[Sir Whoopsalot]

I hereby reference the title.

Having a Mac has always been a bit of a secret desire of mine after having a go with one over at a friend. And now that my Windows laptop is beginning to fall apart somewhat, I've been looking at Macs. The Mini in particular. For its price and what I need/want, it seems pretty decent. I can hook it up to my own monitor when I'm at home and if I have to take it to school, I can hook it up to a 27" monitor or a smaller one in the very rare event that I can't access the big boys.
What I want to do is nothing particularly stressing besides video editing (because we're being taught how to use Final Cut Pro) and even then it's not on a really big scale.
I was thinking of grabbing the second non-server model (2.5 dual core i5, 4 gb RAM, 6630m, 500 gb hard drive), maybe save up a bit longer to upgrade the RAM. Would I do well enough with the Mini or should I get something else?

[Super_Nova]

Sounds like a good deal to me.

[marcus5]

sounds good to me too.

[BenjiiOS]

Well I own a Mac Mini with 2.3Ghz, 500GB, 8GB Ram, Intel HD3000 512mb and i tell you what... it runs flawlessly and amazing for music production, video editing and source gaming :) Havent tried major gaming yet but with 512mb i can expect it to be rather good :)

[marcus5]

BenjiiOS posted:

Havent tried major gaming yet but with 512mb i can expect it to be rather good :)

you'll be lucky to get 30 fps on major titles at 1366 x768 resolution

[djjkxbox360]

The video RAM itself isn't bad, but the graphics card is pretty crap

[Sir Whoopsalot]

marcus5 posted:

you'll be lucky to get 30 fps on major titles at 1366 x768 resolution

On low settings.

[solareweapon]

I'm running a mac mini (originally 1.6 core duo) with a core 2 duo 2.33 processor in it. (2 Gig RAMM Powered PT 7.4 OSX 10.4.11)
I'm running 48 track sessions all the time, and I can fill up ALL the plugin spaces with medium CPU intensive plugins without a problem.
www.iphone-mac.com

[Twilight]

if you really want a mac mini and you plan on getting ram upgrades on the mid range model i would just grab a refurbished server for around $849

[Sir Whoopsalot]

Twilight posted:

if you really want a mac mini and you plan on getting ram upgrades on the mid range model i would just grab a refurbished server for around $849

I take it you mean the ones you can buy through Apple?
Because the only refurbished things I can get through Apple are ipods and ipads.

[[EG] Pepper]

BenjiiOS posted:

Well I own a Mac Mini with 2.3Ghz, 500GB, 8GB Ram, Intel HD3000 512mb and i tell you what... it runs flawlessly and amazing for music production, video editing and source gaming :) Havent tried major gaming yet but with 512mb i can expect it to be rather good :)

Bahahaha, in your dreams mate.

[inconspicious]

BenjiiOS posted:

Intel HD3000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYbetvkPA6I

[Makol]

Don't buy a Mac Mini now, the refresh is due in a month or two.

[BenjiiOS]

[EG] Pepper posted:

Bahahaha, in your dreams mate.

Played MW3 on medium settings running bootcamp and that was fine to play without issues. After bits of tweaking i managed to get BF3 to run smooth but like i said... tweaking.

Edited:

marcus5 posted:

you'll be lucky to get 30 fps on major titles at 1366 x768 resolution

Just as well I dont use that resolution then isnt it cause on a 40+" TV the text is too damn small. Think ill stick to something a lot bigger that shows the writing better.

[Sir Whoopsalot]

Makol posted:

Don't buy a Mac Mini now, the refresh is due in a month or two.

Wasn't planning on buying it right now anyway. Don't have the money. Plus I already heard the rumors about Apple moving to Ivy Bridge in the Imac updates so I figured the Mini would be getting a similar treatment.

[Makol]

Sir Whoopsalot posted:

Wasn't planning on buying it right now anyway. Don't have the money. Plus I already heard the rumors about Apple moving to Ivy Bridge in the Imac updates so I figured the Mini would be getting a similar treatment.

