 2014 Minis are equipped with 128GB SSDs from Samsung. The new Mini has 48 percent better write speeds and 62.2 percent better read speeds. These numbers may vary somewhat from unit to unit, since Apple sources SSDs from a variety of manufacturers.

The base model Mini still comes with a spinning 5400RPM HDD by default, and scores improve by a negligible amount. Spring for the Fusion Drive no matter which model you buy—the way the technology works ensures that you'll usually see the SSD speeds rather than the slow HDD speeds. Saddling a new computer with an HDD in 2014 is cruel to consumer and computer alike.

Finally, the new Mac Mini features improved idle power consumption, likely attributable to both the Haswell CPUs as well as the move from standard DDR3 RAM to LPDDR3. Power consumption under CPU load is much lower, mostly because the 2014 Mini no longer includes a quad-core CPU option. Power consumption under GPU load is a bit higher because of the powerful Iris GPU (we'd expect power consumption numbers for the HD 5000 to be somewhere in between our 2012 and 2014 Minis). Apple says the new Mini is "the world's most energy-efficient desktop." We can't vouch for that claim, but it's at least an improvement over its predecessor most of the time.

Activity	2014 mid-tier Mac Mini	2012 mid-tier Mac Mini
Off/Hibernate	0.3W	0.3W
Sleep mode	1.2W	1.8W
Idle at desktop	5.1W	9.0W
Watching 1080p YouTube in Safari	~7.0W	~13.0W
100% CPU load	~32.2W	~61.0W
Running GFXBench Manhattan benchmark	~45.0W	~38.0W