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If I purchase a Mac Mini, will I notice a significant speed change?

E

EliteF50

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 28, 2009
197
0
I'm almost 100% ready to pull the trigger on a Mac Mini, but, there's one thing I'd like to know first. Will I notice a significant speed change? I'm worried about this being a downgrade.

My current computer is a Dell XPS 420 with these specs:

Intel Core2 Quad CPU @ 2.4GHz
2GB DDR2
320GB HDD
ATI Radeon HD 2600XT

The Mac Mini will have:

Intel Core2 Duo 2.26GHz
2GB DDR3
160GB HDD
nVidia 9400m

So, do you guys think it's worth it?
 
The speed change will only be in navigating and working with the OS, therefore it could be perceived faster.
But mathematically the Mac Mini is slower.
Only OS X's GUI and underlying components and philosophy will make working with it seem faster than with a Windows PC. But that also depends on your habits and maybe OS X does nothing for you.
 
The Mac Mini would be a perfect choice for those basic tasks, it will still run great in order to do those tasks. You don't want to do a "hackintosh" it's illegal, goes against Apple's EULA, etc. even with a purchased copy of the OS. I have an iBook G4 where I used to do all of those items at once with 512MB of RAM - make a DVD burn music cds email im etc. all at once, speed wasn't really slow it actually kept up pretty well.
 
slooksterPSV said:
The Mac Mini would be a perfect choice for those basic tasks, it will still run great in order to do those tasks. You don't want to do a "hackintosh" it's illegal, goes against Apple's EULA, etc. even with a purchased copy of the OS. I have an iBook G4 where I used to do all of those items at once with 512MB of RAM - make a DVD burn music cds email im etc. all at once, speed wasn't really slow it actually kept up pretty well.
Click to expand...
its not illegal:rolleyes:

though it is more effort than just getting a mac
 
It might be worth it, if you wanna try out a new OS.

When I changed to Mac OS X, i sold my Samsung X30 with 1.4GHz, some RAM, 36 GiB HDD, 14" display and got an iBook G4 with 768MN RAM , 27GiB HDD and 12" display.
Technically it was a downgrade in speed terms, but in the end it was worth it, as Mac OS X suits me better.
 
EliteF50 said:
So, should I get one or not?
Click to expand...

The question is why are you giving up your Dell? The forum can probably give you a better answer if we knew what your reason for giving up the Dell was? Or are you giving up your Dell? If not, why are you considering the Mac mini?
 
HLdan said:
The question is why are you giving up your Dell? The forum can probably give you a better answer if we knew what your reason for giving up the Dell was? Or are you giving up your Dell? If not, why are you considering the Mac mini?
Click to expand...

I'm not going to give up my Dell. It's going to go in the other room. I've tried Mac OS X at my friend's house for the past month, and I absolutely love it. I've been meaning to switch to Mac for years, but now that Christmas is coming up, I thought it would be the perfect time to make the change.

I was originally going to go for an iMac, but I think I'll wait until they allow us to add the i5 into the 21.5" model.
 
New Mac Mini

I recently got a 2.54 ghz mini, 4 gb ram. I replaced the hard drive with a 500 gb 5200 rpm WDC 2.4 drive and I use it with the 24" ACD. It's actually quite fast for most things. I also use an 8 core MP (early 2008) at work with 14gb of ram -- which, on the benchmark test, scores over 10,000 while the mini is 3400 or so. Frankly, the only program I see much difference in between the two machines is Parallels, but I think that's mostly because I have so much ram on the MP. The Mini is an extremely nice product. Doesn't get very hot, doesn't use much electricity, is plenty fast for most things, and doesn't take up a huge space like the MP (or the 27" iMac). Of course, if you need a monitor too, you would probably get a better deal with the iMac, especially if you go for the i7, which is just about as fast as my MP. One reason I bought the mini is that I already have a 24" ACD. I'm very happy with the mini and ACD combination. Note that ifixit sells a bracket that allows you to put an extra 2.4" drive in the mini and that the Apple optical disk drive for the MBA also works on the Mini, but not on any other Apple machines that I know of.
 
EliteF50 said:
I'm not going to give up my Dell. It's going to go in the other room. I've tried Mac OS X at my friend's house for the past month, and I absolutely love it. I've been meaning to switch to Mac for years, but now that Christmas is coming up, I thought it would be the perfect time to make the change.

I was originally going to go for an iMac, but I think I'll wait until they allow us to add the i5 into the 21.5" model.
Click to expand...

Hmm, the 21.5" base model is still significantly more powerful than the Mac mini. You can up to 8GB ram and it ships with a 3.06Ghz CPU, plus of course you get the screen, magic mouse and wireless keyboard and 7200rpm HDD. The Mac mini best suits the customer who wants to hook it up to a large monitor or TV and do basic computing, light gaming and light editing.
Not a bad machine though, but if you're not giving up your Dell, I wouldn't worry about speed differences, you're really not losing anything. In this case, if you have a monitor, just go for the Mac mini.
 
Illegal

dukebound85 said:
its not illegal:rolleyes:

though it is more effort than just getting a mac
Click to expand...

Apple's Eula said:
2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
A. Single Use License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, unless you have purchased a Family Pack or Upgrade license for the Apple Software,
you are granted a limited non-exclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-branded computer at a time. You
agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-branded computer, or to enable others to do so. This License does not allow the Apple
Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple
computers at the same time.
Click to expand...

Read the above.
 
spinnerlys said:
The speed change will only be in navigating and working with the OS, therefore it could be perceived faster.
But mathematically the Mac Mini is slower.
Only OS X's GUI and underlying components and philosophy will make working with it seem faster than with a Windows PC. But that also depends on your habits and maybe OS X does nothing for you.
Click to expand...

This simply isn't true. Windows 7 (and Vista for the most part) feels much snappier and quick than OSX. Try managing files in Explorer vs Finder. Try switching apps in Win7 64 vs Snow Leopard on the same machine.

Windows feels faster without question. Just try it, instead of assuming Apple is better here.
 
TennisandMusic said:
This simply isn't true. Windows 7 (and Vista for the most part) feels much snappier and quick than OSX. Try managing files in Explorer vs Finder. Try switching apps in Win7 64 vs Snow Leopard on the same machine.

Windows feels faster without question. Just try it, instead of assuming Apple is better here.
Click to expand...

I have Windows 7 installed on my Dell, and I've been using Leopard at my friend's house for the paste week. To me, Leopard seems much faster than W7.
 
for doing files win 7 all the way. but for general use they both are about the same. though with multitasking osx is a bit better.
itunes can be slower in my mini for some reason importing a large amount of files even if the files are in the right folder can be far slower then on my xp machines.
 
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