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Mac Mini versus Dell Studio Slim Desktop

B

bsuthoff

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 11, 2007
7
0
I like the Mac Mini and have been waiting patiently for this new version with improved graphics. But now that I'm about ready to pull the trigger, I see that Dell has a Studio Slim Desktop that looks pretty darn good.

  • Intel® Pentium® dual-core E5200 (2MB L2, 2.5GHz, 800FSB)
  • 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 4DIMMs
  • 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
  • Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)
  • ATI Radeon HD 3450 256MB supporting HDMI
  • Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
  • $654 as custom configured

Notice the HDMI, faster hard drive, better video and blu-ray. It'll take a little more work to drop on Ubuntu Linux + add-ons and get everything set up, but not too shabby. Reviews say it's quiet and draws just 72-125 Watts. I'm a pretty solid Apple customer, but this pretty compelling.

Anyone have personal experience with the Dell?
 
bsuthoff said:
I like the Mac Mini and have been waiting patiently for this new version with improved graphics. But now that I'm about ready to pull the trigger, I see that Dell has a Studio Slim Desktop that looks pretty darn good.

  • Intel® Pentium® dual-core E5200 (2MB L2, 2.5GHz, 800FSB)
  • 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 4DIMMs
  • 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
  • Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)
  • ATI Radeon HD 3450 256MB supporting HDMI
  • Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
  • $654 as custom configured

Notice the HDMI, faster hard drive, better video and blu-ray. It'll take a little more work to drop on Ubuntu Linux + add-ons and get everything set up, but not too shabby. Reviews say it's quiet and draws just 72-125 Watts. I'm a pretty solid Apple customer, but this pretty compelling.

Anyone have personal experience with the Dell?
Click to expand...

I have had bad experiences with Dell in the past, but in all honestly, the Studio Slim has better hardware then the Mini for approximately the same price. If you hackintosh it, the BR drive will be useless, because OS X doesn't support BR playback.

Don
 
I have had bad experiences with Dell. The new Mac mini is a great little machine...better than the iMacs in some aspects (IMHO).

To anyone comparing Macs to PCs....pls just dont stop at the hardware specs....they are only half the story. Pls think about the machine as a whole.
 
bsuthoff said:
  • Intel® Pentium® dual-core E5200 (2MB L2, 2.5GHz, 800FSB)
  • Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Click to expand...

These are the two deficiencies. The cpu is a desktop cpu and generates substantially more heat than the Mini's, thus requires constant fan. It also has a 40% slower bus speed. The integrated audio is analog, not digital. That means the decoding of digital audio (e.g., Dolby Digital, DTS) has to be handled by the computer, and not the receiver (as optical does on Macs). It also requires that your receiver has 8 analog RCA inputs for that 7.1 audio. Not good, IMO.

However, the rest of those items are very attractive.

Reviews say it's quiet and draws just 72-125 Watts. I'm a pretty solid Apple customer, but this pretty compelling.
Click to expand...

I seriously doubt it is quieter than a Mini (which is silent for most processes) and it does not use less electricity than the Mini.
 
Bkxmnr said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Core2 Duo is superior to the Pentium Dual Core isn't it?
Click to expand...


That would be correct. C2D on new mini has 3MB Cache and 1066Mhz bus speed. And I believe it's more energy efficient as well.
 
Outside of the 9" net books I don't know of any Dell that is easy to hackintosh. I have been reading those forums looking for just that type of solution - buy a refurb Dell and hackintosh it.

The community is getting better at it so it is only a matter of time.
 
I have had good experiences with Dell servers and Dell business class desktops. Dell Business customer support has always been pretty good as well, in my experience. Their cheapest of consumer desktops, seems to be where most problems reside.

If I were going to drop money on a consumer dell machine, though, I would definitely go with the Dell Studio XPS - $799 for a Core i7 2.66 Ghz machine, that can support up to 12 GB of Ram (with 3 GB standard). I would imagine that machine would be useful for a longtime. The 2.66 Ghz Core i7 scores over 7,500 on the Geekbench results!

Apple is just lucky that I have a keen interest in OS X, and have not had my hands on an OS X machine in quite some time - otherwise I would be jumping on the Core i7 bandwagon (at way under $2499!).
 
ATI HD 3450 256MB? The ones in the UK Dell store still have the old GMA X3100 - maybe Dell are selling all their old crap here at inflated prices.
 
I played around with the dell, it was very slow, much much slower then even the old mac mini. Althou i like dell i think they missed here.
 
The Pentium line is old cheap junk. Its what enabled AMD to gain market share for so long until the Core series was introduced.
 
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