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New Mini advice needed, real comparison?

QuantumLo0p

QuantumLo0p

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 28, 2006
992
30
U.S.A.
Hi all,
I currently use my old PowerMac dual 2.7, which is so long in the tooth it is impaling itself with its once, deadly canines. My fiance just informed me of the PM's current state which doesn't look good and so I may be in the market for a replacement. I have always loved the design of the Mini and have a 23" ACD that should work great with a Mini. I have been apprehensive of buying a Mini because of their processors, always wondering if they are really enough. The iMacs have a bit more power but I really don't care for the iMac's design, plus I have a perfectly fine 23" ACD. I really should pull the trigger soon because more and more of my favorite apps are going Intel only. : (

I have a couple questions:

Are the new Mini's 320 graphics much better than the old 6800 in my PowerMac?

Will the 320 graphics suffice for iPhoto editing?

Can the Mini run Win7 in bootcamp okay?

I would especially like to hear from anyone that has owned a PowerPC Mac and a Mini! Thanks in advance for any helpful opinions!
 
Graphics aren't that important in photo editing so 320M is more than sufficient. Windows 7 will run fine too. Just bump the RAM to 4GB and you're fine
 
The mac mini will run circles around your powermac in every way, graphics included. Seriously, you're going to ____ your _____ when you turn it on and realize how much has changed.
 
The biggest bottleneck is the HD speed and size. So if you can budget in a decently fast FW800 drive go ahead. Even w/o that you should be OK.
 
Yikes, the Mini HDD is very slow! FW800 drive suggestions?

ADent said:
The biggest bottleneck is the HD speed and size. So if you can budget in a decently fast FW800 drive go ahead. Even w/o that you should be OK.
Click to expand...

Bought it yesterday evening. I have been playing around with it for a while now and, I agree, the HDD is sloooooow. I suppose it is just a 5400 rpm notebook drive, after all.

I will use it the way it is for now but I am going to keep my eyes open for upgrades. Sounds like this Mini may be a little tougher to upgrade but still do-able.

Any suggestions for a fast FW800 drive?
 
Could you please run Xbench on your Mac Mini and paste here the benchmark results?

Thank you.
 
here's my xbench results. keep in mind that my hdd is about 1/3 full and i've been using it for a couple days now. so there might be some background processes running. in other words, this isn't an xbench of a newly unboxed mini, but it should give you a general idea. i think i saw someone else here with a total score of 120.


Results 116.59
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6.4 (10F2025)
Physical RAM 2048 MB
Model Macmini4,1
Drive Type TOSHIBA MK3255GSXF
CPU Test 170.83
GCD Loop 280.39 14.78 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 138.13 3.28 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 112.47 3.71 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 268.94 46.83 Mops/sec
Thread Test 264.65
Computation 470.48 9.53 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 184.10 7.92 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 183.80
System 197.41
Allocate 212.18 779.19 Kalloc/sec
Fill 177.93 8651.27 MB/sec
Copy 205.62 4247.00 MB/sec
Stream 171.95
Copy 159.92 3303.09 MB/sec
Scale 164.03 3388.74 MB/sec
Add 180.39 3842.77 MB/sec
Triad 186.24 3984.06 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 180.05
Line 166.55 11.09 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 197.55 58.98 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 165.69 13.51 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 198.54 5.01 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 177.58 11.11 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 97.03
Spinning Squares 97.03 123.09 frames/sec
User Interface Test 237.37
Elements 237.37 1.09 Krefresh/sec
Disk Test 40.17
Sequential 69.52
Uncached Write 79.25 48.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 85.75 48.52 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 43.10 12.61 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 99.38 49.95 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 28.25
Uncached Write 9.92 1.05 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 71.75 22.97 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 59.96 0.42 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 98.01 18.19 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 
can you run geekbench(32 or 64bit) on it a tell me the score for the new mac mini?
 
64-bit geekbench score of 3722:

Platform: Mac OS X x86 (64-bit)
Compiler: GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5493)
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6.4 (Build 10F2025)
Model: Macmini4,1
Motherboard: Apple Inc. Mac-F2208EC8
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600 @ 2.40GHz
Processor ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10
Logical Processors: 2
Physical Processors: 1
Processor Frequency: 2.40 GHz
L1 Instruction Cache: 32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache: 32.0 KB
L2 Cache: 3.00 MB
L3 Cache: 0.00 B
Bus Frequency: 1.06 GHz
Memory: 2.00 GB
Memory Type: 1067 MHz DDR3
SIMD: 1
BIOS: Apple Inc. MM41.88Z.0042.B00.1004221740
Processor Model: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600 @ 2.40GHz
Processor Cores: 2