That and it should have an AMD HD 7xxx gpu in it, highly doubt Apple will go back to Nvidia after the whole 8600 GT fiasco.

[Sir Whoopsalot]

Makol posted:

That and it should have an AMD HD 7xxx gpu in it, highly doubt Apple will go back to Nvidia after the whole 8600 GT fiasco.

What 8600GT fiasco?

[Makol]

Nvidia supplied Apple with faulty gpus.


It was pretty bad.

[Van-man]

Makol posted:

Nvidia supplied Apple with faulty gpus.


It was pretty bad.

It wasn't only Apple, pretty much any laptop manufacturer using Nvidia chips got faulty batches of Nvidia Geforce 8x00 Mobile GPU's.
Bad solder used from Nvidia's side was the cause.
Sometimes giving the motherboard (or GPU daughtercard) a trip in a hot-air reflow oven fixed the issue for around a years time.

[Makol]

Oh.

All the media coverage made seem like an Apple only issue, I don't recall any other company being mentioned.

[Van-man]

Makol posted:

Oh.

All the media coverage made seem like an Apple only issue, I don't recall any other company being mentioned.

Well Apple (and the users) just made the biggest fuzz about it.
Also a site describing the DIY hot-air reflow method: http://www.computerrepairtips.net/ho...p-motherboard/
Check the comments for a small list of laptops affected (and temporarily fixed)

edit: more info: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...a-g84-g86s-bad and http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/10/a...-chips-faulty/

[inconspicious]

Makol posted:

Oh.

All the media coverage made seem like an Apple only issue, I don't recall any other company being mentioned.

My dell inspiron 1720 is also supposed to suffer a similar issue, still going strong 3 years down the line.

[Van-man]

inconspicious posted:

My dell inspiron 1720 is also supposed to suffer a similar issue, still going strong 3 years down the line.

The problem occurs when the GPU is suddenly stressed hard, and then suddenly is idle afterwards (and repeated often).
The solder cant handle hot->cold->hot->etcetera cycles, and cracks, causing the gpu to lose connection with the motherboard/gpu daughtercard.
This is due to laptops running hotter than desktops AND the shitty solder Nvidia used.
You're either lucky, your Dell has a great cooling system OR you never really stressed the GPU hard.

[Athens]

If you are going to pack it around places like to school look into getting a SSD hard drive. Less change of data lose from bumping around. That said the Mac Mini uses laptop hard drives already for size.

[inconspicious]

Van-man posted:

The problem occurs when the GPU is suddenly stressed hard, and then suddenly is idle afterwards (and repeated often).
The solder cant handle hot->cold->hot->etcetera cycles, and cracks, causing the gpu to lose connection with the motherboard/gpu daughtercard.
This is due to laptops running hotter than desktops AND the shitty solder Nvidia used.
You're either lucky, your Dell has a great cooling system OR you never really stressed the GPU hard.

Portal 2 was all that has been played on it, so no great strain there, and it did keep remarkably cool and quiet.

[GameDev]

The portability is very easy, I usually take it around to different places.

If you're planning to play games on it though, don't expect too much. I can handle source, but not anything really above that.

[juke]

You should build your own computer instead of buying a Mac Mini.

[ethandennis]

Or do this If you really want a Mac. My next build I will just go with one of these.
http://www.kakewalk.se/

[Super_Nova]

How good will a mac mini run TF2 anyways?

[draugur]

Makol posted:

Nvidia supplied Apple with faulty gpus.


It was pretty bad.

I'd supply Apple with faulty Gpu's too. I wouldn't want to put my best products in a thing that has minimal airflow and no fans.
Then again, only an idiot would produce something with minimal airflow and no fans with out the intention of it needing to be replaced every year.

[PvtCupcakes]

If you want to take it to school like you said then I'd say get a Macbook Air. If you're looking at the $800 mini then it's not such a huge stretch. You can take it with you and not have to rely on having a monitor, keyboard, mouse, at school or whatever.

Edited:

if it doesn't have to be portable then a Mac mini would be great.

Edited:

fuck this thread is so old