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i7 Quad core mini vs new mini i5 2.6GHz

M

macconvert101

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 10, 2014
8
0
Hi

Yesterday I bought the older version i7 Quad core mini (only 4GB RAM though) and was wondering now that we've learnt that SSD can be placed in the new mini, should I get the new mini (the one with 8GB RAM) instead and return the older version? Both are the same price.
 
macconvert101 said:
Hi

Yesterday I bought the older version i7 Quad core mini (only 4GB RAM though) and was wondering now that we've learnt that SSD can be placed in the new mini, should I get the new mini (the one with 8GB RAM) instead and return the older version? Both are the same price.
Click to expand...

My advise would be wait for the teardown. If the HD is replaceable and does not void the warranty and you do not use 4core apps and you do not do a lot of multitasking then get the 2.6. It's a good processor.
 
I compared the spec of the new Mini to my late 2012 Mini which is a 2.3 quad core i7 4 gig ram.

As i can upgrade the ram myself if needed i see no point in swopping it,the middle spec of the latest Minis are not good enough to warrant changing..yet.
 
stravedere said:
for example photoshop cc is better the old i7 quad or the new 2.6 dual?
Click to expand...

In some tasks, a few years ago PS only did single core and a few dubble core.
On the 2010 Mac Pro photoshop was faster on the 6 core than on the 12-core..

It does get better all the time so more and more filters and actions in photoshop now support multicore. In the long run the quad will be faster than the dual core. But today it may only be faster on a few things.
 
macconvert101 said:
Hi

Yesterday I bought the older version i7 Quad core mini (only 4GB RAM though) and was wondering now that we've learnt that SSD can be placed in the new mini, should I get the new mini (the one with 8GB RAM) instead and return the older version? Both are the same price.
Click to expand...



I did as well. Probably no real point in you returning the old one. I would just stick 16 GB of ram in there and swap the HD for a SSD and call it a day.
 
Personally, other than the better graphics chip (better multi-display??) or if you really need 2TB ports, the old one is better.

Max out the RAM (cheaply) and put in a fast SSD. You'll see it fly. Check out macsales / other world computing. They've got good stuff and are an easy choice to have compatible upgrades.

If you do the upgrades before you install a bunch of software and files, you can just do a clean install on the ssd vs worrying about cloning, which in my case did not add the recovery partition, I discovered later.

iMovie does not use all the cores, afaik, (and yosemite locked me out of iMovie, new 2GB iMovie update download pending) and I don't know if it has been addressed yet. I was sorely disappointed about that when I upgraded from my old mini, that it was just chugging along during conversion & export.
 
macconvert101 said:
Hi

Yesterday I bought the older version i7 Quad core mini (only 4GB RAM though) and was wondering now that we've learnt that SSD can be placed in the new mini, should I get the new mini (the one with 8GB RAM) instead and return the older version? Both are the same price.
Click to expand...

The nice thing about the old one is the processor is more powerful. On the downside, it has less graphics capability. So it depends on which you need more.

You can upgrade the RAM on the old version yourself, which is a definite plus. Now you can get 16GB of ram for around $130, so the upgrade is cheaper in the old one. 8GB is fine for most users but I think its nice to have that extra room down the road.
 
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