Integer (Score: 3355)
Blowfish single-threaded scalar -- 1559, , 68.5 MB/sec
Blowfish multi-threaded scalar -- 3242, , 132.9 MB/sec
Text Compress single-threaded scalar -- 2165, , 6.93 MB/sec
Text Compress multi-threaded scalar -- 4049, , 13.3 MB/sec
Text Decompress single-threaded scalar -- 1870, , 7.68 MB/sec
Text Decompress multi-threaded scalar -- 3731, , 14.9 MB/sec
Image Compress single-threaded scalar -- 2059, , 17.0 Mpixels/sec
Image Compress multi-threaded scalar -- 3953, , 33.3 Mpixels/sec
Image Decompress single-threaded scalar -- 2088, , 35.1 Mpixels/sec
Image Decompress multi-threaded scalar -- 3972, , 64.8 Mpixels/sec
Lua single-threaded scalar -- 3973, , 1.53 Mnodes/sec
Lua multi-threaded scalar -- 7603, , 2.92 Mnodes/sec

Floating Point (Score: 5169)
Mandelbrot single-threaded scalar -- 1785, , 1.19 Gflops
Mandelbrot multi-threaded scalar -- 3541, , 2.32 Gflops
Dot Product single-threaded scalar -- 3234, , 1.56 Gflops
Dot Product multi-threaded scalar -- 6660, , 3.04 Gflops
Dot Product single-threaded vector -- 2511, , 3.01 Gflops
Dot Product multi-threaded vector -- 5738, , 5.97 Gflops
LU Decomposition single-threaded scalar -- 1380, , 1.23 Gflops
LU Decomposition multi-threaded scalar -- 2579, , 2.26 Gflops
Primality Test single-threaded scalar -- 4686, , 699.9 Mflops
Primality Test multi-threaded scalar -- 7029, , 1.30 Gflops
Sharpen Image single-threaded scalar -- 5038, , 11.8 Mpixels/sec
Sharpen Image multi-threaded scalar -- 9760, , 22.5 Mpixels/sec
Blur Image single-threaded scalar -- 6241, , 4.94 Mpixels/sec
Blur Image multi-threaded scalar -- 12187, , 9.58 Mpixels/sec

Memory (Score: 2734)
Read Sequential single-threaded scalar -- 3460, , 4.24 GB/sec
Write Sequential single-threaded scalar -- 2879, , 1.97 GB/sec
Stdlib Allocate single-threaded scalar -- 2378, , 8.88 Mallocs/sec
Stdlib Write single-threaded scalar -- 2454, , 5.08 GB/sec
Stdlib Copy single-threaded scalar -- 2500, , 2.58 GB/sec

Stream (Score: 1920)
Stream Copy single-threaded scalar -- 1755, , 2.40 GB/sec
Stream Copy single-threaded vector -- 1970, , 2.56 GB/sec
Stream Scale single-threaded scalar -- 1923, , 2.50 GB/sec
Stream Scale single-threaded vector -- 1871, , 2.53 GB/sec
Stream Add single-threaded scalar -- 1967, , 2.97 GB/sec
Stream Add single-threaded vector -- 2241, , 3.12 GB/sec
Stream Triad single-threaded scalar -- 2047, , 2.83 GB/sec
Stream Triad single-threaded vector -- 1586, , 2.97 GB/sec


32-bit geekbench score of 3397:

Platform: Mac OS X x86 (32-bit)
Compiler: GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5493)
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6.4 (Build 10F2025)
Model: Macmini4,1
Motherboard: Apple Inc. Mac-F2208EC8
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600 @ 2.40GHz
Processor ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10
Logical Processors: 2
Physical Processors: 1
Processor Frequency: 2.40 GHz
L1 Instruction Cache: 32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache: 32.0 KB
L2 Cache: 3.00 MB
L3 Cache: 0.00 B
Bus Frequency: 1.06 GHz
Memory: 2.00 GB
Memory Type: 1067 MHz DDR3
SIMD: 1
BIOS: Apple Inc. MM41.88Z.0042.B00.1004221740
Processor Model: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600 @ 2.40GHz
Processor Cores: 2

Integer (Score: 2746)
Blowfish single-threaded scalar -- 1680, , 73.8 MB/sec
Blowfish multi-threaded scalar -- 3488, , 143.0 MB/sec
Text Compress single-threaded scalar -- 1873, , 5.99 MB/sec
Text Compress multi-threaded scalar -- 3474, , 11.4 MB/sec
Text Decompress single-threaded scalar -- 1670, , 6.86 MB/sec
Text Decompress multi-threaded scalar -- 3346, , 13.3 MB/sec
Image Compress single-threaded scalar -- 1712, , 14.1 Mpixels/sec
Image Compress multi-threaded scalar -- 3283, , 27.6 Mpixels/sec
Image Decompress single-threaded scalar -- 1486, , 25.0 Mpixels/sec
Image Decompress multi-threaded scalar -- 2884, , 47.1 Mpixels/sec
Lua single-threaded scalar -- 2708, , 1.04 Mnodes/sec
Lua multi-threaded scalar -- 5348, , 2.06 Mnodes/sec

