2012 mac mini i5 vs i7

Playground Hardware
#1

Hi everyone, just to give some background I have been using the 2011/2012 mac mini background for about 6 months now. Previously was using a RP4. Both my 2011 and 2012 mac mini have the i5 processor and as expected have netted nearly identical performance when used as a DVR. I am currently using the 2012 model for my DVR and 2011 for personal use.

Since these mac minis are relatively inexpensive these days I was contemplating swapping out the 2012 i5 for the 2012 i7 model. The i5 model is 2-cores, 4 threads. The i7 model is 4-cores, 8 threads. It should be noted that I have had zero performance issues with my current setup but I find myself using the DVR more and more as time goes on, including more and more local content and custom live streams.

I really have two questions:
-Can the i7 model be used to enable more threads for commercial skip? (Currently can only select 1 with the i5)
-Can the channels DVR software even make use of the additional cores that would be available with the i7?

Thanks.

1 Like
#2

I too have the i5. Curious why it can only so 1 thread for commercial skip since it has 4. My RPi4 could select up to 3 threads for this.

#3

IIRC The number of threads comskip uses is limited by the number of CPU CORES.
Doesn't matter if the CPU is hyperthreaded or not.
Not sure if it will utilize HyperThreading, mixed messages on their support forum.
A dual core processor will only allow setting 1 in Channels DVR.
A quad core processor will allow setting 1-3 in Channels DVR.
Each comskip thread fully utilizes 1 CPU CORE.
So a setting of 1 thread will use 50% CPU on a dual core.

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#4

I'm pretty sure it does use hyperthreading. I have a quad core NUC with HT and channels shows 7cores available

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#5

I have a 2011 i7 Mac Mini Server and I use 2 cores without issue. This Mac Mini is server a lot of things and everything is running smooth. I can select 3; but never tried it. I have not really seen a reason too.

#6

@evolution2147 I too am running a Late 2012 Mac Mini with the 2-core i5 (i5-3210M, 2.5 GHz) and was wondering if you made the switch and if so whether you noticed any speed improvements.

Like you, I've got no issues with my current setup but would always appreciate more speed. I have an Early 2015 13" retina MacBook Pro with a 2-core i5-5257U (2.7 Ghz) available and considering whether to make it my new Channels DVR server to gain any speed improvements. Any and all thoughts appreciated.

#7

The only change I really notice is the comskip is quite faster. I use the 2-core setting. I record a 3 hour live stream every day and it takes about 10 minutes to parse the commercials. It used to take about 30-40 minutes. I am using the 2.6ghz i7-3720QM and running 10.14 Mojave. When I switched from the i5 I also installed a 4TB samsung SSD. I did not see a real performance increase with the SSD. The comskip seemed a little faster but it was before I took benchmarks. The main difference I saw was the SSD yielded faster performance when adding a large folder of local content. (channels dvr bulk processes all of the videos after being added). Since this is a very infrequent process I returned the SSD and put the previous internal seagate 5TB HDD back in.
Personally it may not be worth upgrading unless comskip is important to you or if you are doing a lot of other non-channels dvr processes with the machine. Most of what Channels dvr does seems to be pretty lightweight so you may not really notice much of a difference.

#8

Thanks! I'm skeptical that there will be a noticeable speed difference between the 2012 Mac Mini and the 2015 MBP given that both i5 processors are 2-core and fairly close in performance (though the 2015 Broadwell chip is faster than the 2012 Ivy Bridge chip). Good to hear that the 4-core i7 was noticeable for the commercial skip - the 4-core is probably the better upgrade than getting a later gen 2-core i5.

#9

Yeah, I have two apple machines I use for regular usage. The old dvr (2012 i5-3210M, 2.5 GHz) and a 2015 13inch macbook pro (i7-5557U). FYI this i7 is really a 2-core CPU. Both of these machines seem nearly identical in real world usage. I run 10.15 catalina on both and the performance is more than adequate for my needs. I have never tried to use the macbook pro as the DVR server but I wouldn't think it would net any noticeable performance gain.

For the i7 DVR i use it without a monitor and just use the native screen sharing app from my macbook pro if I need to get into it. This works pretty well. I also downloaded the "Display Menu" app which lets you easily change the resolution.