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So exicted for new Mini I ordered!

Sean Dempsey

Sean Dempsey

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 7, 2006
1,622
8
I finally did it.

Ordered the i7 Mac Mini with the 7200rpm drive. Got 8 gigs of ram and a SSD electra from OWC, and the Mac Mini drive doubler from ifixit.com.

I am excited to test this sucker out. I know it won't be quite as fast as a iMac, but I get to keep the Mini and my TB display separate, so either can be upgraded or moved (ie: a much better Mini is released soon, I take this one and make it a media server, and take the SSD out of it for the new one).

So many options. Can't wait to see what the i7 and the 6gbs SSD can do!!!!!!
 
Enjoy your new mini.

I have a mid 2010 mini and still really like it, even though the 2011 models are considerably faster. Ours is on 24/7 serving up iTunes content and we've never had a problem with it.
 
I just got a new Mini on Thursday. i5 2.5GHz model, the one with discrete graphics, base 500GB hard drive. I upped it to 8GB of RAM. It's my first Mac. I absolutely love it.
 
Agreed! Enjoy your new mac!

I have an i5 here with 4 gigs of ram. And too be honest? I never thought I would be able to leave my G5 behind. In the months I have had the mini? The G5 is gone, the iLamp G4? Gone. Though now I am looking for a laptop for mobility.

~Drake
 
DrakkenWar said:
I have an i5 here with 4 gigs of ram. And too be honest? I never thought I would be able to leave my G5 behind. In the months I have had the mini? The G5 is gone, the iLamp G4? Gone. Though now I am looking for a laptop for mobility.

~Drake
Click to expand...

Then, the Air is waiting for you to check it out!
 
And how right you are!

I have had my eye on the 13's for awhile now. However, it will take a bit of time to save the funds to get the one I have my eyes on.

I was thinking of an older core 2 being that as I write this on my wife's core 2 macbook, it does everything I ask of it and then some. More so than anything she can throw at it.

MacOfAllTrades, has some screaming deals on on newer hardware. So I think I will drink the tea of save my butt off, spend the extra and max out the return.

~Drake
 
I fugcked it up.

I got the ifixit 2nd hard drive kit.

Got it all successfully disassembled, went to reassemble with the new drive and the ribbon cable that connects the 2nd drive to the logic board, and I mistakenly tried to run that ribbon over the original hard drive, and not sandwiched between the 2 drives. It clearly wouldn't fit that way. But in the process, I got a small rip in the ribbon cable.

totally useless. $70 wasted. I had to order the ENTIRE new kit to get the cable since they don't offer the cable alone. Another $70.

So if you're using the ifixit 2nd hard drive kit for the 2011 mac mini, be careful. =(
 
Sean,

Sean Dempsey said:
I fugcked it up.
(...)
So if you're using the ifixit 2nd hard drive kit for the 2011 mac mini, be careful. =(
Click to expand...

I was thinking it was extremely courageous of you to dive in the deep end. I share your excitement about getting my first mac (mini 2010 will be mine in about 3 weeks' time) and I looked at swapping out lots of stuff, too. But the guides and the reports by users who did this, are not very encouraging. I have done laptop repair, but this is a bit trickier.

I hope it all works now. Tell us how your i7+6G SSD flies !


Peter.
 
Sean Dempsey said:
I fugcked it up.

I got the ifixit 2nd hard drive kit.

Got it all successfully disassembled, went to reassemble with the new drive and the ribbon cable that connects the 2nd drive to the logic board, and I mistakenly tried to run that ribbon over the original hard drive, and not sandwiched between the 2 drives. It clearly wouldn't fit that way. But in the process, I got a small rip in the ribbon cable.

totally useless. $70 wasted. I had to order the ENTIRE new kit to get the cable since they don't offer the cable alone. Another $70.

So if you're using the ifixit 2nd hard drive kit for the 2011 mac mini, be careful. =(
Click to expand...

I have a naked spare cable. pm me
 
I was able to get the cable in and installed.

It's actually a huge, huge disappointment. This is the fastest mini, with a 120gb OWC Electra 6g as the drive with everything on it, and it benchmarks the same as my 2011 MBA Ultimate.

I had thought the dedicated graphics would make all my design and photoshop work faster, but the screen is just as laggy, and the "photoshop speed test" is just about the same.

There's a 80% chance I'm going to return the machine today and just forget about it. I had thought it would be a strong alternative to use the MBA, but they appear to be about almost the same, and for that kind of money it cost for the Mini, I'm just as happy plugging the MBA into the TB display.
 
Sean Dempsey said:
It's actually a huge, huge disappointment. This is the fastest mini, with a 120gb OWC Electra 6g as the drive with everything on it, and it benchmarks the same as my 2011 MBA Ultimate.

I had thought the dedicated graphics would make all my design and photoshop work faster, but the screen is just as laggy, and the "photoshop speed test" is just about the same.
Click to expand...

