Mac mini Opinions please
 

I am looking to get one, specs are:

2.5GHz Mac mini
2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
4GB memory
500GB hard drive1
Intel HD Graphics 4000
OS X Mountain Lion

Will add up memory up to 8GBs.

How different Core i5 is from Core i7 ?
The machine is considered to work with Photoshop mostly,
related question is how good is that Intel HD Graphics 4000 video card?

macs are for losers

its shit built in video

any video made by intel is basically crap for anything but basic stuff.

If you arent already using Mac OSX, I wouldnt bother. I had both a mac mini and a macbook pro last year and sold them because I hated the OS. And neither one did Photoshop or Premier any better than my i7 PC does.

I love my iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV but personally I dont see what is so great about Apple's computers.

i cunt a4d a MAC... :(

Why not spend the same amount of money on a pc and get something twice as fast?

So its a built - in graphics, no more questions.

Yes, and you cannot upgrade it.

+1:thumbsup

i didnt think you could ever upgrade mac video cards... so its like any other mac. i use a macbook pro for coding on the go. everwhere else i run linux on my desktop at home and work... macs are good computers... you should be fine with a higher end mac mini, but just to be sure top off the ram. hate to say it guys but macs are the industry standard for graphic design...

this does not comes from an apple fan boy... i only have that macbook pro.

Please tell me again what they do better than any ofher pc? I kinda forget. Or wait maybe no one ever has been able to answer me this.

:2 cents::thumbsup

it's perfectly fine for photoshop the i5.
I have the newest base model i5 2.5ghz I upgraded to 16gb (bought the ram myself from amazon). I have zero problem with photoshop handling big files. I also bought a Seagate 1TB external usb 3.0 drive for under $129 the speed is insane no lag at all

I know some people suggest just getting a PC but honestly its good to have both PC and Mac. The mac mini is a great low cost yet powerful Mac. Especially if you ever want to dabble in the iOS app market you'll need a Mac.

Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor - $230

MSI ZH77A-G43 LGA 1155 Intel H77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS - $80

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory - $90

SAPPHIRE 100352-2L Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - $300

Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Stand-Alone Drive) - $115

Western Digital WD Green WDBAAY0020HNC-NRSN 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $110

CORSAIR Builder Series CX600 600W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply - $70

ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM - $20

Fractal Design Core 3000 ATX Mid Tower Computer Case w/ 3 Fans - $70

Quoted for truth :2 cents:

for me MAC mini is cool and use 2 HD LED thurder bolt monitor....


they are cool and the diffence is there speed....

For fucks sake, please, it would be a PS machine only, work computer, no games, i need to know if the video card is not laggy, i have a 22" 1980x1080 Dell.

Ok, then why not buy a pc for half the price? You will get the same thing minus the Apple logo.

True that, this is the only reason I want to grab a cheap secondhand one.

Apparently no, PC would be $100-200 less...

Also because i like how quiet my macbook pro is, i hate PC helicopters.

not saying that viruses do not exist for mac's but.....

in all the years i operated on a pc it was a constant threat

now i have been using a mac for the last 2 years and guess what.... not a single infection

for that reason alone a mac is worth the money.

I can't remember the last time i had a virus on my pc. Worthless claim. Like most claims from Mac users :)

but when was it last thoroughly checked?

My problem is a budget. If I could easily spend 2-3k I would simply get a new macbook pro.

Hackintosh. Same parts Apple uses at 1/3 the cost. Hell, macPro desktops haven't been updated in a few years. You can get updated hardware and still pay 1/3 less for a better machine that will install and run OSX as if it came from China, by way of Cupertino.

I use all macs now. go the i7 if using photoshop.

Come on, don't get ridiculous now.

8GB RAM, will it be eenuff?

Youll be fine

Max the ram tho.

I use a 27 inch imac at home and mac mini with dual 24 dell monitors at work

Works flawlessly

Also

You can add double the "supported" ram, to a max if 16.

Macs are gay.

Hackintosh's aren't the same parts at 1/3 the cost. The parts Apple uses are actually VERY expensive. Hackintosh's are built using "near/close-to" hardware parts.

Go with a pc and buy a good video card that can take advantage of Mercury graphics engine.

http://images.pugetsystems.com/image...800&height=800
source:http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/art...celeration-161

You can look on Nvidia about Cuda it really impressive how much time you save
http://www.nvidia.fr/object/quadro-p...op-cs6-fr.html

the price for cuda enable video card start arround 200$ so it not that much. It work with video encoding to, mine have go from 4 hours to 20 minutes.

Also you should think about getting a SSD it one of the adobe recommendation to improve photoshop (if you already have maxed the ram)
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/...id_state_disks

You would be better off with an iMac for a few reasons.

