the sockets look the same, but the pinout is different and you need a 945pm/gm/gt chipset to use yonahs so dothan cpus are not compatible.
(and then it's the whole lacking of feature set and what-not but that's already covered in other topics...)
I think you're right. It looks like the 945gm is Yonah only. I guess Steve wanted to ship now instead of waiting until the Celeron Yonahs come out (May?)
As someone that as looking at an iMac the new mini is a good deal since like any mini owner I already have a screen, keyboard, and mouse.
How can you guys hate on that? I might have just saved 40 bucks for a machine not lacking in much other than graphics."
In American money it's $1249 vs $1299 baseline iMac how is that a bad deal for a core duo with 2gb ram and 120gig hd? [/B]
Uh, even ignoring the fact that the cost of the 17" iMac includes a brand new 17" LCD, keyboard & Mighty Mouse (your hypothetical situation has the new Mac mini owner using their old, rusty, crusty monitor (might even be CRT?!?), keyboard & mouse...
What about the included iSight & stereo speakers...?!?
Not to mention the slick all-in-one design...
Sorry dude, glad you are not in charge of purchasing in my company...!
I think you're right. It looks like the 945gm is Yonah only. I guess Steve wanted to ship now instead of waiting until the Celeron Yonahs come out (May?)
The whole thing with the Yonah is that Steve wanted to start shipping/transitioning ASAP...
Otherwise, Yonah is THE transitional CPU, where the nex-gen Merom/Conroe/Woodcrest family is the REAL Intel CPUs Steve had his eye on when he first informed us (the Mac faithful) of the switch to Intel..
All 64-bit goodness, for the spec whores... But Apple still has the spectre of Motorola hanging over them, what with the bottleneck at the Front-Side Bus following them from CPU supplier to CPU supplier... Time will tell...
Hopefully Mac OS X 10.5 aka Leopard will be fully 64-bit compliant, both the command line & the GUI...
Me, I am just jonesing for an Apple tablet:
8" widescreen multi-touch LCD
1.06GHz ULV Core Duo CPU w/2MB shared cache
533MHz FSB
2GB DDR2 SDRAM (two SO-DIMM slots)
80GB 1.8" HDD
Intel GMA950 integrated GPU
WUSB (wireless USB)
AirPort Extreme
BlueTooth
Pivoting iSight camera
stereo BlueTooth headset w/microphone
Stylus
About the size of a DVD case (which is really close to a 16:10 ratio) and half again as thick...
Uh, even ignoring the fact that the cost of the 17" iMac includes a brand new 17" LCD, keyboard & Mighty Mouse (your hypothetical situation has the new Mac mini owner using their old, rusty, crusty monitor (might even be CRT?!?), keyboard & mouse...
What about the included iSight & stereo speakers...?!?
Not to mention the slick all-in-one design...
Sorry dude, glad you are not in charge of purchasing in my company...!
Thing is not everyone wants to have 2 screens, and the rest of the stuff isn't crusty, not at all.
If I was buying for a company why would need to get maxed out minis? Or mini's at all? Obviously a new company with that needs all new stuff I would get iMacs.
I'm talking about people. There are people like me that want pretty good power but headless, the mini is it, for 75 bucks less than an iMac I get core duo 2gig ram, 120hd and all those upgrades can be found cheaper if you look around.
Now you tell me that I can save 75 dollars and up for a computer pretty comparable to an iMac and when it's outlived its self all I have to do is sell the box instead of the whole system and start from scratch, and I'll listen.
Also this doesn't have be done all at once I can spend 799 up front and upgrade at my leisure ending up with essentally an imac over time. Bad deal? I don't think so.
So there's 1299 upfront for the imac and after adding 2gigs of ram (the most important upgrade to me) it's a 1599 machine.
Then there's 799 upfront for the mini and after adding 2gigs of ram (once again the most important upgrade to me) and the 120hd(just to make it size comparable to the imac) it's a 1224 machine.
