iMovie user...should I upgrade my Mini?

[ericinboston]

Hi all! I have a Mini from 2007 (right after the refresh in late summer '07 so it has the 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo). We really only use the Mini for iMovie and iDVD.

Currently it has the stock 160gig 5400rpm drive and 2gig RAM.

I am considering upgrading the RAM to 4gig and the drive to a 320gig 7200rpm and reinstall the OS (there really isn't anything on the Mini to back up).

But, even though technically this will make the Mini perform better, will I see much of a true performance improvement when using iMovie and iDVD? I mean, the rendering takes F O R E V E R currently in iMovie and ditto for whatever iDVD is doing when it is trying to make the master before burning the dvd.

I believe most of the perf problems are due to the drive speed but it also never hurts to have as much ram as you can afford. 🙂

So...would you bother with all the egg-shell-tip-toeing I need to do to upgrade it or just leave it alone? We only make a few movies a year...$90 is not a problem on the upgraded parts. I'd love to hear from people who did a similar upgrade for the purpose of iMovie and iDVD...

Thanks in advance!

-Eric

 

[MTI]

You're more likely to see a bigger improvement in rendering times by investing in an ouboard H.264 device, like the Elgato Turbo or Turbo HD.