If you are working with large files, the new iMacs have combined HD and SSHD, so files load alot faster. Plus the monitors on iMacs are second to none when it comes to resolution clarity and color detail.

Yes its more expensive, but completely worth the price.

The mac mini is more of a general purpose machine. It's slower overall, a little underpowered for my taste, but then again its only $500.

The Core i7 is faster than the i5, but you won't notice the speed difference in photoshop unless you are using complex filters like Liquify on very large images which can take a while to render. You would be better off to get the i5, and use the savings towards more Ram or a bigger hard disk.



:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

I purchased a 2TB External hard drive. It's fast on USB, but try using the firewire cable instead. Much faster. I store all of my giant images on it and it read/writes just as fast as if it were a built-in drive.

tip: max out the processor (i7 2.6) and the memory as much as you can afford to if you're planning to use it long term. :thumbsup

I've seen Apple-refurbished Macbook Airs as low as $699 in the Apple Store Online ...

Other World Computing is another great place to buy gently-used and Factory Refurbished Macs at great prices!! :thumbsup

Same thing I tell people. There mobile devices are amazing, Apple TV is cool. I also really like the AirPorts for wireless.

The computer they make are PC's with some Unix OS with a crap GUI. My wife has an iMac. Its garbage....

Better is subjective. Faster, newer and cheaper work out better for me. Once the machine is up and running, I don't really give a shit what is inside. So long that it performs and didn't break the bank.

I am sitting on a couch with 3 MBP plugged in and charging. My 3 and 4 year olds have iMacs in their rooms. These machines are good for what they do, but they aren't good for what I want to do. And I won't spend $2k plus with Apple ever again.

So Hackintosh it is. Newer, faster and cheaper for the same thing minus the Apple logo.

OK, I'll weight in, since the thread started off as I expected but the mac ney-sayers aside, there are pros and cons for the mac mini.

My experience is I've never owned a PC in my life so I can't say, but clearly you can get the same "ability" from a machine for less $. I've been using a mac since appletalk was the rigour de jour for local networking....

My last Mac workstation purchase was a 27" iMac back in December 2009 - it was maxed out at purchase, except for ram, as a custom option. It is:
"2.8Ghz i7, Late 2009"
ATI Radeon 4850 512MB
27" monitor 2560x1440
Came with 4GB RAM, upgraded to 12GB last October (best upgrade ever)

I don't do lots of video, but I do quite a bit of PS and it's never been sluggish with PS. I recently (Xmas) got a gopro3 and so have started video processing - from the ski holidays, I had no problem rendering video to web-quality 720 video from the gopro black very HD cinema quality (~1 hr for a 4GB 25 min cinema video as example)

This iMac is a *long* way from getting replaced as it's as snappy today as the day I bought it (esp after the ram upgrade).
It runs OS X 10.8.2 no problems.

I have a MBAir that I really love because of its SDD HD. The new iMacs look excellent and one is ordered for the office as a built-to-order hybrid (SDD+HDD) and that is an i5, so I can then compare i7 (2009) with i5 (2013), but I don't expect much diff, except for the graphics card (1GB)....

The mac mini looks great as it has similar specs to the imac, but as mentioned above, the imac wins with the hybrid option and maybe the next mini will ship with that... your call.

I *really* detest the new iMac though because of the very serious and real problem of upgrading the ram - basically not at all a user-serviceable thing, which is the single biggest dumbest thing I think Apple have ever done with a desktop model. Maybe it was done to re-inject life into their flailing mac tower lineup????

TBH, I personally wouldn't buy a mini for anything major pro, because the iMac will always exceed the specs for not much more - monitors have a finite life, which I find are roughly equal (5 yrs or so) to the desktop, so the iMac makes sense there (replace desktop, get latest and greatest monitor).

Hope this helps in any way.

VERY expensive yes. Processor, memory, graphics cards and hard drives.. all unique Apple products which justifies twice the cost.

Yes I have heard that they got a intel secret factory hide underground to make sure that the i5 and i7 proccessor they use in the mac are made of gold instead of sillicone like pc one. Also even if the video card they use have the exact same model number that what we use in pc, they apply a trademarked special anti scratch coating on them that justify paying twice the price :P

You can put an SSD in a mini either BTO, or do it yourself easily.

Not sure that is accurate at all. Read some monitor reviews.

Actually, there is very little difference:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

It doesn't read/write anywhere near as fast as an internal drive, especially not a SSD. Not even close.

You're being sarcastic right?

I'm sure he is

Only buy the mini with the independent video, not the build in one.

Didnt see that option online, must be an offer of that kind in the store only.

Yea.. a serious post would be waste of time anyway when having to do with Apple fanatism.

Double post.