MAC MINI SPEED vs 867 DUAL

[poolin1243]

hello-
so im looking for a desktop...not the mini but a powermac. do you think that a 867 or 1ghz dual with say 1.5gigs of ram would be faster than my 1.25 256ram mini? any suggestions...id like to move up to something in the powermacs...anybody wanna trade?! haha

thanks for looking and replying to my first post ever on macrumors!

by the way, im a photographer so id be using aperture, photoshop, illustrator, DPP, etc etc

 

[JRM PowerPod]

hello-
so im looking for a desktop...not the mini but a powermac. do you think that a 867 or 1ghz dual with say 1.5gigs of ram would be faster than my 1.25 256ram mini? any suggestions...id like to move up to something in the powermacs...anybody wanna trade?! haha

thanks for looking and replying to my first post ever on macrumors!

by the way, im a photographer so id be using aperture, photoshop, illustrator, DPP, etc etc

with 1.25gb of ram one would be, to save money get a gig of ram for ya mini. if u dont have a screen go after an imac, those are good value at the moment...... Really depends on the money.

 

[poolin1243]

i have screens that i can use. I just dont like the fact that the mini is so hindered for my needs by the fact that it doesnt have necessary ports, and maybe the extra oomph the desktop has? if i were to get a dual 867 or 1gz would i be better off?

 

[eXan]

Get Dual 1 GHz. You will get roughly 1.8-1.9 GHz performance in apps that support dual processors. Also if you plan to use Aperture, you should get a fast GPU (like Radeon 9800), but you cannot upgrade the gpu in mini.

 

[budugu]

i have screens that i can use. I just dont like the fact that the mini is so hindered for my needs by the fact that it doesnt have necessary ports, and maybe the extra oomph the desktop has? if i were to get a dual 867 or 1gz would i be better off?

Hard disks are the weekest spot for mac mini (and also imac - from my personal experience). Firewire hds are expensive and less configurable. You can get a superdrive <40 bucks on powermacs (with a patch). Mac mini will require a USB-Fire wire hub for sure! if you want good power, I suggest you buy a cheaper mac like single ~500 powermac and then use an upgrade card (dual 1.5 -1.7s Ghz G4s are close to 450$). Super drive (40$) and cheap RAM (which will be a bit slower). Also remember that the AGP 2X macs may be a bad choice for GCs as they are not made any more (GCs by ATI). I saw a Dual 1.8 (stock) refurb on apple site for 1300$ couple of times but it never returned and i ended up buying an imac. But these G5s literally BURNING HOT (idle avg 55-60 C and hot about 80 C). I have yet to see another processor running at those temps!!

 

[poolin1243]

that idea sounds splendid and all, but money is tight for me- im a student!! like im trading in the mini, plus my ipods? plus whatever stuff he/she wants for a powermac. the dual 1ghz looks like the best route to go with? something like that, 867-1ghz? that way ill sell my mini or trade it so id have a 200 buck hole or so...maybe give up my ipod photo 30gb and maybe get a powermac out of it??? crazy??

 

[poolin1243]

bump-

so if i go the 1ghz route...do u think i can get one for cheap enough? also, how much of a difference is there in speed between a 867 dual and a 1ghz dual? any sites to look that up on?

 

[mchendricks]

I have a dual MDD 867 and love it. I can run most of the latest versions of the software that you listed. You will need to change the graphics card in most machines. The ones you listed came with the GF2 MX or the ATI 9000. I have a modified 9600. It will run Motion, but not screamingly fast. Also, they both support more RAM than the mini. Mine supports 2GB. If you get a dual G4, ask about the power supply. Apple offered to exchange the PS for a lower power, but quieter one. I changed to the lower power one, but I still have the original one as a back-up. Also, being able to add additional gear such as HDs and optical drives is a nice feature.

If you can find one, get a dual 1GHz, since it has a faster bus (167 vs 133 in 867). Otherwise, both are great machines.

Good luck in your decision.

Mike

 

[cr2sh]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/126084/

King, I believe, ended up selling the 867 and sticking with the macmini...

 

[jeremy.king]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/126084/

King, I believe, ended up selling the 867 and sticking with the macmini...

that is correct and still loving the mini. Thought about investing in a ministack for increased storage/speed, but as of today still running stock with a 1GB RAM upgrade and haven't noticed any speed loss whatsoever compared to the ol' wind tunnel. I also upgraded to Tiger which may have helped a little.