No matter which I get I would max out the ram for sure.
That's a 375 difference a BIG difference to me.
I had an imac when I was ready to upgrade I lost everything I owned since I had to sell together, not everyone wants to at square one again, especially since at that time I was considering getting a powermac, a screen keyboard and mouse would have made the upgrade quite less expensive.
-------------
That said in my particular case I already own a bunch of nice shit and an external mini sized hd I'd be paying 1099 for core duo and 2gig ram.
Why would I want an iMac again? The only real important drawback is graphics which isn't a big deal to me as long as it can handle fcp hdv editing which next month I'll find out.
-------------
You mention a business? Like I said I wasn't planning for a business but if I was like I said iMacs are good.
Obviously the office has a server so hd space isn't really important.
But then again I could just almost CERTAINLY get away with the stock core solo mini (if I wanted to I could upgrade them all to 1gb ram) and then just get some volume discounts from dell on 15 inch lcds(probably like 199 per monitor) and so do the same with dell or anyother company for the mouse and keyboard.
So that's iMac 1299 per machine.
Or mini(599), 15" lcd(199), 50(probably less) for keyboard+mouse = 848 per machine. $451 is a lot for a business.
I don't know what kind of business your talking about though, which ultimately would dictate your machine but for a general office from what I've seen the computers suck ass so that mini config should run circles around a regular office, especially if I felt like making them all have 1gb ram each.
So what if there's integrated graphics in that option?
I've spent some time working in offices, the screens(still mostly crt) suck, the computers suck as well, that mini would rape an average office environment for non-upper level employees.
Once you're something slightly upper level, they get a imac or core duo mini and 17" screen depending on what prices they're offering me.
Businesses always get discounts.
But once again you never said what kind of business.
But once again you never said what kind of business.
Architecture, actually... Less than a dozen employees, so low to mild strain on the network/servers...
Looking to move the Dell/Windows units out and the Apple/OS X units in...
20" iMacs for the worker bees...
15" MacBook Pro & 23" ACD for the principals...
A pair of Mac mini Core Duos running Mac OS X Server (one a File & Print server; the other a Database server), each with a pair of Lacie HDDs in RAID 1 mode...
(Believe me, a Mac mini will more than suffice to replace the aging Dell server sitting here...)
I could even put an AirPort Express up by the receptionist, and attach her copy/fax/laserprinter & a shiny new iPod HiFi unit...
Same deal. "My guess is that it will likely support [Aperture] but will be pokey."
But like Rosetta, pokey may be too slow depending on what you're doing and what you're used to.
Just make sure to max out the Ram.
I sort of disagree...
With a native version - I am confident that this would be a more than adequate machine for Aperture. Especially if the 950 is configured with a large video ram buffer. (I think it can go up to 256M) The hardware pixel processing is adequate too.
These Intel chips are sluggish when the polygon count gets high. The performance bottleneck seems to be vertices - and that would not be an issue for Aperture.
With Motion, it's less clear-cut. Typical Motion scenes would render well - but scenes with particle style effects (hundreds or thousands of sprites etc) would start to reveal this chip's weak spot.
Until the native versions of the pro apps appear - this is a bit academic.
With a native version - I am confident that this would be a more than adequate machine for Aperture. Especially if the 950 is configured with a large video ram buffer. (I think it can go up to 256M) The hardware pixel processing is adequate too.
Who the hell is going to run motion on a mac mini? If you guys are trying to work ike that you will be dissappointed! No doubt about it. If you need "pro" features you'd shoud at least startoff with an imac and in truth for 3d and anything other than sd dv footage, you need a tower. Bottome line the mac mini is for your living room. It's not for games nor is it for productions work. I just bought one of the core duos for my home theater rig cuz it seems like apple is revving up for the final push. Whe I get it i'll let you know how it compares to my quad G5 with NVIDIA Quadro.
Who the hell is going to run motion on a mac mini? If you guys are trying to work ike that you will be dissappointed!
