Mm 1,1-6,2 Maxing out the mini - 1,1/2,1 Mac mini CPU Upgrade Guide

[Amethyst1]

[…] it feels like I could do more with the machine upgrading to say Mountain Lion or Mavericks.

Going past patched Mountain Lion will lose graphics acceleration which makes the UI slow and glitchy. Additionally, El Capitan is as far as it will go because the CPU lacks SSE4.

 

[theMarble]

Going past patched Mountain Lion will lose graphics acceleration which makes the UI slow and glitchy.

Tried patched El Cap on my maxed-out 2,1 (upgraded CPU, max RAM, SSD) one time, and it was by far one of the single slowest computer experiences I've ever had. GPU performance was definitely the biggest issue, but overall the hardware couldn't handle it. Ended up going back to Snow Leopard after ~30 minutes of trying to use/troubleshoot it.

Mavericks may run slightly better on the CPU front (considering Merom was used in the 2007 MBP), but graphics will most likely still be painful.

Honestly, the GMA 950 is so weak (even by 2006 standards) that I wouldn't bother going past Snow Leopard with it. The 9400M was a desperately needed GPU upgrade for the Mac mini.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Going past patched Mountain Lion will lose graphics acceleration which makes the UI slow and glitchy. Additionally, El Capitan is as far as it will go because the CPU lacks SSE4.

Mavericks may run slightly better on the CPU front (considering Merom was used in the 2007 MBP), but graphics will most likely still be painful.

Honestly, the GMA 950 is so weak (even by 2006 standards) that I wouldn't bother going past Snow Leopard with it. The 9400M was a desperately needed GPU upgrade for the Mac mini.

I had no idea that even Mavericks is a stretch for this machine.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[weckart]

I had no idea that even Mavericks is a stretch for this machine.

Thanks for the clarification.

ML is a stretch as not everything will work on it as per Amethyst1's link to NexPostFacto. Lion is fully supported though on the 2,1 and will work on the 1,1 if you flash it with the 2,1 firmware, although you won't be able to install it directly onto flashed Mini's without doctoring the install media as Lion performs a platform check.

 

[Amethyst1]

I had no idea that even Mavericks is a stretch for this machine.

The OS X without graphics acceleration experience gets worse with each version.

 

[ToniCH]

A while ago I bought couple of Mini 2,1s. Upgraded RAM, SSD, CPU. And then installed Snow Leopard and Linux Mint. Good machines. I bought one new too back in 2007 and used it for my business computer for 2 years until I bought an iMac 27" Late 2009.

Here is the post I made when I upgraded the CPU from C2D 1.83GHz to 2.33GHz.