apple news/media reports
03/02/2006, 6:45pm, EST
Thursday, March 2nd
Apple changes Mac Mini graphics tune
Apple's been bitten by its own marketing words, according to report on CNET News.com. The company had touted its graphics superiority in the first G4-version of the Mac mini, noting that it had included a separate graphics card, while other low-end PCs used an integrated chip. The Apple webpage, which has since been taken down, said: "Go ahead, just try to play Halo on a budget PC," Apple said. "Most say they're good for 2D games only. That's because an 'integrated Intel graphics' chip steals power from the CPU and siphons off memory from system-level RAM." Ironically, Apple's new Intel-based Mac mini features an integrated graphics processor: the Intel GMA950 graphics supports Tiger Core Graphics and the latest 3D games, sharing the main system memory.
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There's nothing wrong with changing your mind when something better comes along. Is that all that happened here?
Since the mean is meant to be as inexpensive as possible, I suspect this graphics compromise was necessary just to keep the Mini close to its old price point... given that the processors now cost them considerably more.
Lets also clear up something about the Integrated graphics card. The GMA950 does use 32 MB of onboard memory and if needed it will pull an additional 32 MB of memory from the system memory through a 64-bit bus. You may find that this is an increase over the 32 MB video card that came in the previous Mac mini. When Apple made the statements about onboard in the past they were correct, but Intel's Onboard video technology is much different than it was at that time.