I say again:
Something people unfamiliar with Motion should understand is that one wouldn't necessarily use Motion on a Mac Mini or forthcoming Intel iBook, but rather just having it installed so those systems could understand Motion files is the important thing. As it stands today, those systems that don't support Motion get left out of the workflow because if Motion content is added to a Final Cut Project, DVD or After Effects project from another system, those unsupported systems can't understand it and thusly cannot render, export, playback, or encode said projects. The only workaround is to render the graphics out from Motion as movies, thus defeating the great seamless integration Motion otherwise offers.
A Core Duo Mac Mini or 13" 1280x800 Core Duo iBook would make a great secondary Final Cut station, but if Motion can't be installed on them it means your price of entry for a headless Apple desktop or Apple notebook starts at $1,999. That's too much for a secondary system. My personal interest in running Motion on the new Mac Mini is because I fear Apple will put Intel Integrated Graphics in their iBook line. I'm in the market for an Apple notebook as a second system, and I don't want to spend $2,000 just so it can comprehend Motion files.
Wait. Motion just uses CoreGraphics effects, IIRC, which means that any machine that *could* run Motion *will* run Motion effects without having to install Motion the application. No?
Wait. Motion just uses CoreGraphics effects, IIRC, which means that any machine that *could* run Motion *will* run Motion effects without having to install Motion the application. No?
Sadly, no. When you install Motion it also installs a QuickTime plug-in and Framework so that applications which use QuickTime (Final Cut, After Effects, etc) can understand Motion projects as if they were QuickTime movies. Furthermore, simply copying those plug-ins and frameworks to another machine does not a Motion-compatible system make. At least not in my experience. You'll be met with "File Not Found" and "Out of Memory" errors once you try to view projects which contain unrendered Motion content. On a system which supports Core Video and Core Graphics, copying the Motion QuickTime plug-in and framework may work - I don't have such a system to test.
Who the hell is going to run motion on a mac mini? If you guys are trying to work ike that you will be dissappointed! No doubt about it. If you need "pro" features you'd shoud at least startoff with an imac and in truth for 3d and anything other than sd dv footage, you need a tower. Bottome line the mac mini is for your living room. It's not for games nor is it for productions work. I just bought one of the core duos for my home theater rig cuz it seems like apple is revving up for the final push. Whe I get it i'll let you know how it compares to my quad G5 with NVIDIA Quadro.
Tell that to the tons of people that do editing on mini's all the time. I would even argue that you really don't need that quad, unless you're doing really high end stuff any of the powermacs and enough ram and a good video card will do a good enough job.
Obviously I'm not gonna edit jarhead on a mini but it'd be nice to edit hdv on one.
Back when the SGI O2 came out (what, 10 or 12 years ago?) one of the hot new features was the UMA. Unified Memory Architecture, that is... Basically the same thing the AGP was doing, graphics-wise at least...
Thing with UMA was EVERYTHING was using the system RAM as an switching exchange; but the bandwidth was great, for the time...
As folks started using the O2s, they noticed that it rocked for editing/compositing, but kinda sucked (compared to a multi-pipeline Indigo Hi-Impact Ultra Xtreme 7000... you get the idea) for 3d work...
I think the Mac mini is a definate improvement over the last model, and for the intended market (casual users, cog in home theatre, switcher, installations) it works just fine...
For 3d games or hobbiest/semi-pro 3d artists, get an iMac...
Actually for 3d games, get a frakkin' platform already...! Xbox 360, PS2, GameCube; plenty of choices...
What Apple needs to do is figure a way to pipe the feed from a console into Front Row, making games just another choice on the wheel of media... Same for TV, be it over the airwaves, cable or dish...
The trick there (especially with the games) is to eliminate the lag between game action & screen appearance... Which in turn would keep you from getting your ass frakkin' fragged...
For real 3d, for folks cranking it out for feature films; folks need all the CPU/RAM/GPU they can get...