I simply refuse to believe this! Are you sure the 6G SSD drive is anchored correctly?
 
Confuzzzed said:
I simply refuse to believe this! Are you sure the 6G SSD drive is anchored correctly?
Click to expand...

Anchored correctly? I presume you're joking.

But just to answer - yes. The SSD is fine and has OS X and all my apps on it.

Geekbench score for Mac Mini: 6979
Geekbench score for MBA 2011: 5854


Just not worth the money.
 
Geekbench does not measure hard drives and amount of RAM makes very little difference (4GB+). It also does not measure GPU performance. It's primarily a CPU benchmark which is why it'll score very close to the MacBook Air.
 
Since you already have the Air, no maybe it's not worth the money for you. However, considering that the Mini dual core 2.7ghz i7 is $899 that you can swap out hard drives in, swap out RAM easier, has a 500gb hard drive (granted it's not SSD), and 6630M discreet graphics VS a 13" MBA ultimate at $1700 that is running a dual 1.8ghz i7, 256 gigs of disk space, 4 gigs of RAM, and HD3000 integrated video.... if somebody is looking for a desktop solution and doesn't have an alternate computer already, I think this Mini still does make a lot of sense.
 
Sean Dempsey said:
Geekbench score for Mac Mini: 6979
Geekbench score for MBA 2011: 5854


Just not worth the money.
Click to expand...


Hmm, this info is online - http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/ - not sure why you bought a mini to test for yourself.

I have an Air and a Mini (2.7 i7) and I use both for Photoshop. For simple projects, they feel similar. But when things get complicated (e.g. working simultaneously on a bunch of 16bit multi-layered files), the mini is much faster (I have 16Gb RAM in mine).

If you're not taxing the Air's 4Gb RAM limit, then the mini will not appear much faster than the Air.
 
There's nothing wrong with the Mini

Just when I come home, it's not worth my money to have a Mini plugged in to my TB when I can just plug the MBA into the TB.

It was one computer too many, and since I don't want to pay for a Mac Pro, MBP, or high end iMac, the MBA will have to do.
 
If you're simply plugging the Mac mini into a display, I don't see the need for it as you have said, the MacBook Air works fine.
 
It can be a drag when you are expecting 50 percent improvement and get 10 or 15 %. I would return it.

I would wait for a 2012 mini and buy a server model if it had intel 4000 graphics I would run a few tests with it and see if it is faster then your mba if not I would return that. Sometimes this happens.

Also remember geekbench is a cpu tester.

xbench will test your hdds better.

but what really matters is how the machine works in your own setup.

I am now selling off one of my server minis and putting in a 2010 2.4 model in its place. my home will have 3 2010 minis and one 2011 server mini along with a synology nas. this will do the job for me allowing al 4 tvs to run as computers with dvrs. all accessing music or movies. there was a time I would curse the 2.4 2010 mac mini now at 469 at the refurb store it works well for me. just add 30 dollars in ram .
 
It was the Photoshop work. I design UI and such, and the zoom in/out was just choppy. Same as on the MBA.

But, I thought the discrete graphics on the Mini would be better than the shared graphics on the Air.

Problem is - I use the top-end imac with 16gb of ram and a 2nd thunderbolt display at work, and it's almost instantaneously responsive in Photoshop.

Guess I shouldn't compare a $3000 imac to a $1100 mini.
 
no the 6970m gpu on an iMac will crush the gpu on any mini.

the lessor model has 1gb vs 256mb of ddr5 ram it is far better.

The best comparison I have is scotch; have a shot of johnny walker black and a shot of johnny walker blue. Once you taste the difference you don't want the black at 25 a bottle. The 149 a bottle blue is just sooo smooth.
 
philipma1957 said:
The best comparison I have is scotch; have a shot of johnny walker black and a shot of johnny walker blue. Once you taste the difference you don't want the black at 25 a bottle. The 149 a bottle blue is just sooo smooth.
Click to expand...
Ah, now you're talkin'! Now really, JW, in either color, is not a Scotch at all. I must admit I like it and it it makes a good addition to coffee on a cold night, but do yourself a "flavor" and try some really good, real Scotch, Bowmore, any version 12 years or older, you may never be able to go back to JW. http://www.whisky.com/brands/bowmore_brand.html
:cool::):cool:
 
Hey, I was assuming that since Photoshop doesnt really require that much of intense GPU work, the Mac Mini did not use the AMD GPU for this? I think there are some apps that alow you to use the AMD GPU for 24/7.
 
davidlv said:
Ah, now you're talkin'! Now really, JW, in either color, is not a Scotch at all. I must admit I like it and it it makes a good addition to coffee on a cold night, but do yourself a "flavor" and try some really good, real Scotch, Bowmore, any version 12 years or older, you may never be able to go back to JW. http://www.whisky.com/brands/bowmore_brand.html
:cool::):cool:
Click to expand...

I also prefer single malt whisky over a blend. I will need to look at your link to see what comes to mind.
 
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