Floating Point (Score: 4921)
Mandelbrot single-threaded scalar -- 1783, , 1.19 Gflops
Mandelbrot multi-threaded scalar -- 3519, , 2.30 Gflops
Dot Product single-threaded scalar -- 3270, , 1.58 Gflops
Dot Product multi-threaded scalar -- 6728, , 3.07 Gflops
Dot Product single-threaded vector -- 2612, , 3.13 Gflops
Dot Product multi-threaded vector -- 5855, , 6.09 Gflops
LU Decomposition single-threaded scalar -- 685, , 610.2 Mflops
LU Decomposition multi-threaded scalar -- 1382, , 1.21 Gflops
Primality Test single-threaded scalar -- 3937, , 588.1 Mflops
Primality Test multi-threaded scalar -- 5947, , 1.10 Gflops
Sharpen Image single-threaded scalar -- 4961, , 11.6 Mpixels/sec
Sharpen Image multi-threaded scalar -- 9786, , 22.6 Mpixels/sec
Blur Image single-threaded scalar -- 6296, , 4.98 Mpixels/sec
Blur Image multi-threaded scalar -- 12142, , 9.55 Mpixels/sec

Memory (Score: 2645)
Read Sequential single-threaded scalar -- 3320, , 4.07 GB/sec
Write Sequential single-threaded scalar -- 2845, , 1.95 GB/sec
Stdlib Allocate single-threaded scalar -- 2146, , 8.01 Mallocs/sec
Stdlib Write single-threaded scalar -- 2418, , 5.00 GB/sec
Stdlib Copy single-threaded scalar -- 2496, , 2.57 GB/sec

Stream (Score: 1852)
Stream Copy single-threaded scalar -- 1759, , 2.41 GB/sec
Stream Copy single-threaded vector -- 2017, , 2.62 GB/sec
Stream Scale single-threaded scalar -- 1951, , 2.53 GB/sec
Stream Scale single-threaded vector -- 1928, , 2.60 GB/sec
Stream Add single-threaded scalar -- 1696, , 2.56 GB/sec
Stream Add single-threaded vector -- 2089, , 2.91 GB/sec
Stream Triad single-threaded scalar -- 1773, , 2.45 GB/sec
Stream Triad single-threaded vector -- 1603, , 3.00 GB/sec
 
G5 Powermac vs. Mini

The crunching power may be more than my old PowerMac but, seriously, the Mini's slow hard drive is the little guy's Achille's heel. In fairness to the Mini, please keep in mind I was using a raid0 setup in my Powermac so it would be unfair to compare the two. I will definitely have to upgrade it as soon as I can.

As far as the graphics are concerned, they are a little better than my old Nvidia 6800, but not by much.

Still, overall I am satisfied with my Mini. It has a very small foot print, is almost silent, uses a lot less energy than my old PowerMac and is running Snow Leopard. I plan to get 4GB ram and eventually replace the hdd. I also plan to get a decent FW800 drive for additional working space and a usb drive for doing backups.

So far it's still thumbs up! Thanks for the input and info.
 
Stick a SSD drive in it to make it fly. Wish apple would have put an i3 processor in it instead of a dual core chip. I'll pass on the mini this round.
 
I have a 2009 Mini with an 80G Intel SSD as the internal drive. It's quite possibly the most responsive computer I have ever used.

Here's my XBench Score:
Code: 
Results	197.55	
	System Info		
		Xbench Version		1.3
		System Version		10.6.3 (10D573)
		Physical RAM		4096 MB
		Model		Macmini3,1
		Drive Type		INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC
	CPU Test	178.85	
		GCD Loop	297.16	15.66 Mops/sec
		Floating Point Basic	143.52	3.41 Gflop/sec
		vecLib FFT	117.75	3.88 Gflop/sec
		Floating Point Library	282.56	49.20 Mops/sec
	Thread Test	247.97	
		Computation	357.02	7.23 Mops/sec, 4 threads
		Lock Contention	189.95	8.17 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
	Memory Test	187.14	
		System	234.74	
			Allocate	393.95	1.45 Malloc/sec
			Fill	183.57	8925.80 MB/sec
			Copy	208.59	4308.25 MB/sec
		Stream	155.59	
			Copy	148.63	3069.87 MB/sec
			Scale	148.09	3059.51 MB/sec
			Add	164.25	3498.78 MB/sec
			Triad	162.90	3484.85 MB/sec
	Quartz Graphics Test	195.75	
		Line	171.28	11.40 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
		Rectangle	219.11	65.42 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
		Circle	191.35	15.60 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
		Bezier	200.69	5.06 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
		Text	202.75	12.68 Kchars/sec
	OpenGL Graphics Test	152.20	
		Spinning Squares	152.20	193.08 frames/sec
	User Interface Test	278.58	
		Elements	278.58	1.28 Krefresh/sec
	Disk Test	192.38	
		Sequential	149.70	
			Uncached Write	134.71	82.71 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	108.13	61.18 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	131.59	38.51 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	408.39	205.26 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	269.10	
			Uncached Write	150.39	15.92 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	155.16	49.67 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	1369.64	9.71 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	961.67	178.44 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Take out your internal drive, put a small SSD in, and then move any of your big things (movies, music, etc.) to a FW800 or NAS box. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it. ;)
 
