Mac Mini Purchased!

[Shayne]

I've been waiting on this for a long while. Its sort of the perfect storm really. An Apple Mini-Tower is never gonna happen and since I already own duel displays getting an iMac just wasn't worth it as one of them would have to go.

So I ordered my Mac Mini about 3 minutes ago. Delivery is expected to be some time next week...

Mac mini Intel Core 2 Duo
Part Number: Z0FX
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
User's Guide (English)
Accessory kit
320GB Serial ATA Drive
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

$1,184.00

Ships: 1 - 3 business days
Delivers: 6 Mar - 13 Mar​

...thats from the Canadian Educational store.

 

[phobic99]

Congrats. I plan on doing the same soon but I'll be buying the base model and upgrading to 4GB of RAM and maybe a 500GB HDD for a mere $150 USD.

 

[Shayne]

I thought about going that way but I wanted the 256MB of video vs. the 128MB in the base model. Memory pricing wasn't bad at about $110 i think for the 4GB where as the best I can do in Canada for the 2x2 is about $85 so im not saving a lot and also being pretty wasteful if I can't find a buyer for the 2x1.

Strange the the video card uses shared memory but its limited some how in the cheaper one. Maybe it goes up with more memory?

The drive is the one thing though that I might replace. 5400 i think will just be too painful to use compare to a 7200.

 

[TechViking]

I thought about going that way but I wanted the 256MB of video vs. the 128MB in the base model. Memory pricing wasn't bad at about $110 i think for the 4GB where as the best I can do in Canada for the 2x2 is about $85 so im not saving a lot and also being pretty wasteful if I can't find a buyer for the 2x1.

Strange the the video card uses shared memory but its limited some how in the cheaper one. Maybe it goes up with more memory?

The drive is the one thing though that I might replace. 5400 i think will just be too painful to use compare to a 7200.

Why are you buying the 320gb HD if you plan to replace it?

And the extra $110 for the 4gb would be from the 2gb right? I guess from 1gb to 4gb is much more.

I am thinking of getting the 1gb , 120 gb version and upgrade to 4gb and a 7200 rpm HD. Anyone have an idea for the best 7200 rpm HD at 320Gb or above?

I would prefer expensive and silent to cheap and noisy.

 

[Keleko]

If you buy the base level Mac Mini and upgrade the memory, you'll get more video memory, too, since it uses shared memory. The amount of video memory available depends on how much system memory you have installed.

 

[robotartfashion]

If you buy the base level Mac Mini and upgrade the memory, you'll get more video memory, too, since it uses shared memory. The amount of video memory available depends on how much system memory you have installed.

we've been discussing this on different threads,

so does that mean that if you get the base model and add 4 gb of ram to it you'll have access to the 256 video ram?

 

[robotartfashion]

Why are you buying the 320gb HD if you plan to replace it?

And the extra $110 for the 4gb would be from the 2gb right? I guess from 1gb to 4gb is much more.

I am thinking of getting the 1gb , 120 gb version and upgrade to 4gb and a 7200 rpm HD. Anyone have an idea for the best 7200 rpm HD at 320Gb or above?

I would prefer expensive and silent to cheap and noisy.

i've heard great things about the western digital scorpio 320gb 7200 rpm hd, its on sale at newegg right now

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280&cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-22-136-280-_-Product

that's $79.99 w/free shipping

 

[phobic99]

Well I just bought my base model Mini. I'm having a hard time on where I want to put it though. I have an alum Macbook that I primarily use now along side my gaming PC so I'll either swap that for the new Mini. If I put the Mini here, I'll have the Macbook for portability.

OR

I'll use the Mini as a new HTPC to swap out the crappy HP system I'm using at the moment. Then again, I may sell the Macbook, buy another Mini, then buy a cheap netbook or something else for my portable needs. Ugh.

What to do... what to do??

 

[Santabean2000]

Well I just bought my base model Mini. I'm having a hard time on where I want to put it though. I have an alum Macbook that I primarily use now along side my gaming PC so I'll either swap that for the new Mini. If I put the Mini here, I'll have the Macbook for portability.

OR

I'll use the Mini as a new HTPC to swap out the crappy HP system I'm using at the moment. Then again, I may sell the Macbook, buy another Mini, then buy a cheap netbook or something else for my portable needs. Ugh.

What to do... what to do??

Sounds like you have some figuring out of "what do I really need here?".

If you're just buying up stuff because it's new and shiny, I 'need' a new mini too please...

 

[bezerk3r86]

we've been discussing this on different threads,

so does that mean that if you get the base model and add 4 gb of ram to it you'll have access to the 256 video ram?

Notice that the higher model has 256MB shared VRAM with 2GB DDR3 RAM. It's like saying that you'll get 512MB for the 9400M if you put 4GB.

