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About To Purchase a 2012 Mac Mini. What is most important Upgrades right away?

F

FunkTechNician

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 14, 2009
57
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Im about to purchase a late 2012 Macmini from apple.com or elsewhere if better deal.

I will be getting the 2.3 i7
what is best to get right away money is some what limited at the moment.

Should i upgrade to 2.6 or keep it at 2.3?
If i keep it at 2.3 should i go with a fusion 1tb or keep the 1tb5400 and purchase a ssd drive elsewhere? I need at least 500gb so the 256 is just way to small. I was thinking about the Crucial M500 480GB from newegg.

Ram i want to upgrade but not from apple.com way to expensive.

I would like to get everything at 0 interest which is why i like apple.com

i will be doing a little bit of video editing and a lot of raw photo editing.
 
Starting with the highest priority, I would go:

1. Max the RAM out (16GB).

2. SSD + keep the 1TB HD.

I agree that 256GB is too small for the main drive, 512GB is the minimum size for a useable main drive, for me anyway, otherwise just way too much juggling files back and forth off the big storage hard drives. I am saving my pennies for a 512GB SSD for my new Mini, (quad i7, 2.3GHz, 16GB of non-Apple RAM).

3. Bump CPU to 2.6GHz.

To be honest I doubt you will notice much difference from the extra 0.3 GHz. Probably save about 10% off the time taken by processor intensive tasks, like video processing. Only get it if you have spare cash after doing the other two upgrades, and if you really could use that extra bit of grunt.
 
I got the 2.3 because it seemed like the most bang for the buck. Doubling the processor and HDD was worth it for $200 but I didn't want to spend another $100 to get about 10% improvement on top of that. I think the SSD is the best upgrade to do right away. My mini runs fine with 4GB of RAM but the SSD improvement is definitely noticible.
 
So stay with 2.3 and just get ssd? Which ssd is recommended? If I get one off another site if I get issues on my computer do I have to put the original back in everytime before taking it to the genius bar?
 
FunkTechNician said:
So stay with 2.3 and just get ssd?
Click to expand...
Yes.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-3615QM+@+2.30GHz

vs.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-3720QM+@+2.60GHz

FunkTechNician said:
Which ssd is recommended?
Click to expand...
I recommend the Samsung 840 Evo (+ Trim Enabler)

FunkTechNician said:
If I get one off another site if I get issues on my computer do I have to put the original back in everytime before taking it to the genius bar?
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's better.
 
I would get at least 8GB RAM these days if I was doing any more than just basic browsing, email, playing music and vids, etc. Adding RAM is a cheap & easy way to substantially boost performance in a low RAM machine.

Don't forget that in machines with integrated graphics, like the 2012 Mini, there is no separate dedicated video RAM, instead a chunk of regular RAM is used by the graphics processor, so 4GB is more like 3.5GB. Adding extra RAM not only gives the overall system more to work with, it also increases the amount of RAM available for the graphics work (from 512 to 768MB).

Which ssd is recommended?
Click to expand...

Can't directly recommend it as I have not tried it yet, but I am looking at getting the Samsung 840 Pro. Not the cheapest, but this is one part where I am prepared to fork out a bit extra for better quality (both speed and reliability).
 
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For what it is worth, according to the 64 bit Geekbench tests the 2.3 scores 11713, and the 2.6 scores 12776, a bit under a 10% increase.

A significant difference, but not a big one.

RAM and SSD will be where you get the most bang for your buck.
 
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im leaning towards just getting the 2.6 with the 256ssd that it comes with and later on adding the double drive with a higher space and faster ssd later on.

where is the best place to buy the 16gb of ram for the price?
 
Dont buy any SSD stuff from Apple (not Fusion, not SSD).
Add 16Gb right away.
Slide in an SSD yourself (if you pick a 7mm drive, you don't need to take the mini apart). Only remove the Wifi antenna, mount the new cable you got on Ebay, attach it to the drive and slide it in (no screws needed).
 
opinio said:
Don't those benchmarks show that the 2.6 is worth the extra dollars? The difference is not minor.
Click to expand...
The 2.6 is ≈ 15 % faster @ the moment (the benchmark results are average results) compared to the 2.3. Not much, for daily applications. Probably useful, if you encode 720p & 1080p H.264 24/7.
 
blanka said:
Dont buy any SSD stuff from Apple (not Fusion, not SSD).
Add 16Gb right away.
Slide in an SSD yourself (if you pick a 7mm drive, you don't need to take the mini apart). Only remove the Wifi antenna, mount the new cable you got on Ebay, attach it to the drive and slide it in (no screws needed).
Click to expand...

I'm looking at buting a mini and this is interesting. Is it rreally that simple?

What drive and cable would you recomend?

TIA
DLM
 
FunkTechNician said:
i will be doing a little bit of video editing and a lot of raw photo editing.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't bother with the 2.6. In fact, I wouldn't even recommend spending the extra $200 on the 2.3 over the i5. How often do you encode full length movies? Put that money towards something else.
 
FunkTechNician said:
im leaning towards just getting the 2.6 with the 256ssd that it comes with and later on adding the double drive with a higher space and faster ssd later on.

where is the best place to buy the 16gb of ram for the price?
Click to expand...

I run a 2012 2.6GHz with 16 GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM 1600MHz. Excellent stuff.
 
SSD and memory. Base Mac mini is sufficient. Got two Mac mini's and each has two SSD's, one SSD dedicated to windows, the other to OS X. Storage external, USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt.
 
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MJL said:
SSD and memory. Base Mac mini is sufficient. Got two Mac mini's and each has two SSD's, one SSD dedicated to windows, the other to OS X. Storage external, USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt.
Click to expand...

I think a Quad Core model will really give you more out of it. I'd say get the $800 2.3ghz model and upgrade everything else yourself. You'll save hundreds and it's easy to do.
 
MJL said:
Not when I am running it 24/5 and have an average CPU load of 8% - 10% (depending on time of the day).
Click to expand...

But in 4-5 years, it'll really make you happy you spent the extra money. I bought a 24inch iMac in 2008 with a loaded out cpu/gpu and while it definitely shows it's age, it is still a very usable system.
 
Just don't pay Apple for the extra RAM
Click to expand...

Definitely get 3rd party RAM for the upgrade. Mine cost less than half what Apple charges for the same amount (16GB).
 
The best "immediate" upgrade?

You want to put something into the Mini that cannot be added later on.

My suggestion: Get the 2.6ghz i7 (rather than the 2.3ghz).

That is the ONLY thing that cannot be upgraded later.

My opinion only (I realize others' will be different).

RAM, SSD? Buy those yourself. No rush.
 
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