 

[Jimong5]

In my experience with the two, i've found that a mini is faster with single target things, but it is very poor at running multiple apps compared to a dual 867. On one hand though, my dual 867 is tricked out (gig of ram, radeon 9700) and is a better gaming rig than a new mini. But, on the other hand, the mini was a lot smoother just surfing the net, but boggled down trying to do the more complex tasks I'm used to doing (I don't know if this was just the mini there or if it needed more ram or what)

However, if you already have a mini (which I'm reading into) then I wouldn't spend the money to get a used powermac. the performance will be comparable at best, and $500 for some ports isn't a very good deal.

 

[poolin1243]

seriously talking with this guy for some trades of photo equipment.

FS: Dual 1.33Ghz MDD G4 1.25GB RAM, dual optical drives
I'm selling this computer that was upgraded to DUal 1.33 Ghz with a Giga processor upgrade (3 year processor warranty). It has 1GB Crucial RAM and 256MB Apple. Superdrive+Combo drive. The video card is an nVidia Geforce 4Ti. Looking to get $1200 but if you're interested make an offer as I'm negotiable (processor upgrade was $500). Thanks for looking.


what do you think? maybe id have to get a different gpu?

would this be better than a 1.6 single??? aka.. http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-Powermac-...826943256QQcategoryZ51036QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[poolin1243]

bump..

 

[cr2sh]

bump..

I'm not exactly sure the point of a bump... but I don't think you should do it twice in one day.

 

[Zeke]

Now obviously I'm biased because I'm the one selling the MDD G4. But, if what I say was wrong a hundred people would contradict me. For what you'll be using this for the most (Photoshop), I think the G4 would serve you better. If you could afford a dual G5 I'd obviously have to say buy that. The raw speed difference in itself is very minor (1.33Ghz vs 1.6) but photoshop is efficient with dual processors so this makes a big difference. Xbench scores of the single 1.6 G5 are somewhere around 49-50, where the Dual G4 ranges from 49-60...I can tell you actual results later. The gpu in this computer is the best that was offered at the time and I feel is still quite a capable video card so I don't think you'd have to worry about upgrading it.

At the very least this will get people discussing this...

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Next time.. no caps at thread title

We all learn!

 

[crazzyeddie]

The Dual 1.33 is a good deal. Go for that.

 

[Zeke]

Xbench results

Compare to others at xbench.com

Results 55.03
System Info
Xbench Version 1.2
System Version 10.4 (8A428)
Physical RAM 1280 MB
Model PowerMac3,6
Processor PowerPC G4x2 @ 1.33 GHz
Version 7455 (Apollo) v3.3
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
L2 Cache 256K @ 1.33 GHz
L3 Cache 2048K @ 4.16 GHz
Bus Frequency 134 MHz
Video Card GeForce4 Ti 4600
Drive Type IBM-IC35L080AVVA07-0
CPU Test 56.13
GCD Loop 123.76 6.52 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 37.33 887.05 Mflop/sec
vecLib FFT 77.92 2.57 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 42.45 7.39 Mops/sec
Thread Test 96.35
Computation 115.02 2.33 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 82.90 3.57 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 28.71
System 43.09
Allocate 109.16 400.87 Kalloc/sec
Fill 45.91 2232.09 MB/sec
Copy 25.85 533.94 MB/sec
Stream 21.53
Copy 21.31 440.25 MB/sec [altivec]
Scale 21.07 435.34 MB/sec [altivec]
Add 21.53 458.62 MB/sec [altivec]
Triad 22.24 475.86 MB/sec [altivec]
Quartz Graphics Test 59.98
Line 57.19 3.81 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 56.98 17.01 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 54.92 4.48 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 69.20 1.75 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 63.80 3.99 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 80.86
Spinning Squares 80.86 102.58 frames/sec
User Interface Test 59.68
Elements 59.68 273.92 refresh/sec
Disk Test 54.35
Sequential 83.52
Uncached Write 75.18 46.16 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 79.15 44.78 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 92.10 26.95 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 90.09 45.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 40.29
Uncached Write 14.70 1.56 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 81.00 25.93 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 93.42 0.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 121.53 22.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]