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Mac mini, thinking of switching to macbook or mbp

E

elvtnedge

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 11, 2007
136
4
I'vd had a 1.66 mini for the last year with 2 gig ram. It was a "test" machine to see how I like macs. So far Im happy with it, but it was a step down from the PC I had before in terms of performance. So, Im thinking about selling it and getting a macbook 2.16. My question is, will I notice a huge speed difference from 1.66 to 2.16? When I say speed I mean if I click on finder and then click on applications, it can take a few seconds for all the apps to load up, and just programs in general I find kinda sluggish - I wonder if thats due to the video card being on board too. I know on the MacBook its the same thing and MBP its a separate video card.

So Im going to wait till later today for WWDC and see what if anything is on the horizon but I was curious about the cpu difference.
 
A 2.16GHz Core 2 is a lot faster than a 1.66GHz Core 1, but application launch speed probably has a lot more to do with the hard drive's speed. You're using a 5400RPM laptop drive in both systems, so they might be pretty similar. I've heard some people swap out a 7200RPM drive in the Macbook okay though.

Also the amount of RAM you have can make a big difference. How much do you have on the Mac Mini? 2GB is a really nice amount now for power users, though 1GB should be usable.
 
I have 2G ram. I just find even yesterday I was running Garageband, and I opened the program and opened a song I had recorded the day before. It had two software tracks (drums & keys) and two guitar tracks. The song started to play and it gave me an error about using too many tracks at once. Once I clicked ok it was fine but we're talking a song that is no more than 1 min long.

Another example is I had myself logged in with no programs opened. My wife changes users to her "login" and opening mail takes a while and things just respond very slow and Im looking at the screen while the beachball spins around and thinking there has to be another option.

Will the 2.16 help this problem?
 
elvtnedge said:
I have 2G ram. I just find even yesterday I was running Garageband, and I opened the program and opened a song I had recorded the day before. It had two software tracks (drums & keys) and two guitar tracks. The song started to play and it gave me an error about using too many tracks at once. Once I clicked ok it was fine but we're talking a song that is no more than 1 min long.

Another example is I had myself logged in with no programs opened. My wife changes users to her "login" and opening mail takes a while and things just respond very slow and Im looking at the screen while the beachball spins around and thinking there has to be another option.

Will the 2.16 help this problem?
Click to expand...

Theoretically, but that sounds pretty slow for a Mac Mini. You have tried repairing permissions and that sort of thing? An ancient G3 seems like it responds a lot faster than what you're describing on a reasonably modern Core 1.
 
Ive done repair disk permissions etc and everything is fine.. its a duo core mini just so you know..
 
Anyone have some ideas? What he's describing doesn't sound right at all. A G3 iMac is fairly snappy doing the basics like that. Core 1 with 2GB shouldn't have any issues.
 
couple more examples come to think of it are.

Toast... this icon bounces in the dock for a while before it opens. When I goto burn a disc the screen kinda shrinks into a progress meter bar. The graphic of it shrinking to that small window is very choppy. Also when the disc is burnt and the window expands to full size again its very choppy. That is where I wondered if infact because its a built in graphics card that happens or if a faster CPU would avoid that.

Another is using itunes. The coverflow part is choppy..

These examples can be after a reboot too so I've tried that.

A good example is clicking on the finder icon, the window opens and if I select applications I wait atleast 4-5 seconds before the list shows up.

These may seem like minor things and they probably are, but it all adds up and I've never had a lower end computer. I just hate to spend money on a macbook and not be totally happy.

Would these kinds of things be quicker with a cpu @ 2.16?
 
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