What are the differences between the "Late 2009" Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" configurations? What are the differences between these Mac mini models and the models replaced?

The "Late 2009" Mac mini models -- the Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" 2.26, "Core 2 Duo" 2.53, and "Core 2 Duo" 2.53 (Server) -- are quite similar to one another and quite similar to the "Early 2009" Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" 2.0 as well.

Photo Credit: Apple, Inc.

Like all Mac mini models, the "Early 2009" and "Late 2009" Mac mini models have their internal components enclosed in a tiny and elegant 2.9 lb, 6.5 inch square, two inch tall case.

Connectivity provided by the "Early 2009" and "Late 2009" Mac mini models is identical. All of these systems have 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.

With the exception of the Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" 2.53 (Server), which has a second internal hard drive in lieu of the optical drive -- as well as a slightly different case without an optical drive slot and a pre-installed copy of MacOS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" Server rather than the standard version of MacOS X -- these models are identical internally apart from processor speeds, pre-installed RAM, and default hard drive size.

All have Intel "Core 2 Duo" processors with a 3 MB on-chip level 2 cache, a 1066 MHz frontside bus, support for 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (PC3-8500), and a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with "integrated" graphics memory.

The "Late 2009" hardware configurations vary only by processor speed, pre-installed memory, hard drive, optical drive, and price. These differences are below:

"Late 2009"	2.26	2.53	2.53 (Server)
Processor Speed:	2.26 GHz	2.53 GHz	2.53 GHz
Processor Type:	P8400	P8700	P8700
Std. RAM:	2 GB	4 GB	4 GB
Std. Hard Drive:	160 GB	320 GB	500 GB x2
Std. Optical Drive:	8X DL	8X DL	None
Apple Order No:	MC238LL/A	MC239LL/A	MC408LL/A
Price:	US$599	US$799	US$999

Likewise, the "Late 2009" and "Early 2009" models only differ by processor speed and configuration:

	"Early 2009" Mac mini	"Late 2009" Mac mini
Processor Type:	Core 2 Duo (P7350)	Core 2 Duo (P8400, P8700)
Processor Speed:	2.0 GHz	2.26 GHz, 2.53 GHz
Standard RAM:	1 GB, 2 GB	2 GB, 4 GB
Hard Drive:	120 GB, 320 GB	160 GB, 320 GB, 500 GB x2*
Optical Drive:	8X DL "SuperDrive"	8X DL "SuperDrive" or None*
Video Type:	NVIDIA GeForce 9400M	NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
Integrated VRAM:	128 MB, 256 MB†	256 MB†
Apple Order No:	MB463LL/A, MB464LL/A	MC238LL/A, MC239LL/A, MC408LL/A
Price:	US$599, US$799	US$599, US$799, US$999

* The Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" 2.53 (Server) has dual 500 GB hard drives with the second internal hard drive in lieu of the optical drive.

† 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 "Early 2009" 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.