New Mini vs. White MB

[panzer06]

After buying and using this new mini for a few weeks, I just realized the white Macbook has the nvidia 9400 (256MB DDR2) GPU, upgradable HD & Ram and is portable should I ever want to take it with. It also retains the FW400 port dismissed by the Aluminum Macbooks.

$549+$140+$80=$769
Base mini + upgrades + install

And I can get the white Macbook for $799 after rebate from Microcenter.

If I sell the mini and buy the MB will I notice any difference by losing the DDR3 system ram?

With both systems using the nvidia chipset and GPU will I be able to boot the MB with a clone of my Mini's HD?

Am I missing anything? What else might I lose if I ditch the Mini?

Cheers,

 

[NRose8989]

I really don't think your going to see much of a difference between DDR2 and DDR3. and Yes you should be able to boot from your Mini's HD on a MB. I just tried it out by booting my MBP's HD on my iMac via FW800.

The only thing your really going to miss out on is the FW800 port. Which if you don't have any FW800 devices then I guess it would be useless anyways.

 

[panzer06]

I really don't think your going to see much of a difference between DDR2 and DDR3. and Yes you should be able to boot from your Mini's HD on a MB. I just tried it out by booting my MBP's HD on my iMac via FW800.

The only thing your really going to miss out on is the FW800 port. Which if you don't have any FW800 devices then I guess it would be useless anyways.

Are both your Macs the newer nvidia-based aluminum versions with 9400 GPUs?

I do have a few external drives with FW800. Will I not be able to use them at all or will a FW800 to FW400 cable let them work at the slower speed?

Cheers,

 

[NRose8989]

No, I have a nVidia 8600M in my MBP and the ATI 2600 Pro in my iMac. I'm really not sure how OSX works though when you install it because my MBP has a OSX install from a retail 10.5 DVD while my iMac has a OSX install from the restore DVD's that it came with. So it could be that a retail install, will install all of the drivers while a restore disk will only install the needed drivers for the machine. Or I could be completely wrong and both install the same data regardless of installed media.

I don't know for sure but your FW800 devices should still work over FW400, just that your not going to get FW800 speeds. I would assume that they do because FW400 devices still work over FW800 so why wouldn't a FW800 device work over FW400.