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Mac Mini

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 1:01 am
by Tormentius
Hello folks,

I've been thinking of picking up a Mac Mini just for the hell of it. Does anyone own one? Opinions?

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 1:08 am
by 4g3nt_Smith
I have to say you'd be massively disappointed fi you bought one, as there are no BSOD's, no shitty, built-in to the shell browsers, and no generic and unexplainable times when the OS just hoses itself. Aside from that, I hear its a great little system, but if you do buy one, I'd recommend at least 512 megs of RAM, and not buying said RAM from Apple since they like to charge too much ala PC OEMS.

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 1:12 am
by 4g3nt_Smith
Also, wait until Tiger is released, unless you like paying for something you could've had for free had you waited 3 months.

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 5:52 am
by Canis
The Mac Mini is great. I dont know WTF smith is referring to. It's limited on upgrades, but the software is just the same as what's available on other macs. Waiting for Tiger wont do anything, since the hardware wont change at that time.

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 7:58 am
by Tormentius
Canis wrote:The Mac Mini is great. I dont know WTF smith is referring to. It's limited on upgrades, but the software is just the same as what's available on other macs. Waiting for Tiger wont do anything, since the hardware wont change at that time.
Thanks man :icon14:

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 9:09 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
But waiting for Tiger will save him the money required to purchase the upgrade that would come standard on every Mac.

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 9:53 pm
by Canis
Ah yes. I thought you were referring to some advantage that Tiger would offer in terms of performance and efficiency over the latest OS.

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 10:28 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
Well, if the trend continues, Tiger will run better on existing hardware then previous versions did (so I hear from people who have used OS X since 10.0)

Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 9:18 am
by Canis
Of course the latest OS will manage current hardware more efficiently, but I meant in terms of support for newer hardware, which is what I thought you were referring to earlier on.

Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:17 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
Well, there also some rumors of Apple boostig all the product lines whose graphics cards currently capable of Core Image, replacing them with ones that can.

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:44 am
by saturn
4g3nt_Smith wrote:Also, wait until Tiger is released, unless you like paying for something you could've had for free had you waited 3 months.
so it's coming out in 3 months?

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 2:05 pm
by 4g3nt_Smith
First half of '05. Three month from now is almost June, so it's not unlkely.

Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 6:20 pm
by saturn
I've seen some of the new features, looks great. Shame it will take another 3 months, I want to buy that Powerbook now :mad:

Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2005 11:00 pm
by NCG_Mike[temp]
10.4 will be released at WWDC, I'm pretty confident of that.

Build numbers have slowed down but I do know there's a big gap in build numbers between what the Premier ADC members are seeing and what the elite members are seeing. Can't say more there.

As for what it's like, it's noticeably faster on a dual G5. It also has a lot of features which are good for a developer like myself... GCC 4.0 with *auto vectorization* of code and a load of Obj-C work has been done. XCode 2.0 looks more like Project Builder, which is a relief.

FYI, auto vectorization is automatic Velocity (Altivec) codegen by the compiler. If you're still using a G3 system, sell it now as you will see a lot of requirements need a G4 as a minimum.

Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2005 2:52 am
by Canis
I thought vectorized code could run on a G3, only a shitload slower than a G4 or G5. FFS they only stopped selling G3-based comps a year or so ago, which they should keep in mind for a few more years at least.

Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:05 am
by Psyche911
My mom is considering buying a Mac. I'm not sure if I should convince her to get one of these or an iMac G5. The iMac would only be a couple hundred more after buying a decent monitor for the Mini....

P.S. Hi all. :)

Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:18 am
by Canis
It wont matter. The iMac G5 will give her a better processor and GPU, but with those two options it will be more of what appeals to her rather than performance.

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:20 pm
by NCG_Mike[temp]
No, from the docs of GCC 4, auto vectorized code need a GPU (Altivec/Velocity). It's not so say that GCC will do a good job at it *but* it's the first GCC that does it. FYI, .Net has such a feature.

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:20 pm
by NCG_Mike[temp]
Psyche911 wrote:My mom is considering buying a Mac. I'm not sure if I should convince her to get one of these or an iMac G5. The iMac would only be a couple hundred more after buying a decent monitor for the Mini....

P.S. Hi all. :)
Get the iMac.