Which Mac Mini to Buy?

[FrankHahn]

Right after the Mac Mini line was updated, I decided to get the 2.5 GHz base model in consideration that it might satisfy all my needs. However, after a short period of time of leave, and especially after reading various reviews and experiences of other people, I am now undecided and would like to get some help from the guys and gals in this forum.

First of all, the Mac Mini will be used at home and it must do the following things for me:
1. Stream audios and videos.
2. Do Word processing (mainly LaTeX, some MS Word).
3. Render graphics (mainly EPS, can be quite demanding for 3D graphics).
4. Perform some number crunching (numerical computations & simulations, only for the purpose of testing C++ computer codes; the real run will be done on my Mac Pro in the office).

I would like to have the Time Machine to do one backup (I will have another back with a Time Capsule and a third backup using a USB HD; maybe a fourth backup on a USB stick). Thus, I'd like to have two 7200 rpm HDs inside the Mac Mini (I do not consider an SSD at the moment). I also need to have at least 4 GB memory.

Option 1: 2.3 GHz base model. Install 4 GB memory and two 7200 rpm HDs by myself.
Option 2: 2.5 GHz base model + dual i7. Install two 7200 rpm HDs by myself.
Option 3: The server base model.

Thanks in advance for your inputs and suggestions!

 

[ezekielrage_99]

IMHO Option 2 + 8GB RAM and a Seagate Momentus XT update.

I can vouch that this is a very quick little machine with the RAM and HDD updated

 

[indg]

if you can afford it and don't want to spend the time/energy installing a second drive, go with option 3.

quad i7 will score in the 9600's for geekbench 64-bit. quad core and hyperthreading will help alot with the rendering and computational tasks.

and RAID0 internal drives will achieve read/write speeds up to 185MB/s. handy for those large eps files.

upgrade ram tp 8gb if necessary.

 

[FrankHahn]

Thanks for the replies! For the time being, I incline to Option 3. However, I still want to listen to more ideas, inputs, and suggestions. I will buy the Mac Mini at the end of August or in early September. By the way, my budget is sufficient for the server base model and extra memory.

 

[ezekielrage_99]

If your doing anything graphical you'd be much better with a dedicated graphics card furthermore the benchmarks for the quad core i7 compared to the dual core i7 isn't that different.

I'm betting you'll find the performance much snappier with the AMD + i7 compared to the server model for what you're describing.