I like the phrase, "I teach college". Go for the Mac Pro for sure. For 5 years of usability and eventual video editing, it's obvious. In 5 years 4 cores will probably seem outdated.
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mac mini or mac pro: Which one should I get?
- Thread starter saxman1969
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You only need a mini, but in a couple of years you will need to update it. So buy one now and put a similar amount of money aside to upgrade it in 2012... All of your monitors will transfer straight across.
...so I guess you're not happy with the one in your sig
The G4 was a decent value at the time since it had a dedicated graphics system. The Intel minis are a joke when it comes to anything relying on video card power.
With its update schedule of nearly 2 years, it may not get as much as a speed bump until 2011!
Oh wow, a whole $40!!!!
Either way you look at it, its a low-end machine barely acceptable by today's performance standards. Really, a dual 2.0GHz? That wasn't even considered "fast" 4 years ago!I consider my dual core 2.3GHz G5 "barely enough" for basic daily uses and light gaming. My G4 mini is an "in case the G5 breaks down" spare/backup computer. I even have a beige desktop 233mhz G3 as a backup backup machine.
Check Mac Pro component prices. You're paying close to what it would cost to build one from scratch.
If the money is coming out of a research account, this likely won't be possible. Sure, if it's your own money you can always set it aside, but in a work setting/academics it works differently.
They year 2014 is FIVE years from now. To give you a better idea, look back to the various Mac models that were sold in 2004. Five years ago...
The first Mac Mini came out in Jan 05, but that's close enough. Specs were 1.25 Ghz G4 and 256 MB of ram. By today's standards, that's nearly useless. (And it's only 4 years old, not 5)
The June 2004 top end Power Mac G5 was available with dual 2.5 Ghz cpu's and 2 GB of ram as standard. Still a perfectly usable machine even today.
If your budget is set such that 2014 is the next time you'll be hardware shopping, I think the choice is clear here. You need a Mac Pro. Yes, it's likely overkill for what you use it for today, but you need to think about 3, 4, 5 years out, and at that point, it seems a sound investment.
The first Mac Mini came out in Jan 05, but that's close enough. Specs were 1.25 Ghz G4 and 256 MB of ram. By today's standards, that's nearly useless. (And it's only 4 years old, not 5)
The June 2004 top end Power Mac G5 was available with dual 2.5 Ghz cpu's and 2 GB of ram as standard. Still a perfectly usable machine even today.
If your budget is set such that 2014 is the next time you'll be hardware shopping, I think the choice is clear here. You need a Mac Pro. Yes, it's likely overkill for what you use it for today, but you need to think about 3, 4, 5 years out, and at that point, it seems a sound investment.
If I were you I would opt for the Apple mid tower with an i7 cpu, 4 GB RAM, and the single 500 GB drive. Oh, crap. I forgot Apple doesn't make a mid-range model. Enough ranting...
IMO if you don't need the power then I would get the Mini. I like the foot print, too, as well as the overall design/looks.
Look at it this way, if you need to have it last until 2014 you could buy the current Mini and another new Mini in 2-3 years and still be money ahead of buying a Mac Pro.
IMO if you don't need the power then I would get the Mini. I like the foot print, too, as well as the overall design/looks.
Look at it this way, if you need to have it last until 2014 you could buy the current Mini and another new Mini in 2-3 years and still be money ahead of buying a Mac Pro.
Again, it's the school's money we're talking about, over which the OP may have little control.
Wow. Thanks for the helpful suggestions, everyone. I gather it is my stated 5-year plan that makes this decision most difficult. Your comments have prompted me to reconsider getting something that will last until 2011 instead of 2014. Since people think the mini will meet all of my current needs, maybe I'l go with the mini for now and then reassess the situation in two years. It could be interesting to wait and see what kind of specs the Mac Pro and the Mac Mini have at that point. Thanks again.
Good call. Any time you're thinking long-term, it forces you to the high-end (and high price) models. This is true for many products not just computers; A five year old Hyundai is a crappy old car, but a five year old Porsche or Mercedes is still quite nice today.
Well, I think all of us have been wrong once or twice, but the prospect of a 3.2 GHz Nehalem Macpro are fairly slim, in my opinion. Nehalem's 2.93 GHz processor stomps the Harpertown 3.2 GHz as according to cinebench - its been discussed to death in the MacPro forum.
Thank you to Tesselator for providing the image.
Anyways, as you can see, thanks to the single-core OC that Nehalem pulls, the 2.93 pulls ahead in single-core apps, and the 16 threads in Nehalem allow it to become a rendering powerhouse, pushing it past the 3.2 in terms of multi-core aware applications.
As a lot of people said, though, the price for a MacPro is overkill... Keeping a computer until 2014 is overkill, too. However, the Mini route would probably be better considering your applications.
Thank you to Tesselator for providing the image.
Anyways, as you can see, thanks to the single-core OC that Nehalem pulls, the 2.93 pulls ahead in single-core apps, and the 16 threads in Nehalem allow it to become a rendering powerhouse, pushing it past the 3.2 in terms of multi-core aware applications.
As a lot of people said, though, the price for a MacPro is overkill... Keeping a computer until 2014 is overkill, too. However, the Mini route would probably be better considering your applications.
