Just like early reports on the new MacBook Air released yesterday, the new Mac mini is also showing significant improvements in raw performance over its predecessor machines. Mac mini web hosting company Macminicolo.net has obtained both standard and server models of the new line and put them through some preliminary benchmarking using Geekbench.
The testing reveals significant performance improvements for the Mac mini, with the entry-level 2.3 GHz Core i5 model showing an over 50% jump in Geekbench scoring over earlier generations and the 2.0 GHz Core i7 server model showing even more impressive results with its Geekbench score coming in at well over double that of its predecessor.
As we noted on yesterday's MacBook Air report, Geekbench focuses on raw processor and memory performance, and real-world performance will also depend on other aspects of a system including graphics capabilities and data storage components.
The report also offers a few unboxing photos and some shots of the initial setup process in which the Mac mini server model offers to migrate from an existing server setup. Also noted is the fact that the server edition includes iLife apps, as the server portion of Lion is simply an add-on for the basic OS X Lion. Under Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife apps were not included on server machines.
Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models.
In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB.
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Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips.
The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by Juli Clover
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below.
MacBook Pro
M5...
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec).
The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year.
The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band.
The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM.
With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...
Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump.
First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:59 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, and others, according to Apple's online store.
In the U.S. and all other countries outside of Europe, the new MacBook Pro comes with Apple's 70W USB-C Power Adapter, but European customers miss out....
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version?
According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
Tuesday October 14, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is going to launch a new version of the MacBook Pro as soon as tomorrow, so we thought we'd go over what to expect from Apple's upcoming Mac.
M5 Chip
The MacBook Pro will be one of the first new devices to use the next-generation M5 chip, which will replace the M4 chip.
The M5 is built on TSMC's more advanced 3-nanometer process, and it will bring speed and efficiency improvements. ...
I just noticed the standard Mini drives are 5400 rpm. Server is 7200 rpm.
And to upgrade the standard Minis to 750GB 7200 rpm...$150. :(
And very strangely, upgrading from one 500 GB drive to one 750 GB drive in the desktop model costs $150. Upgrading the server model from dual 500 GB's to dual 750 GBs costs only $100... Uh, what? :confused:
There is actually a BTO option to have the high-end model configured with 2 discs just as the server model.
And the server model seems to have only a 2.0GHz Core i7 compared to the 2.7GHz Core i7 for the high-end BTO option, which means the high-end model is really the best and fastest on every spec.
Nope, for multithreaded CPU-intensive apps (like video encoding,) the server model is better. It's four 2.0 GHz cores (which can turbo up to 2.9 GHz on one core, 2.8 GHz on two cores, or 2.6 GHz on all four cores) as opposed to the desktop model's two 2.7 Ghz cores (which can turbo up to 3.4 GHz on one core, or 3.2 Ghz on two cores.)
I would be interested to see how thermal-constrained both models are. (AKA: How often they each turbo up.) If the server model is less thermally constrained, then it might turbo up to being faster on two cores than the desktop model (if the discrete GPU causes the whole thing to have thermal issues, it's possible.)
I would love to see some comprehensive light gaming benchmarks comparing the discrete graphics desktop model to the server model. (Which, if you upgrade both of their storage options to 750 GB spinning + 256 GB SSD, cost exactly the same, with the only difference being dual core 2.5GHz+discrete vs. quad-core 2.0GHz+integrated.)
