Mac Mini End Of Life?

[takao]

on the other side my first generation mac mini doesn't seem to work with my HP w2207 22" lcd over DVI (thus lame VGA .. luckily the screen is still great)
it depends on the pixel clockrate which the screen requires

if it requires 150 instead of 125/130 which is the maximum the first g4 can provide ... you are screwed and have to connect through VGA

 

[MacAngel40]

perhaps I should have noted hat my G4 mini is the "silent upgrade" model.
faster processor, and 64mb VRAM instead of the original 32mb.

But, he was talking about getting a *new* mini.

 

[milo]

It is placed 4 feet from where I am sitting and I honestly can't hear anything from it in normal use, it always surprises me when the fans do speed up when it's working hard.

If you can hear the fans spin up, that's not "virtually silent" is it?

The mini is nowhere close to silent when the fan kicks in. Just because someone hasn't pushed their mini enough to make that happen doesn't mean that it doesn't.

 

[saltyzoo]

If you can hear the fans spin up, that's not "virtually silent" is it?

The mini is nowhere close to silent when the fan kicks in. Just because someone hasn't pushed their mini enough to make that happen doesn't mean that it doesn't.

vir·tu·al·ly (vûrch--l)
adv.
1. In fact or to all purposes; practically: The city was virtually paralyzed by the transit strike.
2. Almost but not quite; nearly: "Virtually everyone gets a headache now and then" People.


Yeah, I'd say mine are virtually silent. Under normal use the fan doesn't kick in high enough to be heard. If you're ripping a movie with handbrake or rendering video, then yeah there is fan noise during the heavy cpu use. Relative to a windows PC "virtually silent" is a very accurate phrase.

 

[milo]

vir·tu·al·ly (vûrch--l)
adv.
1. In fact or to all purposes; practically: The city was virtually paralyzed by the transit strike.
2. Almost but not quite; nearly: "Virtually everyone gets a headache now and then" People.


Yeah, I'd say mine are virtually silent. Under normal use the fan doesn't kick in high enough to be heard. If you're ripping a movie with handbrake or rendering video, then yeah there is fan noise during the heavy cpu use. Relative to a windows PC "virtually silent" is a very accurate phrase.

Sorry, but I just can't agree. Sure, there are other computers that are way louder, but when the fan is going I wouldn't consider it anything near silent.

 

[iCube]

iCube, FWIW
I have two mini's, the G4, and a brand new C2D/2.0/120
both of them have run fine on a 26 inch lcd, and a 37 inch LCD (yes, 37 inches) LOL (it's in my bedrom!!) I have never had ANY problems with either one, and have never had to configure anything....just plug it up (DVI) and it works great!
Don't know if that helps you any, but thought I would share my experience with my mini's.
(both are HDTV, and one for a fact has built in tuner, (can't remember if the 26' one does or not but don't think so, just HD ready on that one) again, fwiw)

Thank you very much MacAngel! That helps a lot!! I bet you love your new 2.0 GHz Mini with the 37"!

 

[Jim Campbell]

Sorry, but I just can't agree. Sure, there are other computers that are way louder, but when the fan is going I wouldn't consider it anything near silent.

Fine. Come round my living room and tell me that you can hear my Mini running, because I can't.

That makes MY Mini, running in MY environment, silent as far as I am concerned.

YOUR Mini in YOUR environment may be different. I wouldn't presume to speak for your experience, though.

Cheers

Jim

 

[penguy]

I still say having discrete GPU makes a huge difference, especially more graphics works in Leopard and for casual gamers especially. Heck the original Mac Mini had it, Integrated Graphics cards should never be included anymore, the more independent memory for each components, it would def help from stealing memory from your RAM sticks

I love my Mini, but have been ready to upgrade for the past 6 months. I chose to wait for Leopard (thereby getting iLife and Leopard (saving $200 over upgrading my current s/w)) and was rewarded with the C2D update as well. Then they went and upgraded the Macbook to the GMA x3100. Maybe not what we all hoped for graphically, but lightyears ahead of the dedicated graphics card that came with my Mini.

