White Macbook 80gb SSD/4gb vs. Mac Mini i5/8gb

TheOnlyJon · Oct 23, 2011

I have an early 2008 Macbook that I updated with an 80gb Intel X-25M SSD and 4GB of RAM. It's a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo.

I'm interested in possibly getting a customized Mac Mini from Ebay with an i5, 8GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive. Would I see worse/same/better performance than I currently have with my Macbook? I'm currently able to run Photoshop/Illustrator/Final Cut decently well on my laptop, but I was thinking I might see a small boost in performance with an i5. A Mac Mini is really the only thing within my budget right now.

Thanks guys!

PS. Without removing the optical drive is there any way to install my SSD as a boot/application drive? I'm guessing there isn't enough room.

simsaladimbamba · Oct 23, 2011

You will definitely see a performance boost, especially with 8GB of RAM.
You can also take a look at these benchmarks to have some kind of bearing: http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/

TheOnlyJon · Oct 23, 2011

Perfect! I knew there had to be a benchmarking portfolio somewhere, just wasn't sure where to look. I've been thinking of building my own computer too, but I'm nervous about the stability of OSX on a Hackintosh.

zap2 · Oct 23, 2011

That ebay link looks like its a server Mac mini(at least the picture), but if you can only have one, a decent SSD might be worth wild if you can get a nice external drive for big files and back ups.

If you can't get at least a 128GB SSD, I'd avoid it. 256GB would likely be ideal(price vs cost ratio).

Even 7200RPMs HDD aren't really comparable to the speed of a SSD.

tears2040 · Oct 23, 2011

Why would you pay $100+ more for something you can get for less?

http://www.macmall.com/p/Apple-Mac-Mini/product~dpno~8815555~pdp.giecbai

And you can get 8gbs of ram from anywhere for like $40-50

The-Pro · Oct 23, 2011

TheOnlyJon said:
PS. Without removing the optical drive is there any way to install my SSD as a boot/application drive? I'm guessing there isn't enough room.

if you are talking about the mac mini: there is no optical drive in the 2011 mini. Instead it has room for 2 hard drives so you can install both an SSD for yours OS and leave the standard HDD aswell. All you need would be some special cable, you can get it from OWC I think.

philipma1957 · Oct 23, 2011

tears2040 said:
Why would you pay $100+ more for something you can get for less?

http://www.macmall.com/p/Apple-Mac-Mini/product~dpno~8815555~pdp.giecbai

And you can get 8gbs of ram from anywhere for like $40-50

here is my old link that is sold out.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/15067734112...X:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1562.l2649#ht_2677wt_1141

same as this seller

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2011-2-3GHZ...e_Desktops&hash=item2567be227a#ht_2523wt_1398

I no longer have any but I was 40 bucks less for the same exact deal. here is the same machine installed from another seller.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Mac-M...e_Desktops&hash=item2eb89c5802#ht_8525wt_1398

I also sold apple refurbished at good prices they also sold out.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/16066596791...X:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1559.l2649#ht_2350wt_1398

my point is 699 is too high of a price.

you can purchase one from amazon for 568 buy ram for 45 cost 613

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White Macbook 80gb SSD/4gb vs. Mac Mini i5/8gb

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