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iMac or Mac Mini

I

Isamilis

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 3, 2012
2,047
955
Hi everyone,



I have iMac 2010 whose graphics card already broken, therefore can run in safe mode only. Unfortunately, this is 21.5" which could not be used for external monitor.



I plan to buy the new iMac (late 2013) with the same size, but also considering mac mini due to its separation between CPU and screen.



How do you think heat in the new design iMac - especially 21.5"? My previous iMac was broken because of too much heating - I run parallel desktop for windows gaming. Is the heat is more compared to previous iMac design? Should you put extra fan behind/closed to iMac to compensate heat?



The new iMac is using 5400 rpm, while 2010 version used 7200 rpm harddisk. Do you notice the slowness in the new iMac?



I don't have much budget for having SSD/HDD storage, also not for 5k iMac. My usage will be for kids, their school assignment, basic browsing and sometimes iMovie / iPhoto project creation for our holidays photo and video.



Additional questions for Mac mini owners:
- if I choose Mac mini, can I use 3rd party camera to support photo booth or FaceTime functionality?
- how is the heat inside the box? Do we need to have extra fan outside during heavy load like iMovie creation?
- how durable is Mac mini. This my first time experience using this. How long in average it will last?

Thanks a lot for sharing.
 
Last edited:
Y

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
Isamilis said:
Hi everyone,

I have iMac 2010 whose graphics card already broken, therefore can run in safe mode only. Unfortunately, this is 21.5" which could not be used for external monitor.

I plan to buy the new iMac (late 2013) with the same size, but also considering mac mini due to its separation between CPU and screen.

How do you think heat in the new design iMac - especially 21.5"? My previous iMac was broken because of too much heating - I run parallel desktop for windows gaming. Is the heat is more compared to previous iMac design? Should you put extra fan behind/closed to iMac to compensate heat?

The new iMac is using 5400 rpm, while 2010 version used 7200 rpm harddisk. Do you notice the slowness in the new iMac?

I don't have much budget for having SSD/HDD storage, also not for 5k iMac. My usage will be for kids, their school assignment, basic browsing and sometimes iMovie / iPhoto project creation for our holidays photo and video.

Thanks a lot for sharing.
Click to expand...

The new iMac with a 5400rpm HDD is going to be tortoise-slow. Same goes for the Mac Mini with a 5400rpm drive.

The new iMacs run very cool though - barely a whisper of fans even when doing medium-heavy tasks.

You'll be better off with a 2.6GHz Mac Mini with a 1TB Fusion Drive. Not that pricey and has great performance.
 
I

Isamilis

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 3, 2012
2,047
955
yjchua95, thank you for sharing experience. I also worried about this 5400rpm, especially it's very difficult to replace the HDD by yourself. I saw YouTube video; it's so complicated though.
 
C

cynics

macrumors G4
Jan 8, 2012
11,959
2,154
Isamilis said:
yjchua95, thank you for sharing experience. I also worried about this 5400rpm, especially it's very difficult to replace the HDD by yourself. I saw YouTube video; it's so complicated though.
Click to expand...

You could also use a faster external storage solution later on. Although not as fast it should be plenty fast enough.

Western Digitals MyBook Velociraptor 2TB RAID can be had for around 300 or so.

However it would be best if you could get internal fast storage to begin with.
 
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