Many people seem to be hooked on dedicated cards, but don't look to see if the performance is really any better. The current Mini, even with the 950 is a FAR better performer in anything graphics related than my G4 is with the ATI 9200.

Having said that, I don't want to miss the boat on an upgrade that seems as though it is just around the corner (meaning I find it likely that they will align the Mini with the Macbook once again, fairly soon)

 

[penguy]

Fine. Come round my living room and tell me that you can hear my Mini running, because I can't.

That makes MY Mini, running in MY environment, silent as far as I am concerned.

YOUR Mini in YOUR environment may be different. I wouldn't presume to speak for your experience, though.

Cheers

Jim

I agree, silence is one of the major reasons I love my Mini. People are shocked that it normally makes no noise. Now, give it something challenging, and the fan will kick in, but even then, much more quiet than most computers out there.

 

[takao]

IThen they went and upgraded the Macbook to the GMA x3100. Maybe not what we all hoped for graphically, but lightyears ahead of the dedicated graphics card that came with my Mini.

Many people seem to be hooked on dedicated cards, but don't look to see if the performance is really any better. The current Mini, even with the 950 is a FAR better performer in anything graphics related than my G4 is with the ATI 9200.

my PC from 2002 was a far better performer than my mac mini g4 from 2005 at anything graphics related

actually as far as i heard the new GMA x3100 should be getting close to the ti4200 of the year 2002

 

[penguy]

my PC from 2002 was a far better performer than my mac mini g4 from 2005 at anything graphics related

actually as far as i heard the new GMA x3100 should be getting close to the ti4200 of the year 2002

While I won't claim that my Mini is a screamer, certainly not by todays standards, it was MUCH faster than my 2.0 ghz P4, even after I added an ATI 9600 with 128 mb vram.

difficult to do like to like comparisons there, but watching HD trailers would generally function better. Other areas were likely more to do with the processor and operating system, than the video card.

from what I've read, the x3100 has more power than the ti 4200, but are meant for different generations...the 4200 was DX8, the x3100 for DX10.

Doesn't really matter...it's not as good as today's high end cards, I agree. Incrementally, however, it is far better than what has been offered on the Mini to date.

 

[takao]

well perhaps you had other not so good components in your p4
but i find it strange that a desktop p4 with a 9600 can't outperform a mac mini with a 9200 in 3d... those cards are not even close

and dx8 to dx9 doesn't compare much if you have a fill rate from 2002 since you are bound to play games from that generation anyway

 

[Silverhawk]

Simply put it this way, here's the solution, make the Mac Mini the new Apple TV and lets move away from an ultra compact computer that we can't upgrade aftermarket wise and lets bring back a simple Mac Mini Tower!

 

[shikimo]

I agree, silence is one of the major reasons I love my Mini. People are shocked that it normally makes no noise. Now, give it something challenging, and the fan will kick in, but even then, much more quiet than most computers out there.

Yes, it's true; while I don't really care much about the noise of a PC--I had an emac that sounded like a microwave in my bedroom for 3 years and it didn't bother me--several guests have asked me, "how much noise does that thing make when it's on??" when, in fact, I never turn my mini off. Even when doing CPU-intense stuff it's pretty quiet.

It does, however, make all the noise it can make when running the iTunes album-cover screensaver, which I find odd...

 

[bigbadcompany]

While I won't claim that my Mini is a screamer, certainly not by todays standards, it was MUCH faster than my 2.0 ghz P4, even after I added an ATI 9600 with 128 mb vram.

Sitting here programing graphics on a mac mini I have to say you are simply dreaming.

(Yes I have a Radeon 9600 that I use and compare to as well.)

 

[penguy]

Sitting here programing graphics on a mac mini I have to say you are simply dreaming.

