07-23-2008, 12:48 PM

ok so ive just gotten into uni to do a film making course (yay) and want to upgrade my piece of rubbish 5ooMHz g4 for something that will actualy be able to handle abit of editing. My new dilema is being stuck between getting an old dual core 2ghz g5 from the lovely world of ebay or whether one of the new 2ghz core 2 duo mac mini will do just a good of a job. I dont really like the look of the imac's partly because i think the screens look stupid and im perfectly happy with the monitor i have now.

i dont really understand computers that well past what the ram and cpu does, so im slightly confused about how much of a difference graphics cards and their capabilities will affect editing. im guessing this is what will be the mac mini's downfall, even though im not too sure why.

Any help would be greatly appreciated ^_^

07-23-2008, 01:27 PM

Thats a tricky one

The G5 has 2 processors, better graphics card and more expandability

The mini is an Intel mac , but with poor graphics, but cab be given more storage through firewire

The graphics card in the G5 might just be the clincher

07-23-2008, 01:32 PM

have a look at this

http://www.tuaw.com/2006/05/23/macbo...io-benchmarks/

The 2006 macbook (closest spec to the mini) holds its own against the G5, so I guess a 2008 mini will outrun the G5, despite the integrated graphics

You will need a nice big Firewire external drive tho

07-23-2008, 02:02 PM

My issue with the mini would be I/O speed. The C2D processor @ 2ghz is fast enough, but a 2GBs RAM ceiling and a 5400rpm internal drive would have me worried, especially where HD is concerned. Even a really huge fast external drive would be limited to Firewire 400 speeds, not bad, but could become a choke point.

I'd be leaning towards the G5 personally. I am just not too sure how well the G5 deals with Video compression, especially compared to a C2D.