don't discount the power bill - a mac pro burns a LOT more power than a mini. If you run it 24/7 the power alone will cost quite a bit over the years.
I honestly have no idea, it's an Asus 5870, however full disclosure is due - I run Mountain Lion on this computer using Chameleon. My former 4870 did display boot-time logo using DVI on Lion, but a couple of days after I switched to ML I also swapped the GPU, so I don't think my boot logo experience is relevant here.You have boot screen on DVI? What model card you got and how was it flashed?! Thanks
Mea culpa.
The score shown for the Mini in 64-bit is 12817, very close to what I got before I upgraded my RAM.
Still, there's no Mac Pro earlier than 2009 above it in the chart.
The fastest 2006 Mac Pro (shown in the chart without a year) gets 11075. That's a Mac Pro (8-core)
Intel Xeon X5365 3000 MHz (8 cores). The 3gHz 4-core gets a paltry 6662. You can't even come close without dual chips.
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iphoto, I movie, I will have my hd pvr connected. Also I will be taking programing courses soon so that would help me. Btw no one answered my question yet. I heard since the hd 5780 is flashed so basically there will be no boot logo or something. But I heard if I get an dvi to vga it would work. Is this correct? Thanks