Any benchmarks comparing 2.3GHz vs. 2.5?

[miked333]

I'm planning on buying a Mac Mini soon and I just can't decide if I need the 2.5GHz model or not. I haven't found any comparisons between them online anywhere.

Probably the most intensive things I do are Camtasia screen capture, editing of those captures and converting in Handbrake. I don't do a lot of DVD rips or converting DVDs or anything like that. I don't do any gaming at all. I have a big iphoto library and use imovie sparingly.

I would like to get the 2.3 and upgrade the RAM, but I don't want to be disappointed with the performance either. Would I see a huge difference in the 2.5GHz model?

Any advice you can give is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Vermifuge]

I'm planning on buying a Mac Mini soon and I just can't decide if I need the 2.5GHz model or not. I haven't found any comparisons between them online anywhere.

Probably the most intensive things I do are Camtasia screen capture, editing of those captures and converting in Handbrake. I don't do a lot of DVD rips or converting DVDs or anything like that. I don't do any gaming at all. I have a big iphoto library and use imovie sparingly.

I would like to get the 2.3 and upgrade the RAM, but I don't want to be disappointed with the performance either. Would I see a huge difference in the 2.5GHz model?

Any advice you can give is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

I think the 2.3 will fit your needs nicely.

 

[ConnorTurnbull]

The Geekbench score is always a good benchmark.

2.3GHz dual-i5 Mini = 5839
2.5GHz dual-i5 Mini = 6472

So there's a fair bit of performance increase. The main benefit is graphics. However, honestly, the 2.3GHz with upgraded RAM will likely be fine for you. Naturally, the best upgrade is to the i7 processor which will deal with converting and encoding better.

For reference:

2.7GHz dual-i7 Mini = 6980
2.0GHz quad-i7 Mini = 8573

 

[Vermifuge]

The Geekbench score is always a good benchmark.

2.3GHz dual-i5 Mini = 5839
2.5GHz dual-i5 Mini = 6472

So there's a fair bit of performance increase. The main benefit is graphics. However, honestly, the 2.3GHz with upgraded RAM will likely be fine for you. Naturally, the best upgrade is to the i7 processor which will deal with converting and encoding better.

For reference:

2.7GHz dual-i7 Mini = 6980
2.0GHz quad-i7 Mini = 8573

But is that worth an additional $400?

 

[indg]

the $599 base model is really targeted more towards the htpc crowd who plan to hook it up to the a single television display and mostly watch videos. they can get by with the base specs "as is" no problem. video doesn't require lots of ram or discrete gpu. you can also do other stuff like web and email, but things will start to bog down real fast due to lack of ram and constant swapping with the paging files.

if you plan to use it as a primary computer, get the $799 model. for $200 more than the base, you get a faster cpu, twice the ram, and discrete gpu. most people can get by with 4gb of ram for general computing tasks (email, web, itunes, iphoto, imovie, iwork, etc.).

if you want a primary computer while spending the least amount of money, get the base $599 and upgrade the ram yourself. it will still be fast enough to do everything you need to do. (i was doing far more with a 5 year old c2d macbook that is considerably slower than the base mini).

 

[miked333]

I'm doing all of my stuff now on a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro with 2 GB of RAM, so I'm thinking any current Mini will be an improvement!

I'm leaning towards the $799 model just so I won't have any regrets. The $999 server model is a bit out of my price range, but would be nice to have!

This Mini will be replacing a 4 year old home built PC that's running some random Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM. It's a noisy beast and I can't wait to get rid of it!