uprading my 1.66ghz Mini

hi guys, it's my first post so pls go easy on me i'm a fairly recent mac convert, after getting a bit obsessed with old school G3 imacs

my mac mini was actually my first mac, & i got it to use as a media centre, & it's been excellent, a realy amazing piece of kit, totaly silent, cool, & efficient, i dual boot XP & OsX Tiger, i prefere tiger tbh, but tend to run XP more simply becuase it can run my high def .mkv files, whilst OsX struggles. & this is the reason for my quandry

I'm trying to decide weather i should save up for another "newer" Mini, or attempt to upgrade my current "stock" 1.66ghz mini with 512 meg of memory, lack of money is the driving force here so after a lot of waffling i'll ask the question lol

Does anybody know if i can upgrade my mini's T2300 core duo cpu to a T2500 ? they are the same family of cpu, & there are companies on ebay offering upgrade services, but when i look for the cpu's myslef, they all seem to be socket 478, whilst the mini's T2300 is socket 479, i have found some socket 479 cpu's, like the T7100, but the FSB speeds are different, & i'm guessing they would run to hot for the mini, they are also Core2Duo, rather than the slightly older Core Duo that's fitted in my older Mac Mini if anyone knows if these are compatable, please let me know, but i would assume they are not.

i'm hoping to upgrade to this spec.

2ghz cpu
2gb memory (the newer ones can take 4gb, but i believe the 1.66ghz mobo can only take 2gb)
& also dump a 250gb hard drive in there, total cost of this upgrade would be in the region of £200 ($400) & would make a big financial difference to me, tho, if i had the cash, i'd rather spend £500 ($1000) on a new 2ghz mini direct from apple

thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give me.




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My Macs..

Mac Mini (intel 1.66ghz all stock)
G4 PPc
G3 iMac Graphite 600mhz + 1gb ram
G3 iMac blueberry 350mhz
G3 iMac red, Rev A Slot loader
G3 iBook Graphite 466mhz DVD 512mb Ram

Pc

Q6600 cpu clocked to 2.99ghz with stock cooler
8800GTX 756mb GFX
2.5gb corsair DDR2 memory
1x 500gb hard disc
1x 320gb hard disc
1x 250gb hard disc
1x 200gb hard disc
2x DVD burners
running both XP & OsX 10.5 but not linux, cos, well, what would be the point
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i dont know all the details but here is a step by step tutorial on how to do a cpu upgrade


and here are some testimonials of people who have done the upgrade. hopefully this helps

thanks very much for that, & it looks like i can actually use a core2duo cpu as well

looks like the T2600 @ 2.19ghz is the best bet, this can be had for around £60 & i just "won" a gig of memory on ebay for £2 lol so at this rate £100 will get me the memory cpu & the hard drive if i can continue on this run of luck, i'll be able to get a superdrive (£45) as well then the spec will look like this

cpu= T2600 @ 2.19ghz
1 gig ddr2 memory (will get a 2 gig set when i cn afford it)
250gig hard drive
dvd reader/burner

which apart from being an older family of cpu, it puts the overall spec of the machine ABOVE the current top model, for an upgrade price of about £150

The 1Gb upgrade will have more effect than the processor ! If you can get 2Gb later you will see even more of an improvement but definately the upgrade from 512Mb is the most vital upgrade your machine needed!

I have found a supply of slot loading 8x DVD writers for less than £40 new. I bought one and fitted it in my PC laptop but I am looking at fitting this to the mac mini too. If it works I will include a step by step guide on my new website (devoted to upgrading macs/hints and tips/networking etc - it should be fully up and running in about 2-3 weeks)

As for processors its a shame the T9300 (2.5GHz penryn) wont drop in its just over £200 which is half the price of the T7600 (2.33GHz core 2 duo) - that seems like a good deal on the processor. The bottom has fallen out of the 2x512Mb sodimm market with hundreds of people flogging off theirs when upgrading to 2/3/4Gb

thanks guys, i figured the memory was gonna be the big thing, but i was hoping the new cpu would boost current performance by about 20% if i get that + the boost of doubling ther memory, then that should be enough