03-06-2005, 02:11 AM

Hi, this is my first post and I know very little about Macs, although I have been reading alot. I am a PC user and want to switch to Mac with the Mac Mini, but I am having a hard time determining the performance of the Mac Mini and whether it will be suitable.

Is it possible to say that the Mac Mini 1.42 Ghz with 512 RAM (which is what I want to buy) is the equivilent of a Pentium xxxx with 512 RAM? The biggest computing task I will have for the Mini is photo editing. When I tell people this they say I should get the imac G5 but I dont want a computer and display in one package which means the next step up is the power mac but that is alot more than I can afford or need.

In an article I read in Macaddict, the author said the G4 1.42 Ghz processor of the Mini was equivilent to a Pentium 4 2.0 Ghz processor. This surprised me as what I have been lead to believe from other Mac user friends is that it would be faster than that.

Anyway, enough babbling. Can someone give me an idea of the performace of the above spec'd Mini in PC terms?

Thanks for your help. I hope this is not a difficult request.

Steve

03-06-2005, 02:30 AM

The article and your friend are pretty much right. Especially with a lot of ram (512+), the mini should be considerabally faster than a 2ghz P4. I switched directly from a P4 2.6ghz 512mb ram Dell laptop to my 12" ibook 1.2ghz 1.25mb ram and the ibook is a lot better in all aspects.

03-06-2005, 05:36 AM

Originally Posted by nbn22385

The article and your friend are pretty much right. Especially with a lot of ram (512+), the mini should be considerabally faster than a 2ghz P4. I switched directly from a P4 2.6ghz 512mb ram Dell laptop to my 12" ibook 1.2ghz 1.25mb ram and the ibook is a lot better in all aspects.

So, do you think I would notice a difference between the 1.25Ghz and the 1.42Ghz?

03-06-2005, 12:04 PM

It really depends on what you are going as whether not it will be just as fast. Keep in mind that the mini has a pretty slow laptop hard drive. If you are just doing Photoshop the mini will probably be fine but it isn't very good for games. I would really just go try one out and see for yourself.

03-06-2005, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by mynameis

It really depends on what you are going as whether not it will be just as fast. Keep in mind that the mini has a pretty slow laptop hard drive. If you are just doing Photoshop the mini will probably be fine but it isn't very good for games. I would really just go try one out and see for yourself.

I'm not a gamer so I dont need that sort of performance. I just need a computer that can handle photoshop file sizes of up to 100Mb.

03-06-2005, 07:25 PM

I've briefly used photoshop on my Mini (512mb 1.42 Ghz) and it seems to work OK. I wouldn't call it excellent performance, but it's not to bad.

03-07-2005, 12:07 AM

You sound like a similar user to me. I would go for the faster processor just because I can and to play it safe. I would load the ram because ram is good always. I may even buy an external hdd to use as a second scratch disk, but that is me. I think the faster mini with ram maxed out should serve you just fine.

03-07-2005, 12:12 AM

it should run ok if you give it 1GB of ram. i think it's kind of just a somewhat lowend machine. just for someone that does basic things like surfing the net, chatting, listening to music and storing picutres.... the only thing that i would eb concerned about is the weak FSB and the slower HD. which pretty much decreases the machines speed, and will make you want to buy a new computer sooner with the mac mini, than say having a G5