setting up Mac Mini, compatibility with Win7/

[AJ.G]

Hello Macrumors,

I want to get a Mac Mini, just to have a nice little desktop at home.
Im going to hook it up to dual monitors, (which i already have), and so i have a few questions.

1) do dual monitors use up more RAM? if so...
2) how much RAM is a safe amount (im buying aftermarket), if i want to run iTunes, Google Chrome, PS CS5, AI CS5, a lot of the time at the same time?
3) is the Core 2 Duo capable of that?! And if i got the 2.66 GHz over the 2.4, would i notice the difference.
4) Last but not least, if i want to use it mainly as a windows machine, and boot it from windows, how much should i keep for the mac partition.

i ask the -windows- question because i have a friend who adores the design of Macs, but simply cannot get used to Mac OSX (long time windows user), so he wants to put windows onto it. Whats the minimum amount of GB's he should keep on the Mac Partition?

Also, can you change how much each partition gets later on? if so, how?


thank you for reading,,

AJ--

 

[dcoulson]

1) do dual monitors use up more RAM? if so...

Nope. Memory for graphics is based upon the amount of physical memory in the system. I believe less than 4Gb reserves 128Mb for video, 4Gb and above reserves 256Gb RAM.

2) how much RAM is a safe amount (im buying aftermarket), if i want to run iTunes, Google Chrome, PS CS5, AI CS5, a lot of the time at the same time?

4Gb of RAM is safe, but 8Gb of RAM costs $80.

3) is the Core 2 Duo capable of that?! And if i got the 2.66 GHz over the 2.4, would i notice the difference.

Yes, but i don't think you'll notice much difference in proc speed. The Mac Mini ships with a 5400rpm notebook drive, so you'll find more of a performance improvement from going to a 7200rpm drive, or a hybrid SSD/HDD storage device.

4) Last but not least, if i want to use it mainly as a windows machine, and boot it from windows, how much should i keep for the mac partition.

You probably want 20-30Gb. AFAIK, Apple don't release updates for EFI and other hardware related stuff via Windows, so you will need a usable Mac OS X installation available for that.

Also, can you change how much each partition gets later on? if so, how?

You can backup, repartition and restore. You can't do it non-destructively as far as I know.

 

[room271]

Just want to say that if you are using CS5 I would not recommend the current Mac Mini - I just think it is too slow. At least if you are going to have a browser/code editor or whatever else open in the background too.

I have a laptop with a C2D processor and also run CS5 and multitask and it is definitely a bit on the slow side.

The processors in the current Mac Mini range are pretty rubbish tbh (especially for the money).