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Is a new mini faster than my 1gHz G4 Sawtooth

R

rtjstevens

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 20, 2004
135
14
Sheffield + Bath UK
Hi, (a supplementary to another thread),
I have a G4 with Radeon 9000 (64mB).
Will a 1.4 mac mini be appreaceably faster?

Fo those that live in the UK:
Apple ed discount means a 1.4 mini costs £525 with a 1gHz memory card, yet MacSol in Sheffield sell the same for £490.00 (Mini is £409 + 1gHz memory is £81 if bought at the same time) All prices include VAT. I'm tempted as a tide-me -over.

What do the gurus think?
Thanks

RTJ
 
Yes, I thing that the new Mac mini will be faster. You will be getting newer technology such as HD and video card. Also adding 1GB of RAM will improve performance.
 
do this

Just Xbench your Sawtooth as a rough guide, & compare it to the mini results on Xbench site.

If it's a goer then do this:

Go Apple Ed for the middle mini & use this £35 off voucher (runs out tomorrow - NW19AHPWGC ). Use crucial to get you a 1Gb stick of ram for £82 & sell the 512mb stick on ebay for about £20-£30.

The £35 voucher is for items to the value of £349 ex vat (i think the superdrive mini comes under this or the combo with wired keyboard & mouse).

Hurry offer ends tomorrow.
 
check it out

acedickson said:
Xbench it. I scored 117 on the new mini in my sig.
Click to expand...

If you get a 7200rpm drive (i have tried on my rev A) the Xbench is something like 139 (142 with a slight overclock to 1.5).

This was one of the annoying things about the Rev B (if it can be called that), by removing just 1 resistor from the 1.4 it becomes a 1.5 - no other motherboard changes needed. It would have been so easy for Apple to offer a high end 1.5Ghz.

Anyway don't overclock if you want to keep your warranty, the 7200rpm drive makes the biggest difference (if noisy). The stock mini 80Gb is a 4200rpm so even a 5400rpm drive will make a difference - I'm going to try a Western Digital Scorpio 5400rpm drive - if TNT PULL THEIR FINGER OUT & ACTUALLY DELIVER IT!! (I hate this company).
 
Thanks

alexeismertin said:
Just Xbench your Sawtooth as a rough guide, & compare it to the mini results on Xbench site.

If it's a goer then do this:

Go Apple Ed for the middle mini & use this £35 off voucher (runs out tomorrow - NW19AHPWGC ). Use crucial to get you a 1Gb stick of ram for £82 & sell the 512mb stick on ebay for about £20-£30.

The £35 voucher is for items to the value of £349 ex vat (i think the superdrive mini comes under this or the combo with wired keyboard & mouse).

Hurry offer ends tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that! My present Xbench score on my G4 Sawtooth is 94.23 so the Mini would show an improvement (shame about the silly video card not supporting CoreImage completely though). I looked at the scores for the iBook (roughly the same as for the mini -as you'd expect), but the iMac scores are almost twice my present benchmark - I'm tempted by one of these now. Time to got o the pub and mull things over.
Thanks again (to everyone)
BW

RTJ
 
If it's a tide-me-over I'd upgrade your Sawtooth. You can easily get it running faster than a new Mac mini, in total system performance terms. It depends if you're planning on selling your Sawtooth. I assume you already have a CPU upgrade in it - why not sell that and get a faster one? Bang a video card upgrade (e.g. a modded 9600 from a PMG5) and a 7200rpm drive in and you're ahead of a Mac mini.
 
rtjstevens said:
the iMac scores are almost twice my present benchmark - I'm tempted by one of these now. Time to got o the pub and mull things over.
Thanks again (to everyone)
BW

RTJ
Click to expand...

Xbench Results (revised - these are actual figures, the previous ones were from the top of my head)

Mini 1.42 + *7200rpm HD + 1Gb ram----136.45
Mini 1.50 + *7200rpm HD + 1Gb ram----139.85

iMac G5 1.8Ghz (Auto)--------------------140.23
iMac G5 1.8Ghz (Highest)-----------------166.03

Rev B 1.42Ghz + **5400rpm + 1GB------132.45

* Hitachi Travelstar 40Gb (7K60)
** Western Digital Scorpio 80Gb 8mb buffer (WD800VE)
 
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