i noticed the OpenGL score was unusually low when i ran xbench (posted above) on my mini a little over a week ago. just ran it again and got this:

OpenGL Graphics Test 167.39
Spinning Squares 167.39 212.34 frames/sec

this seems to be more in line with what was expected of the 320m. not sure what caused the low score before.
 
QuantumLo0p said:
The crunching power may be more than my old PowerMac but, seriously, the Mini's slow hard drive is the little guy's Achille's heel. In fairness to the Mini, please keep in mind I was using a raid0 setup in my Powermac so it would be unfair to compare the two. I will definitely have to upgrade it as soon as I can.

As far as the graphics are concerned, they are a little better than my old Nvidia 6800, but not by much.

Still, overall I am satisfied with my Mini. It has a very small foot print, is almost silent, uses a lot less energy than my old PowerMac and is running Snow Leopard. I plan to get 4GB ram and eventually replace the hdd. I also plan to get a decent FW800 drive for additional working space and a usb drive for doing backups.

So far it's still thumbs up! Thanks for the input and info.
Click to expand...

Cheap laptop drives (like the ones you will find stock in the Mini) are slow, it's a well known fact. However, invest in an Intel X-25M Gen2-drive and the Mini will go like a rocket. :)
 
bearcatrp said:
Stick a SSD drive in it to make it fly. Wish apple would have put an i3 processor in it instead of a dual core chip. I'll pass on the mini this round.
Click to expand...

I wish people understood that if an i3 had been put in the current mini's that you'd also have an intel gpu as intel has banned nvidia from creating integrated graphics chips for their new technology.

Personally I'm much happier with a nvidia gpu and c2d rather than an i3 and intel gpu!
 
I have a full size 3.5" 1TB drive hooked to my 2008 mini via SATA and it seems to be much snappier than the wifes mini (with stock drive). So stock drives stink.

SSD would be the way to go, but I think a good 7200 rpm internal or FW800 would be good too.
 
A choice, though I understand if it doesn't appeal to all, for those who want fast internal drive speeds but don't want to hassle with a tricky install, is to get the Server version, which has dual 7200 drives, and raid them into a single fast internal 1tb drive. That's not a bad way to go as long as you back up like you should anyways.
 
the intel core i3 is actualy a dual core not a quad core but it is built on the i7 tech so it would be faster than the core 2 tech but i still think the intel gpu's hurt the chips wish intel would get off themselves and let ati and nvidia make the chipsets for them
 
I agree with you all about the drives but what about trim support?

How about a 7200 rpm drive? Is the speed increase worth the time and money?
 
I've got an OWC SSD in a 2010 mini server and it rips. Replaced my old Dual 2 GHz G5 with it and it runs circles around it. I run Adobe CS4 & 5 and it seems to be just as fast as my friends PowerMac. Upgrade that 5400 RPM drive to at least a 7200 or an SSD and get a Firewire drive for you files. You won't be sorry.
 
I recently wrote a program to test disk drive performance reading large files. I found that my i7 iMac is about 20% faster than my Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server, even with the drives in the mini configured RAID 0. There is obviously a big hit for having 5200 RPM notebook drives. At least the new Mini server has faster drives. OTOH, the internals are much faster than external FW800 (or FW400 or USB2). These systems should all have ESATA.

Note that when random accessing files, especially small files, that the buffering done by Mac OS tends to mask the performance differences. This tends to mean "in real life" that starting a program takes longer with these small drives but running the program is hardly different.
 
Heilage said:
Cheap laptop drives (like the ones you will find stock in the Mini) are slow, it's a well known fact. However, invest in an Intel X-25M Gen2-drive and the Mini will go like a rocket. :)
Click to expand...

so you're saying that Apple mis-specced it..?

for the price of a Mini and SSD you could get an i5 system with a 7200 drive
 
archipellago said:
so you're saying that Apple mis-specced it..?

for the price of a Mini and SSD you could get an i5 system with a 7200 drive
Click to expand...

Yes, but you don't get the design blah blah blah. I don't care about people's reasons for choosing or not choosing a product. This guy has a Mini, so I suggested a way to get better disk performance out of it. Even if he spends $20 000 on that damn Mini, it's not really relevant for anything at all. :)
 
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