Does anyone run El Capitan on a 2006 mac mini?

[macmee]

I know it's not supported and that you have to do some hackery to get it up and running.

I was wondering though, if it's worth all the hassle. I have a dual 1.8ghz, 3gb of ram and SSD in my 06 mini. I was wondering what performance is like with newer versions of Mac OS?

edit: ah crap it might be a 2007, I can't remember atm but I do know it has a 64bit processor and 32 bit kernel

 

[keysofanxiety]

To put it bluntly: it will perform poo-poo-poorly. This is predominantly due to the graphics card for the animations, though of course the SATA speed, CPU performance, and RAM size/speed will all factor negatively too.

The best OS for your Mac Mini is definitely Snow Leopard.

 

[chrfr]

I know it's not supported and that you have to do some hackery to get it up and running.

I was wondering though, if it's worth all the hassle. I have a dual 1.8ghz, 3gb of ram and SSD in my 06 mini. I was wondering what performance is like with newer versions of Mac OS?

If you haven't swapped the CPU to a Core 2 Duo, trying to get El Capitan (or anything after 10.6.8) running will fail. The newer operating systems require a 64-bit processor like the Core 2 Duo and the Core Duo CPU in the 2006 mini is a 32-bit processor. It's not worth the hassle to try to make El Capitan run even if you do have the Core 2 Duo- performance will be abysmal.

 

[macmee]

If you haven't swapped the CPU to a Core 2 Duo, trying to get El Capitan (or anything after 10.6.8) running will fail. The newer operating systems require a 64-bit processor like the Core 2 Duo and the Core Duo CPU in the 2006 mini is a 32-bit processor. It's not worth the hassle to try to make El Capitan run even if you do have the Core 2 Duo- performance will be abysmal.

Yeah I saw that too! I guess my model has a 64 bit processor but it's running a 32 bit kernel - some other people on the forum have some workarounds to run El Capitan on it (as it is a 64bit processor) but they look painful to setup. I want to see if it's worth while doing but if performance is terrible then I suppose not!

 

[namethisfile]

If you haven't swapped the CPU to a Core 2 Duo, trying to get El Capitan (or anything after 10.6.8) running will fail. The newer operating systems require a 64-bit processor like the Core 2 Duo and the Core Duo CPU in the 2006 mini is a 32-bit processor. It's not worth the hassle to try to make El Capitan run even if you do have the Core 2 Duo- performance will be abysmal.

Hi,

I'd like to interject. El Capitan runs fine on a 20" mid-2007 iMac with 2.4 Ghz Core2Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM. I would even like to add that it runs more than fine. It runs like El Capitan was made for the mid-2007 iMac, if you know what I mean.

 

[chrfr]

Hi,

I'd like to interject. El Capitan runs fine on a 20" mid-2007 iMac with 2.4 Ghz Core2Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM. I would even like to add that it runs more than fine. It runs like El Capitan was made for the mid-2007 iMac, if you know what I mean.

The big difference is that the iMac has a significantly faster CPU and GPU and the Mini can only use 3GB of RAM. The 2006 Mini has only a very slow integrated GPU which will have no acceleration under El Capitan. You can't directly compare the old Mini's performance with the iMac.

 

[macmee]

The big difference is that the iMac has a significantly faster CPU and GPU and the Mini can only use 3GB of RAM. The 2006 Mini has only a very slow integrated GPU which will have no acceleration under El Capitan. You can't directly compare the old Mini's performance with the iMac.

My CPU is a 1.83ghz C2D with only 32mb of vram. I think I can upgrade it to a 2.3ghz C2D but I believe it still just has 32mb of vram

 

[jpietrzak8]

I was wondering though, if it's worth all the hassle. I have a dual 1.8ghz, 3gb of ram and SSD in my 06 mini. I was wondering what performance is like with newer versions of Mac OS?

Unlike some other posters here, I suspect that you could probably run El Cap fairly well on a 1.83 GHz C2D; I'm running it right now on a 2.66 GHz C2D (a 2010 Mini), and its performance is just fine.

However, I'd have to say that just 3 GB of RAM would be pushing things. The resource requirements of OS X have ballooned in the past few years, to the point where the OS can barely fit itself into 2 GB of RAM. Running anything else, like, for example, an e-mail application or a browser is just about impossible. So, with three gigabytes, you'd probably only have about one GB left for any apps after starting El Cap.

 

[MultiFinder17]

The big difference is that the iMac has a significantly faster CPU and GPU and the Mini can only use 3GB of RAM. The 2006 Mini has only a very slow integrated GPU which will have no acceleration under El Capitan. You can't directly compare the old Mini's performance with the iMac.

The big difference is that El Cap is quite literally made to run on the mid-2007 iMac as well

 

[weckart]

The 2006 Mac Mini has the GMA950 integrated GPU. Even retrofitting the partially complete 10.6.2 64 bit drivers makes using this painfully slow. Forget about videos let alone Flash.

I flashed mine to firmware 2,1, put in a C2D CPU and even then there was little point taking it above Lion. One of the memory slots failed, as these are wont to do on this model and that was it for me. Diminishing returns and all that.