Which Mac?

[Boris Sprinkler]

I just bought a mac mini. The one with 80gb hard drive and 512 mb Ram, CD writer DVD rom. I got it last week but I've not really had a chance to play with it yet. It looks vry purdy but I've not got my hands dirty yet. Hopefully gonna have a chance to fuck around with it tonight. Gonna install fink and some linux apps. Plus I want to check out SoulseeX and maybe even chuck gentoo on there. Nicey.

 

[exleper]

Cheers for an excellent response guys, its been very helpful.

I think, having looked at all the options, I'm going to settle for a Mac Mini, with a few upgrades - I'll go for the middle-ground 80GB model and possibly upgrade to a Superdrive so I can burn DVDs.

Anyone know whether it would be worth upgrading to a Superdrive?

Combo ("Combination") drives (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) have the capability of creating music and data CDs and reading DVD disks. The drive writes to CD-R at 24x and CD-RW at 16x, reads DVDs at 8x, and reads CDs at 24x. The drive supports CD-ROM, CD-Audio, CD-R, CD-RW, CD-I, Mixed Mode CD, Photo CD, Video CD, Enhanced CD, DVD-Video, and DVD-ROM media.

The SuperDrive (DVD±R/CD-RW) allows you to create music and data CDs, read DVDs, and create DVD-video discs for playback on most standard DVD players. Along with Apple's iDVD software, your Mac mini is a full-featured DVD authoring studio.

The SuperDrive reads DVDs at 8x, writes to DVD-R at 4x, writes DVD-RW at 2x, writes DVD+R at 4x, writes DVD+RW at 2-4x, reads CDs at 24x, writes to CD-R at 16x, and writes to CD-RW at 8x. The drive supports CD-ROM, CD-Audio, CD-R, CD-RW, CD-I, Mixed Mode CD, Photo CD, Video CD, Enhanced CD, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, and DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, and DVD+RW media.

If that means anything to anybody, let me know.

P.S. Rocketman, I will take your advice r.e. holding out for an update - this from MacRumors.com:

According to the report, Apple will be quietly updating the Mac mini in the next week. The low end Mac mini will be upgraded from 1.25GHz to 1.33GHz and the high end from 1.42GHz to 1.5GHz. Internal components such as AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth will receive upgrades as will the SuperDrive (up to 8x) in the high end Mac mini model.

Prices are expected to remain the same.

 

[Firky]

yeah, i went there after i read his post too

maybe a new gfx card if apple read it...
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=150128

 

[rocketman]

I'd go for the SuperDrive option myself, why?
Well, it's useful, innit? It's great for archiving large files, music collections and making movies.
Course if you don't plan to do that, don't bother, the combo CD is fast enough for CD-burning, though to be honest you may find yourself wanting a SuperDrive earlier.
Also you save a bit of cash by moving to the mid-range, but I think the low end Mac mini is a bit crap as its hard drive isn't big enough for this increasingly digital age.

 

[Firky]

thats what put me off putting a mac mini when i had the money, i've got nearly 100GB of mp3s alone.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

I must have a duff one, then! It's about as stable as the Mad Mouse at Morecambe, and just as enjoyable too.

what? It makes you shit yourself Chio?

 

[Bob_the_lost]

I'm not impressed by the superdrive, 70 quid more for a second (scratch that, third) rate DVD burner?

Look at it, x4 for + R? Anything made these days writes at at x16.

Could be that it's not capable of writing that fast from the hard drive, but i doubt it. Buy an external one, cheaper (not by much) but a far more capable drive.

 

[rocketman]

Well 4x isn't the best, but it works, and if you look further up the thread you'll read that I belive an 8x speed one may appear later this week. External ones are an option though.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

x8 is still very poor. Who makes the superdrive? It'd be nice to see a comparative review to see if it's a decent drive or not...

 

[rocketman]

x8 is still very poor. Who makes the superdrive? It'd be nice to see a comparative review to see if it's a decent drive or not...

It's made by Pioneer, at least they used to be. I'm under the impression Pioneer has a good business in OEM DVD recording drives.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

It's made by Pioneer, at least they used to be. I'm under the impression Pioneer has a good business in OEM DVD recording drives.

They aren't bad at all, but they haven't been getting great reviews recently. *shrugs*

 

[poet]

Dunno about the ones in the OP but we have a Mac G5 at home (housemates a Mac nut) and it's a bit of a stinker to be honest. Slower than the Tiny cheapy upstairs and it's got a dodgy noisy fan and a bit of a wobbly OS on it. Good to watch TV on, though. The remote control mouse and keyboard are s-l-o-o-o-w to activate.

