Late 2014 Mac Mini Teardown Reveals Soldered RAM [Photos]

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Posted October 21, 2014 at 5:43am by iClarified

iFixit has published a teardown of the new 2014 Mac mini finding soldered RAM and a more difficult to open casing.

Highlights:
● The backside of the Mini remains almost identical to the previous iteration. The only change is the omission of a FireWire port in favor of an extra Thunderbolt 2 port.
● The Mac Mini Late 2014 retains the model number identifier of A1347, but is distinguished by the EMC number 2840.
● There's a solid door where there was once handy access to the RAM and fan. A rare T6 Torx Security screwdriver is required to open it.
● The computer features a quieter Advanced Hydraulic Bearing fan
● The RAM is soldered to the logic board.

Mac Mini Late 2014 Repairability: 6 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair).
● There's no glue anywhere inside that needs to be removed while disassembling the Mini.
● With the proper tools, disassembly is straight-forward and simple.
● T6 Torx Security screws are intended to lock you out of your Mini, and make it hard to clean the fan or replace the hard drive.
● The CPU is soldered to the logic board and not user-upgradeable.
● The RAM is now also soldered to the logic board, and not user-upgradeable.

Take a look at a few images below or hit the link for the full teardown.

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Late 2014 Mac Mini Teardown Reveals Soldered RAM [Photos]

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What142 - October 21, 2014 at 2:35pm

P.O.S!!!!!!

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gamerscul9870 - October 21, 2014 at 7:54pm

C.A.H.

byemacwelcomepc - October 21, 2014 at 7:31am

Thank god i still have my previous mac mini that i had upgraded the ram to 32gb/possibly bigger in the future and the latest available fast processor it is capable as i use it as my multipurpose all around use either streaming/uploading/server/etc in my house and i won't ever buy another apple product that are not upgreadable specifically the ram/cpu which are the core part of it. Dont tell next is they will solder the HDD/SDD??? like for f*cks sakes apple if you continue to do this you won't ever get a huge pc market boost.

gamerscul9870 - October 21, 2014 at 7:56am

Not that many buy Mac mini, besides it will do a bit of a boost whether we need it or not.

iProService - October 21, 2014 at 6:40am

Why solder the RAM to the board??

Pentriola - October 21, 2014 at 6:52am

Becuz Apple loves limiting their own customers

areilly111 - October 21, 2014 at 6:52am

Probably to save a it of money so they don't need to bring the costs up any more. Also to keep it thinner

gamerscul9870 - October 21, 2014 at 7:54am

Because it's already made up to users how much they wanted before they solder it.

Great! - October 21, 2014 at 3:22pm

So first tell me, for that CPU type, what possible ram combinations and size does it support? And who sells replaceable rams that will work for that CPU type?

sillydrew - October 21, 2014 at 5:33pm

First of all it does not cost more to solder the ram. They make the board and install the solder which is a paste like solution. Then it is placed in a oven and a computer places the chips percisely where they need to be before baking them onto the board. To have replaceable ram they have to add a socket which costs money obviously and solder it to the board. Anyways yes being able to upgrade your ram would be nice. The real point here is that people do have options and one of those options is to not purchase this device. If no one wants it Apple will go back to the previous upgradable option.

Pentriola - October 21, 2014 at 5:34pm

CPU is 4th haswell dual core.(downgrade from quad core 2012 model) which can support up to 64GB RAM. There are plenty of companies that sells memory upgrade kits including Mac Mini's memory vendor itself. But now not only Apple dooms all those vendors, decrease performance, they are trying best to milk out their customer with limiting every single thing. Its same uninidy chasis that has exact same layout as 2012 model. Just the ram and cpu soldered so they can charge you more.

areilly111 - October 21, 2014 at 5:41pm

@Pentriola Not necessarily since they only have to solder the chips them self it removes the need for the ddr3 connector and remove the need for the ram to be atached to a separate pcb it would probably work out to be alittle cheaper not much but alittle bit. also removing all that stuff makes the system easier to cool since all that other stuff is out of the way. but i know what you guys mean.

Sympathy - October 21, 2014 at 5:43pm

@drew. I think soldering process takes more of hand works. And thats more money for workers. So eventually it has higher cost with soldering. Plus there is a DRAM socket on the board just like last gen. But with soldered of course

sillydrew - October 21, 2014 at 6:39pm

@sympathy you may want to look at how these motherboards are manufactured. You don't do any of that by hand. Actually there is less hand work now that the ram isn't removable actually. I use to work for Motorola making motherboards for NASA and I can assure you you don't do this by hand.