I guess that depends on what you're doing...a Mac Mini w/ 4GB RAM is more then enough for me!
And are you really comparing a CPU based only on Ghz? Please, its not the 90s, we know computer's CPU are just one large part of the equation. The Mac Mini is much faster then a 2.0Ghz PowerMac from 2005
Do not forget, the Mac Mini can do dual monitors now too. You would be fine with a Mac Mini for now. Either way 2 Mac Minis (One now, and one in 2012) would be cheaper than one Mac Pro for what you are doing.
So, are you are saying the OP should save some money or spend-it-because-it-is-not-his-it's-just-tax-payer money?
No, nothing like that. Usually funds from a research account can't be carried forward. Some are "spend it or lose it." Some people are suggesting the OP sets aside the money for in 2-3 years and this may not be possible.
Yes, my research account is of the use-it-or-lose-it variety, but at least it renews annually. I could get a mac mini this summer, and get another in two or three years to replace it. If that pattern continues, however, I don't know what I'll do with the all of the mac minis I might be stockpiling. I hope that in a few years, the mac mini will become more likely to last five years or longer.
I hope that in a few years, the mac mini will become more likely to last five years or longer.ebay it. They've got good resale value. A 2006 mini sells for about $300 right now. Or donate it to a school or charity and get a tax write-off.
Good luck selling an university's property. When I got my laptop using the research grant's money, the IT immediately came over and tagged it as property of the university.
2014? Without a doubt a Mac Pro. A Mac Mini will be good for another year or two, tops. Mac Pro, with basic software.. 2014 no problem.
Indeed, anything I purchase with research account funds is technically university property. If I wanted to sell an old mini on ebay, I would likely have to buy it from the university for whatever they deem to be its market value.
absolutely buy the mini, now if after 2 years you need more juice, then just get a refurb mac pro, you'll probably going to have the same cost, but hey, atleast you can try bought the mini and the mac pro right?
From your original post, a little browsing and word processing - the mini can definitely handle those, heck even a Pentium Atom (processors they use for netbooks) can handle those.
From your original post, a little browsing and word processing - the mini can definitely handle those, heck even a Pentium Atom (processors they use for netbooks) can handle those.
I think the Mini gets an undeserved bad rap.
I got one of the "low end" new ones about 4 weeks ago and I love it.
My main computer is a from-parts PC w/ 45nm core 2 duo OC'ed to 3.0, 8 gigs ram, RAID 0'ed raptors, 9800GX2, yada yada yada. It's relatively fast, but it also sounds like it's going to take off when it's running and draws around 500 watts under load. For everything except gaming it's overkill.
With the new '09 Mini, I cracked it open as soon as I got it and put in 4 gigs of ram I had in my craps drawer along with a WD Cav Black 320 also from the same drawer. Kablamo. Thing browses like a champ, runs Lightroom perfectly fine (preview rendering a little slower, but not painfully slow) and drives my two 24" monitors perfectly. MKV playback over my network via Plex is also flawless.
Bootcamped Vista is a-ok and runs Civ4 BTS as well as my PC does, even in endgame.
All this and I can't even hear the thing running and it uses a fraction of the electricity that my PC does (which now only gets turned on when I want to kill stuff). Important feature going into central A/C season.
Just for laughs I took the Vertex SSD out of my laptop and put it in the mini. With that the Lightroom previews were rendering just as fast as on my PC, if not faster. Maybe in the next couple of months I'll get another to permanently install in the mini.
That said, I wouldn't have touched the last mini with a 10' pole because of the poopy Intel integrated graphics controller.
My point, if I have one, is that the Mini is good for more than just browsing. I think it makes a perfectly viable mainstream computer that's light on power consumption and ambient noise.
John
I got one of the "low end" new ones about 4 weeks ago and I love it.
My main computer is a from-parts PC w/ 45nm core 2 duo OC'ed to 3.0, 8 gigs ram, RAID 0'ed raptors, 9800GX2, yada yada yada. It's relatively fast, but it also sounds like it's going to take off when it's running and draws around 500 watts under load. For everything except gaming it's overkill.
With the new '09 Mini, I cracked it open as soon as I got it and put in 4 gigs of ram I had in my craps drawer along with a WD Cav Black 320 also from the same drawer. Kablamo. Thing browses like a champ, runs Lightroom perfectly fine (preview rendering a little slower, but not painfully slow) and drives my two 24" monitors perfectly. MKV playback over my network via Plex is also flawless.
Bootcamped Vista is a-ok and runs Civ4 BTS as well as my PC does, even in endgame.
All this and I can't even hear the thing running and it uses a fraction of the electricity that my PC does (which now only gets turned on when I want to kill stuff). Important feature going into central A/C season.
Just for laughs I took the Vertex SSD out of my laptop and put it in the mini. With that the Lightroom previews were rendering just as fast as on my PC, if not faster. Maybe in the next couple of months I'll get another to permanently install in the mini.
That said, I wouldn't have touched the last mini with a 10' pole because of the poopy Intel integrated graphics controller.
My point, if I have one, is that the Mini is good for more than just browsing. I think it makes a perfectly viable mainstream computer that's light on power consumption and ambient noise.
John