Your housemate almost certainly just doesn't know how OSX works. G5s are facemelting, industry-leading fast given two things - one, there's enough ram in them and two, the owner knows that macOS only quits an application if you quit it usig the named menu in the application bar at the top of the screen. 99% of macs I look at that are 'running slowly' have a little black arrow under every single application in the very well populated dock indicating that the programs haven't been quit. Ten seconds of tuition and it's running like a greasy whippet. Even a ninja PC will start to wilt with that much going on and a relatively meagre amount of ram. Apples do not come fitted with enough ram for serious multitasking, let alone running 40 apps at once.

 

[jæd]

Your housemate almost certainly just doesn't know how OSX works. G5s are facemelting, industry-leading fast given two things - one, there's enough ram in them and two, the owner knows that macOS only quits an application if you quit it usig the named menu in the application bar at the top of the screen. 99% of macs I look at that are 'running slowly' have a little black arrow under every single application in the very well populated dock indicating that the programs haven't been quit. Ten seconds of tuition and it's running like a greasy whippet. Even a ninja PC will start to wilt with that much going on and a relatively meagre amount of ram. Apples do not come fitted with enough ram for serious multitasking, let alone running 40 apps at once.

Depends on whether its an iMac G5 or desktop G5. If its the former I would guess its not got enough ram. The latter – probably overheating somehow... The "dodgy fan" makes it sound like its not being maintained properly anyhow...

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Depends on whether its an iMac G5 or desktop G5. If its the former I would guess its not got enough ram. The latter – probably overheating somehow... The "dodgy fan" makes it sound like its not being maintained properly anyhow...

Thought the Dual G5 sounds like a jet at take off when at full load?

 

[poet]

Thought the Dual G5 sounds like a jet at take off when at full load?

It can get pretty loud, granted, but not nearly as loud as a dual Xeon or Opteron box or even a high-end P4.

 

[tom k&e]

You can make all x86 CPUs pretty quiet if you use appropriate parts.

IIRC P4s have higher TDP than opterons or xeons

Remember if you but a mac mini you're basicaly paying £300 for the OS, as hardware of that spec is worth about £100.

 

[Poi E]

Your housemate almost certainly just doesn't know how OSX works. G5s are facemelting, industry-leading fast given two things - one, there's enough ram in them and two, the owner knows that macOS only quits an application if you quit it usig the named menu in the application bar at the top of the screen. 99% of macs I look at that are 'running slowly' have a little black arrow under every single application in the very well populated dock indicating that the programs haven't been quit. Ten seconds of tuition and it's running like a greasy whippet. Even a ninja PC will start to wilt with that much going on and a relatively meagre amount of ram. Apples do not come fitted with enough ram for serious multitasking, let alone running 40 apps at once.

Could be right. He had some Mac guy come over and do the installation, he ran through a few things with us. Don't know about the RAM. How can you check that out? And where did they put that right click button?

 

[Poi E]

The "dodgy fan" makes it sound like its not being maintained properly anyhow...

Do you need to maintain a 2 month old computer? The most I've ever done with a PC is clean the dust etc from the casing, PSU, fan etc and replace the fan if it gets a bit cranky.

Just looked and it's an iMac G5.

 

[jæd]

Could be right. He had some Mac guy come over and do the installation, he ran through a few things with us. Don't know about the RAM. How can you check that out? And where did they put that right click button?

Apple Menu -> About this Mac.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

There's a system information bit somewhere, dig around in the menus at the top and you'll find it.

(Damn you jaed!)

 

[Poi E]

Thanks. Should spend some time with it instead of expecting it to act like a PC, really. Damn that screen is good, none of that overly bright harshness of cheap LCD screens.

 

[Firky]

Do you need to maintain a 2 month old computer? The most I've ever done with a PC is clean the dust etc from the casing, PSU, fan etc and replace the fan if it gets a bit cranky.

Just looked and it's an iMac G5.

People clean their hardware? How odd.

I clean my monitor and that is about it

 

[Virtual Blue]

2nd hand G4 Power Mac. Should be able to pick one up for £500 minus the monitor...

 

[Poi E]

I clean my monitor and that is about it

Good to keep dust away from electronics and PSUs.

 

[ProgBreakz]

LaCie and iomega both do external stackable hard drives for the mini. But they are still external drives, and since the boot disk will still be a 5,400 RPM laptop drive there's going to be performance issues with it.

Not at all - you can just install OSX on the external drive, boot off that, and not use the internal one at all.

Alternatively, you could stick a 7200rpm laptop drive in the mini, although they are still quite expensive (like, twice as much as 5400rpm drives).


PB