is something wrong with my mini?!?

[wilmor42]

hello, i finally recieved my mac mini yesterday, updated all the software.. Running 10.3.8.. ran xbench (with my original 256mb ram) and got a score of 119.74 which i thought was ok seeing as my powerbook with 1.25 gb ram scores 99.. then today i opened up the mini (alot of fun) and stuck in a 1gb ram stick, rebooted then ran xbench again and i scored 120.19.. Wtf?

surely its supposed to score higher right?? the ram was still in its sealed packet, not touched until i put it in the mini, system profiler rcognises the ram but i dunno whats goin on, can anyone help?

 

[Bear]

xbench doesn't do anything really memory intensive, so adding more memory won't necessarily change your xbench scores.

 

[PlaceofDis]

i agree with Bear, plus Xbench isnt always the say be all end all when it comes to testing speeds and whatnot

 

[wilmor42]

okay, thanks for the replies.. but in that case..
how come i see scores from mini's like mine on the xbench comparrison site and they're higher scores-i even found a 1.25ghz mini that scored more than mine!?

 

[Bear]

okay, thanks for the replies.. but in that case..
how come i see scores from mini's like mine on the xbench comparrison site and they're higher scores-i even found a 1.25ghz mini that scored more than mine!?

How many times in a row did you run x-bench? Do the systems have the same model disk, etc. xbench numbers are only meaningful in a limited way.

Does the machine do what you want it to do? Does it seem fast enough? That's all that matters really.

 

[wilmor42]

yeah ur right

im totally happy with the mini, i'll see how the ram handles the synths i use in Digital performer, thats my main use, and my powerbook handles that fine, im just being picky..

 

[za9ra22]

Adding memory isn't something I'd expect to cause a bump in benchmark results since what the added memory does more than anything is reduce the number of 'page outs' that the system has to do. Since page outs are when MacOS shifts memory contents to the hard drive (and then subsequently back again) and since the hard drive is noticably slower than RAM, page outs cause Macs to slow down. Thus, more memory means that in normal use, the system will run quicker and feel far more responsive, but in benchmarks will make no difference unless the benchmark test contains memory dumps to HD and from the HD.