Submitted by PCMag reviews the new Intel Mac Mini, and concludes: “Though the Intel mini doesn’t really blow away the G4 mini on most of the performance tests we ran, the addition of Front Row and wireless networking to the Mac mini is a welcome one, and dovetails nicely with Apple’s mission to acclimate users to the digital lifestyle.”
“Though the Intel mini doesn’t really blow away the G4 mini on most of the performance tests we ran,”
That’s funny. All the reviews that I’ve seen say the universal apps runs MUCH faster on the Mac intel mini than on the G4 mini. Only the PowerPC apps run the same or a little slower. But then DUH. Steve Jobs said that from the beginning.
Agreed, every other test on the new Intel Mini shows it way ahead of the G4 mini with Universal Applications. Even the Core SOLO is ahead of the G4 mini with most benchmarks or Universal Apps. I wonder what is up with their test.
“But then DUH. Steve Jobs said that from the beginning.”
Ummm…. I just had to point this out. I know it’s what he’s been saying recently, but not at all what has been said by Apple for the last 30 years before that. No flame wars please, but the truth of the matter is that if anything this is somewhat surprising, that the PPC architecture was so far behind the intel competition.
That said, are there any decent benchmarks that pit the core duo/solo agains the Pentium 4 or M lines? I’d like to see how fast there are compared to Intel’s earlier offerings. I’m sure they’re out there, but most benchmarks I’ve seen have been CD/S vs. PPC, not P4/M.
Perhaps you should read closer. He was talking about Rosetta.
Also, APple had only used PPC for 15 years.
You’re right, he was talking about Jobs’s stance on Rosetta, though it is pretty ambiguous, and can be read as Jobs saying so to the entire last paragraph, which is why I thought he was also including the speed of Universal apps in the group of things Jobs has been saying from the begining.
And the 30 year thing was just hyperbole, a bad idea, since text is never a good conveyor of irony/sarcasm/etc.
That said, are there any decent benchmarks that pit the core duo/solo agains the Pentium 4 or M lines? I’d like to see how fast there are compared to Intel’s earlier offerings. I’m sure they’re out there, but most benchmarks I’ve seen have been CD/S vs. PPC, not P4/M.
Here are a few:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2648
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=2663&p=1
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/03/07/aopen_releases_core_duo_to_t…
That’s funny. All the reviews that I’ve seen say the universal apps runs MUCH faster on the Mac intel mini than on the G4 mini.
No, this has turned up in other benchmarks – look at XBench, most of the tests show the Core solo/duo with a pretty commanding lead over the G4 but in the vector test it’s the other way around.
The G4s are better in vectorisable apps, this is PPCs strong point so it’s not surprising. Some of the tests they ran are vectorisable (Photoshop, video transcoding), hence the results.
I think this illustrates the difference between running cpu benchmarks and applications. Benchmarks have their value but I preferred comparisons with full blown applications.
I’m confused. My 1.5GHz G4-based Mini is connected via 802.11g as I type this…
The new Intel Mac Minis have bluetooth and Wireless as standards the old PPC Minis had them as optional upgrades.
The new Intel Mac Minis have bluetooth and Wireless as standards the old PPC Minis had them as optional upgrades.
The old $599 model also had them standard. Only the $499 model didn’t, but since they don’t offer a $499 model anymore the new model is best compared to the old $599 1.42Ghz model.
I got the Mactel Mini service manual right here for ya, pdf.
Good instructions with plenty of pictures to properly disassemble your mini
homepage.mac.com/hogfish
All I ask, is if your a Mac fan, to support Team Mac OS X Folding@home with any iron you got, PC’s or Mac’s, if your not already hitched.
teammacosx.homeunix.com/NQS/index.html
…it is every bit equal to the iMac G5 2.0 that it is replacing — with the exception of gaming, of course. And that is only because the games I own are PPC games. They play via Rosetta (AOE for example) but not super well.
I use my mini for work… only 1 app I have is PPC/Rosetta, the rest are Universal already.
I’m seriously thinking about buying a new Mac for home. I’ve been playing around at Apple Store Spain and can’t see any reason to buy the new Mac Mini over the Intel iMac.
I’ll give you some figures to show you what I mean:
– Mac Mini:
Intel Core Duo Processor
1 GB RAM (2×512)
120 GB SATA HD
Wireless Keyboard and mouse
Apple Cinema Display 20”
Intel GMA950 64MB Shared Memory
AppleCare (extended 3-year warranty)
Total amount in Euros 2.177,01 (including VAT and Delivery)
– iMac:
Intel Core Duo Processor
1 GB RAM (1x1GB)
250 GB SATA HD
Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
Built-in TFT 20” monitor
ATI Radeon X1600 128 MB RAM
AppleCare (3-year extended warranty)
Total amount in Euros: 2,116,63
(data from http://www.apple.com/es/)
See what I mean?
I do not see the point in buying an Intel Mac Mini over a iMac (at least here in southern Europe). Apple is offering two products that are supposed to be oriented for two different users group (mini=entry-leveI Mac user, iMac=medium-to-advanced Mac user) but it fails terribly overpricing the Mini.
Just my opinion.
I think the Mini is rather intended for the user that already has a keyboard and mouse. The iMac has ever since been the entry level computer from Apple, though they just had a very high priced entry level.
>> I do not see the point in buying an Intel Mac Mini over a iMac…
I think you miss the point of the Mac Mini. I’d love to put a Mac Mini with a large LCD monitor and stereo and voila you have a very sweet home entertainment system for the living room or bedroom whereas the iMac would most likely be relegated to a desk. Home entertainment technologies are quickly (finally in my book…) converging. Who wants to sit at a desk to surf the web or watch movies after spending all day at work?
Now if Apple would market the Mac Mini more in this direction with a built in (HD)TV tuner. :>
btw does anyone know if a USB/Firewire HDTV tuner would work well on the Mac Mini? I am from the Winux world and my experiences with the USB tuners is that they work so-so unless you have some grunt.
Brissietex
I have an Elgato Sat tuner on my old mini and it works exceptionally well, given the flakeyness of the Windows and Linux based TV solutions this thing is heavens sent.
The only downside is that Elgato has some streaming options in their portfolio but only for the recordings, and the only live video streaming option in existence for this thing (opensource) is very unstable.