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Hmmm... return Mac mini to upgade to i7?

E

eoren1

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 17, 2007
431
53
So I have the 2.5 GHz i5 Mini and had planned to upgrade RAM and add SSD. I'm now realizing that, bang for the buck, a dual core i7 likely would offer much more than adding an SSD (for Lightroom/Photoshop tasks). I bought the mini in an Apple store and, therefore, also payed $56 in taxes.

Wondering if:
There is a restocking fee within the first 14 days
If not, can I get the non-server Mini with an i7 anywhere that is tax-free
If so, likely will get a 7200 RPM drive to clone the current one to and then swap that into the new Mini

Appreciate any advice
E
 
...as for tax free, depends on where you live. In CA we now have to pay tax on everything purchased anywhere.
 
eoren1 said:
So I have the 2.5 GHz i5 Mini and had planned to upgrade RAM and add SSD. I'm now realizing that, bang for the buck, a dual core i7 likely would offer much more than adding an SSD (for Lightroom/Photoshop tasks). I bought the mini in an Apple store and, therefore, also payed $56 in taxes.

Wondering if:
There is a restocking fee within the first 14 days
If not, can I get the non-server Mini with an i7 anywhere that is tax-free
If so, likely will get a 7200 RPM drive to clone the current one to and then swap that into the new Mini

Appreciate any advice
E
Click to expand...

no restocking if done in less then 14 days.

As to the better deal for your work hard to tell without actual tests.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Yah. Was hoping to find some geekbench results for the 5,2 as an i5 vs i7. The photoshop speed test would be an even better test.
 
flopticalcube said:
Photoshop is debatable about the benefit of hyper threading. Some have found it to be faster with ht turned off. An SSD is probably the best upgrade you could do especially if your read/write the disk a lot.
Click to expand...
Both those chips have hyper threading, the only difference between them is 200mhz (normal and at max turbo) and an extra MB of cache.
 
Thanks all
Did some more research on the two CPUs and there is likely to be no real world difference
Will upgrade RAM
Doubt I'll go for the SSD until LR/PS show clear advantages with it
 
KSpider said:
This is false. It is only for out of state online retailers that have a california affiliation. It is nowhere near the blanket statement you made.
Click to expand...

Somehow I doubt that. Most states require payment of state sales tax when buying online or via mail order, regardless of whether the item was purchased in-state or out of state.
 
You're supposed to pay a "use tax" for out of state stuff...most people just don't report it though.
 
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