 

[And]

Notice that the higher model has 256MB shared VRAM with 2GB DDR3 RAM. It's like saying that you'll get 512MB for the 9400M if you put 4GB.

According to a poster on another thread who has added the ram himself the video ram stays at 256 with 4gb in...

 

[phobic99]

Sounds like you have some figuring out of "what do I really need here?".

If you're just buying up stuff because it's new and shiny, I 'need' a new mini too please...

Yes, I do it far too often since I'm a gadget whore. *sigh*

I think I will use the Mini as my main PC when it arrives tomorrow and the gaming Windows PC will be powered off until I want to actually game (since it's using a 640W PSU). HTPC option will have to wait for now.

I'm thinking about selling my alum Macbook though and getting a netbook since those are far more portable (and underpowered of course).

What kind of Mini would you like? Maybe I'm in the giving mood as well. (probably not...)

 

[panzer06]

Congrats. I plan on doing the same soon but I'll be buying the base model and upgrading to 4GB of RAM and maybe a 500GB HDD for a mere $150 USD.

I did exactly that last night. Newegg and Apple got a bit more of my money!

Cheers,

 

[PaulieORF]

Hi guys, this is my first post.

I ordered a customized configureation of the higher end mini yesterday. I'm wondering what the typical time from order to ship is on a customized Mac from the Apple online store. Thanks.

 

[Drumerdude]

Nice job on getting a new mac mini. I hope to get one soon.

 

[Shayne]

Following the forum over the last 24 hours led me to canceling my order, scoring the cheap one and picking up 4GB and a 320 7.2K drive third party like. Works out to being about $850ish. Only negative is that I couldnt get the faster CPU going this route.

 

[PaulieORF]

I ordered my custom config (with the CPU upgrade and RAM) yesterday morning (10:00ish). At that time they said it will ship in 3-5 days. They now just sent me an email saying "Good news, your mac will ship sooner than expected. It is expected to ship on March 10th. Don't see how 5 days (when they said 3-5) is sooner than expected. Oh well, I guess I underestimated how long this would take, but I definitaely wanted the upgraded CPU.

 

[jesterscourt]

...an email saying "Good news, your mac will ship sooner than expected. It is expected to ship on March 10th. Don't see how 5 days (when they said 3-5) is sooner than expected. Oh well, I guess I underestimated how long this would take, but I definitely wanted the upgraded CPU.

I got the same email! It made me excited at first, until I thought about it for a minute.

 

[penguy]

I did exactly that last night. Newegg and Apple got a bit more of my money!

Cheers,

for any of you who have installed or will install a larger and faster drive, do you have any concern about increased heat? ie, the 7200 rpm vs the 5400 rpm drives?

I was leaning on the cheap side for the 320 gb Hitachi for $72., but I see some favor the WD for about $90. why?

 

[phobic99]

for any of you who have installed or will install a larger and faster drive, do you have any concern about increased heat? ie, the 7200 rpm vs the 5400 rpm drives?

I was leaning on the cheap side for the 320 gb Hitachi for $72., but I see some favor the WD for about $90. why?

if you mean the WD Scorpio Black 320GB HDD, it's a far superior drive. It's favored because of 2 reasons: It's fast and near silent.

 

[MagicBoy]

Went to the local Apple store on a whim and and picked up a basic 2.0GHz/1GB/120Gb model last night, using it now.

Will be getting a 4GB upgrade next week, probably from crucial. Storage not an issue as I've existing firewire drives from the MBP. Seems fine for general use on the base 1GB for the moment.

 

[brand]

Storage not an issue as I've existing firewire drives from the MBP. Seems fine for general use on the base 1GB for the moment.

Storage size might not be an issue but what about hard drive speed?

 

[tobyg]

According to a poster on another thread who has added the ram himself the video ram stays at 256 with 4gb in...

Yes, partially correct but I need to confirm 100% again tonight.

In OSX I am pretty sure with even 4GB it showed 256MB VRAM.

But, I reinstalled XP last night and when booted into XP I get about 2.8GB of RAM and I checked in the nVidia control panel/system info and it said it was using 512MB VRAM. This makes sense, as it probably should have seen 3.3GB of RAM in XP but with the 512MB missing it was down to 2.8GB.

So again, I'll verify tonight but I think OSX with 4GB or 2GB sees 256MB VRAM, but XP with 4GB will see 512MB VRAM.

 

[MagicBoy]

Storage size might not be an issue but what about hard drive speed?

Ran my MBP for a couple of years on the original 80GB drive using it for the OS and apps, with an external Firewire 400 drive for occasional data and backup. I had no complaints about the performance, so Firewire 800 is the same only better. USB - now that sucks for storage performance...

If it irks me too much in the long run then I'll swap out the drive.

 

[OneMike]

Been getting a lot of exercise doing all this fence jumping. I think I'm going to pick up a Mini today.