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Lab Tested: 2012 Mac mini gets a nice speed boost

30.10.2012
Last week, Apple the with faster processors, faster USB 3.0 ports and new graphics. The Macworld Lab was able to get our hands on the new Mac mini systems and our test results show the new machines are between 31 and 37 percent faster overall than the Mac minis they replace. The new systems were faster in all of our tests, but processor intensive tests results were only slightly higher. Interestingly, the hard drive tests were much faster on the new systems, though they still use 5400-rpm hard drives.

The new $599 Mac mini has the same 5400-rpm 500GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM as the 2011 entry-level Mac mini, but it gets a speed bump from its previous 2.3GHz dual-core Core i5 processor to a 2.5GHz dual-core Core i5. The new $599 Mac mini still uses integrated graphics, but is updated from the previous Intel HD Graphics 3000 to Intel HD Graphics 4000.

The new $799 Mac mini has a 2.3GHz quad-core Core i7 processor; the previous high-end Mac mini used the same dual-core Core i5 found in the new low-end system. This new model drops the discreet AMD graphics found in last year's step-up system in favor of Intel's integrated HD Graphics 4000. As with last year's $799 system, the new model comes with 4GB of RAM and a 5400-rpm, 1TB hard drive.

In our testing, we found the new $599 Mac mini to be 31 percent faster overall than its predecessor. The new Intel HD Graphics 4000 helped the 2012 low-end Mac mini beat last year's system by 60 percent in the Cinebench OpenGL test and by 27 percent in Portal 2.

We also looked at the performance differences between the new low-end model and a mid-2010 entry-level Mac mini with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor. The 2012 Mac mini was 68 percent faster and finished the Cinebench CPU test in half the time of the 2010 model. The older system took nearly three times as long to complete our Photoshop action script.