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Intel Mac mini Q&A - Published March 7, 2009
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What are the differences between the "Early 2009/NVIDIA" Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" configurations?
The differences between the two Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" 2.0 (Early 2009/NVIDIA) configurations are quite modest.
Photo Credit: Apple, Inc.
Like all previous Mac mini models, the internal components of the "Early 2009/NVIDIA" Mac mini are enclosed in a tiny and elegant 2.9 lb, 6.5 inch square, two inch tall case.
Connectivity includes 5 USB 2.0 ports, a Firewire "800" port, AirPort Extreme (802.11a/b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, Gigabit Ethernet, a combined "optical digital audio input/audio line in minijack", and a "optical digital audio output/headphone out minijack", and dual video ports -- Mini-DVI and Mini DisplayPort -- that can be used to simultaneously drive two displays, the first time that the Mac mini series has supported dual displays.
Internally, "Early 2009/NVIDIA" Mac mini configurations have a 2.0 GHz Intel "Core 2 Duo" (P7350) processor with a 3 MB on-chip level 2 cache, a 1066 MHz frontside bus, support for 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (PC3-8500), a Serial ATA hard drive, a slot-loading 8X double-layer "SuperDrive", and a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with "integrated" graphics.
The configurations vary only by the amount of pre-installed memory, hard drive size, default amount of memory allocated for graphics, and price. These differences are summarized below for your convenience:
| Mac mini "Early 2009" | 2.0 (120 GB*) | 2.0 (320 GB*) |
|---|---|---|
| Standard RAM: | 1 GB | 2 GB |
| Standard Hard Drive: | 120 GB | 320 GB |
| Allocated VRAM: | 128 MB† | 256 MB† |
| Apple Order No: | MB463LL/A | MB464LL/A |
| Price: | US$599 | US$799 |
* In marketing copy, Apple formally distinguished between these configurations by hard drive size.
† The VRAM is "shared" with system memory. This is the minimum graphics memory usage with each configuration but the memory available to MacOS X "may vary depending on graphics needs". Installing 2 GB of memory in the low-end MB463LL/A configuration automatically will increase the allocated VRAM to 256 MB.
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Please refer to the Ultimate Mac Comparison feature to dynamically compare any Mac mini model to any other G3 or later Mac.
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