(Yes I have a Radeon 9600 that I use and compare to as well.)

well, perhaps. But I can honestly tell you that no one in my family even starts the pc up (no matter how much I ask them to leave my computer alone). I've added a faster hard drive to it (it came with a 5400 rpm, it now has a 7200), I increased the ram from 512 to 768 (yes, the 256 that came with my mini went to the pc). All of that helped. But, even with the 4200 rpm internal drive it came with, it just does most things better. My primary dissatisfaction was in photo and video editing. Much of that has to do with the s/w you are using, but I did try using Adobe Lightroom Beta on both machines, and the mac performed better. Maybe it was just a bad PC (sony Vaio), I don't know.

If you are speaking about video games, than I'm sure you are correct. I haven't ever loaded video games on the mac, as there were too few, and those that did exist, were not what I wanted.

The only point I was trying to make was that the newer mini's are MUCH faster than mine, and mine ain't so bad

 

[Jazzatola]

I love my Mini, but have been ready to upgrade for the past 6 months. I chose to wait for Leopard (thereby getting iLife and Leopard (saving $200 over upgrading my current s/w)) and was rewarded with the C2D update as well. Then they went and upgraded the Macbook to the GMA x3100.

I'm ready to upgrade my old G4 mini for those same reasons. Isn't the mini made up of laptop parts? Assuming they don't ditch it completely, a refresh can't be too far away can it?

 

[timswim78]

I'm ready to upgrade my old G4 mini for those same reasons. Isn't the mini made up of laptop parts? Assuming they don't ditch it completely, a refresh can't be too far away can it?

Core 2 Duo MacBooks were released on November 8, 2006. Core 2 Duo Mac Mini's were released on August 7, 2007, or 272 days after the Core 2 Duo MacBook.

So, it could be a while before the Mac Mini sees Santa Rosa.

 

[milo]

I'm ready to upgrade my old G4 mini for those same reasons. Isn't the mini made up of laptop parts? Assuming they don't ditch it completely, a refresh can't be too far away can it?

I'd say an upgrade could be incredibly far away, apple has made it obvious that the mini is one of their lowest priority products.

They haven't even put high speed wireless in yet, something that's in every other computer PLUS the cheaper appleTV.

Sometimes I suspect they don't really care about selling the mini and they just keep it around so they can say they have a budget/headless machine (regardless of how bad it is or how few it sells).

 

[OdduWon]

I'd say an upgrade could be incredibly far away, apple has made it obvious that the mini is one of their lowest priority products.

They haven't even put high speed wireless in yet, something that's in every other computer PLUS the cheaper appleTV.

Sometimes I suspect they don't really care about selling the mini and they just keep it around so they can say they have a budget/headless machine (regardless of how bad it is or how few it sells).

The Mini is used to create capital, plane and simple.

 

[Nicholas Mosher]

If the mini came with a good graphics card option I'd buy one.
I do like it's BYODKM approach, a great way to get PC people to turn MAC.

I wonder how many people would pay $799 or $899 for a mini with a nice GPU (I would, hell, I'd pay $1000 for one right now with something like the "aged" ATI X1900 XT). Even if they bumped the case height up an inch or so, it would still be very much mini.

 

[Mayfly]

Game issues on Intel mac minis

A couple of games that worked on our old emac now don't work on our siny new intel mac mini. Age of empires II is the one most distressing the kids. It is just about to fire up then jumps back to the finder. Any thoughts?

 

[milo]

A couple of games that worked on our old emac now don't work on our siny new intel mac mini. Age of empires II is the one most distressing the kids. It is just about to fire up then jumps back to the finder. Any thoughts?

Have the games been updated to universal binaries?

 

[orangeapple]

If the mini came with a good graphics card option I'd buy one.
I do like it's BYODKM approach, a great way to get PC people to turn MAC.

I wonder how many people would pay $799 or $899 for a mini with a nice GPU (I would, hell, I'd pay $1000 for one right now with something like the "aged" ATI X1900 XT). Even if they bumped the case height up an inch or so, it would still be very much mini.

I agree. This is a very underestimated form factor, with room to grow.

 

[cohibadad]

I doubt Apple has any plans soon to discontinue the mini. They use it as their recommended system for a headless cpu connected to DV cam for all of their WWDC demos of podcast producer.