Want a new Mini but I'm confused

[kazmac]

thank you for explaining this Talmy

They won't. The reason for the AE/TC shape is to house the antennas. The mini is the last Mac (other than the obviously EOL "Classic" MacBookPro) to have an IR receiver for a remote and a FW800 port. Maybe the IR receiver might stay but the FW800 port is sure to go. Minis have had the fewest changes since they first came out than any other Mac line.

Appreciate the info. I though the new AE/TC shape had to do with the antenna change. Glad to hear that the Minis probably will not go the tall route.

 

[barkmonster]

I'd keep the existing screens and mouse/keyboard combination you already have for now to keep initial costs down, then buy the 2.3Ghz 2012 model from a reseller, not Apple, to keep costs down even further, then shop around for the other additions.

Nobody in their right mind would pay almost the cost of the 2.3Ghz new for a 2Ghz 2011 model as a refurb.

Over the past 6 years I've bought 6 Minis. With the exception of the 2008 and 2009 Minis which had older cases with external power supplies, all the other Minis I bought were servers from the refurbished store.

With the exception of the 2 Minis, which are really used as small business servers, the other 2 Mini Servers are actually being used as media servers at home and for video editing.

I would suggest you to pick a Mac Mini Server from the refurbished store. By doing that, you get a quad core CPU and two 1TB internal drives. If you pick a regular Mini and upgrade the CPU during the purchase and add a second hard drive from OWC or iFixit, it will almost come to the same price as picking a up server from the refurb store.

if you pick a new generation server (Mac Mini 6.2), it will have USB3 pots as well, which gives you almost identical speeds for the external USB drives compared to the internal HDD (measured by Black Magic).

Having said that, if you replace one of the drives with an SSD then you would have a very capable and a satisfying machine.

The quad core in the 2011 server is slower than the quad core in the 2.3Ghz Mac Mini and not by the obvious Mhz reason, by actual performance scores. It also lacks USB 3.0 for cheap, fast external storage and if external was the goal, those dual internal 500Gb drives are a waste of money.

Also the base 2.3Ghz system is available from online resellers a lot cheaper than Apple charge for it retail.

 

[sahni130]

Maybe we should change the title of this thread!

Ive came to the conclusion/decision that I'd like another iMac instead. Instead of purchasing the Mini and have all sorts of wires, etc running every where, I canto for a cleaner solution, with dedicated graphics. I've found a few good deals. I've read the 660M in the iMacs is good for basic-midrange lads/games, so I assume it'll run most of the Call of Duty and Sim City games at full hd? I'll be planning to keep the Mac for 4 years or so. Will it be able to stream/run 4K videos?


2.9 Ghz i5, GTX660m 512MB, 8GB Ram (32 in the next few months)

MODS: you may delete this thread if you wish.


thanks
Jay