My office is looking to get a Mac Mini for testing our website in Safari. Because Apple now allows you to run previous versions of OS X in a VM, we will be looking to run at least Mavericks and Mountain Lion VMs on a Yosemite host. We're going w/ the Mini's because we'll be stuffing the box in the server room (or somewhere) and connecting remotely from our Windows developer PCs.
Because the Mac Minis hadn't been updated in awhile and we figured an update was coming, we were holding out until Apple announced them at the big event last Thursday. However, now that they have, we've noticed that the quad-core Mac Mini is no longer available!
This has left me wondering: For the task of running two or three OS X VMs, would we be better served getting a newer, faster dual-core 2014 model? Or would we be better served by having more cores in the 2012 quad-core?
The box will most likely not be used for any other purpose, so we aren't as concerned w/ the performance of the 3D chip or other factors. We just want good VM performance.
Thanks.
Best Answer
As a test server with multiple VM running, definitely quad core is much better than dual-core. None of the new features introduced in late-2014 mac mini benefits you.