advice needed about the Mac Mini

Marjolijn

Marjolijn

Registered
Since my current G3 is in the very final stages of its life, I am searching for a replacer. As my budget is very tight, I have ben thinking about the mini mac. Does anyone have experience with this machine? Is it indeed a very good computer at an affordable price? Is it as fast & reliable as a Power Mac G4 with equivalent specifications?
Please tell me what you all think.
 
If you are on a tight budget, I feel the Mac mini is a great machine - in fact: I am typing this on mine.

I can only compare it to my G4 iBook - and even though the iBook has got a faster processor (1.33 vs. 1.25 GHz, if memory serves right), I am using the Mac mini as my main machine.

Hope this helps!

patrice
http://www.patriceschneider.com/apple-osx/blog/
 
The Mac mini is a great machine, but I would wait until after next week's Macworld keynote presentation from Steve Jobs before you make a decision. Remember that the x86 Macs aren't too far away now.
 
Marjolijn said:
Since my current G3 is in the very final stages of its life, I am searching for a replacer. As my budget is very tight, I have ben thinking about the mini mac. Does anyone have experience with this machine? Is it indeed a very good computer at an affordable price? Is it as fast & reliable as a Power Mac G4 with equivalent specifications?
Please tell me what you all think.
Click to expand...

Hi there.

I've been using my new Mac Mini now for roughly three months, and I must say it kept up with my expectations for it. I went from a used PowerMac G4@350Mhz/512Mb to the current "middle" model of the Mini. It generally has an uptime of ten days, and the only reason why it needs a reboot is software installation. So my answer to your last question is /yes/. For sure. When it comes to value-for-money on new computers, nothing outruns the Mini.
 
at the moment, and for the last 10 years, macs have used a processor designed by IBM called the PowerPC, derived from their Power architecture of server chips. the G5 refers to the PowerPC 970, which is the 5th Generation of PowerPC chips.

PC's have always used x86 processors. this family started with the intel 8086 in the late 80's/early 90's. this was replaced by the 286, which in turned was replaced by the 386 processor, the 486 processor, and the 586 processor, which was actually called simply Pentium, to avoid copyright issues (you can't copyright a number).

The pentium became Pentium II and AMD around this point started making their rival, the K6, which was replaced by the K7 Athlon, when intel released Pentium III.

so x86 refers to the chip architecture that was intel's way of doing things. AMD are a rival company that makes compatible chips on the x86 architecture. IBM's PowerPC is drastically different, and they are moving out of the pc market into consoles (the PPC is basis for the chip that all the next gen consoles will be using, Xbox360, PS3 and nintendo revolution). apple have decided to switch to x86 intel chips, starting this year. the Mac Mini is rumoured to be one of the first to cross over.
 
Wow, thanks for this lesson in computer history, I understand things better now. So it means that after G3, G4, G5 processors that I know, the new Macs on the market will have a different kind of processor from a different manufacturer. Is it indeed wise to wait and buy such a new machine or is there a risk that the first generation of these will have a lot of "children's diseases"?
What boost in performance is there expected? What price level? Would I buy with an "old" mini mac (or iBook) an old technology that will be incompatible in some years? What about the OS?

Pff, one question answered leads to a lot more questions to be asked..

Thanks anyway for your help and clarification.
 
the biggest probelm other than teething problems, is going to be software. software is currently 'written' for the PowerPC architecture, and as such, will not run on pentiums. since last june, developers have been developing their software for the mac-x86 platform, but as in the example of photoshop, many of these won't be around in time. (scheduled for 2007, i heard)

there will be an emulation layer, which means you will be able to to run old PowerPC apps on an intel mac, albeit rather slowly (it has to decompile everything on the fly, and recompile it all on the fly again for x86). rumours indicate that it'll feel like a snappy G3. so not great then, but usuable.

that's the biggest problem. all the apple apps (iLife etc) will most likely be Intel compiled for the release, so that's not a problem.

here is a list of apps currently converted to universal binaries (PowerPC+x86 compatible) and complete
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/X86_software
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top