Thing is not everyone wants to have 2 screens, and the rest of the stuff isn't crusty, not at all.
If I was buying for a company why would need to get maxed out minis? Or mini's at all? Obviously a new company with that needs all new stuff I would get iMacs.
I'm talking about people. There are people like me that want pretty good power but headless, the mini is it, for 75 bucks less than an iMac I get core duo 2gig ram, 120hd and all those upgrades can be found cheaper if you look around.
Now you tell me that I can save 75 dollars and up for a computer pretty comparable to an iMac and when it's outlived its self all I have to do is sell the box instead of the whole system and start from scratch, and I'll listen.
Also this doesn't have be done all at once I can spend 799 up front and upgrade at my leisure ending up with essentally an imac over time. Bad deal? I don't think so.
So there's 1299 upfront for the imac and after adding 2gigs of ram (the most important upgrade to me) it's a 1599 machine.
Then there's 799 upfront for the mini and after adding 2gigs of ram (once again the most important upgrade to me) and the 120hd(just to make it size comparable to the imac) it's a 1224 machine.
No matter which I get I would max out the ram for sure.
That's a 375 difference a BIG difference to me.
I had an imac when I was ready to upgrade I lost everything I owned since I had to sell together, not everyone wants to at square one again, especially since at that time I was considering getting a powermac, a screen keyboard and mouse would have made the upgrade quite less expensive.
-------------
That said in my particular case I already own a bunch of nice shit and an external mini sized hd I'd be paying 1099 for core duo and 2gig ram.
Why would I want an iMac again? The only real important drawback is graphics which isn't a big deal to me as long as it can handle fcp hdv editing which next month I'll find out.
-------------
You mention a business? Like I said I wasn't planning for a business but if I was like I said iMacs are good.
Obviously the office has a server so hd space isn't really important.
But then again I could just almost CERTAINLY get away with the stock core solo mini (if I wanted to I could upgrade them all to 1gb ram) and then just get some volume discounts from dell on 15 inch lcds(probably like 199 per monitor) and so do the same with dell or anyother company for the mouse and keyboard.
So that's iMac 1299 per machine.
Or mini(599), 15" lcd(199), 50(probably less) for keyboard+mouse = 848 per machine. $451 is a lot for a business.
I don't know what kind of business your talking about though, which ultimately would dictate your machine but for a general office from what I've seen the computers suck ass so that mini config should run circles around a regular office, especially if I felt like making them all have 1gb ram each.
So what if there's integrated graphics in that option?
I've spent some time working in offices, the screens(still mostly crt) suck, the computers suck as well, that mini would rape an average office environment for non-upper level employees.
Once you're something slightly upper level, they get a imac or core duo mini and 17" screen depending on what prices they're offering me.
Businesses always get discounts.
But once again you never said what kind of business.
Corporations lease complete systems. They don't keep their crusty monitors lying around for general staff. So if you think the Mac mini will make headway into corporations you just lack the experience on how such business decisions are made.
The iMac is the system that will make the largest inroads into Corporate America.
Comments
Originally posted by tubgirl
no can do, sir!
the sockets look the same, but the pinout is different and you need a 945pm/gm/gt chipset to use yonahs so dothan cpus are not compatible.
(and then it's the whole lacking of feature set and what-not but that's already covered in other topics...)
I think you're right. It looks like the 945gm is Yonah only. I guess Steve wanted to ship now instead of waiting until the Celeron Yonahs come out (May?)
Originally posted by 1984
How about Aperture?
Same deal. "My guess is that it will likely support [Aperture] but will be pokey."
But like Rosetta, pokey may be too slow depending on what you're doing and what you're used to.
Just make sure to max out the Ram.
Originally posted by ecking
BASELINE IMAC
17-inch widescreen LCD with 1440x900 resolution
1.83GHz Intel Core Duo with 2MB shared L2 cache
512MB (single SO-DIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load 8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon X1600 graphics with 128MB GDDR3 memory
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0
$1499cad
TRICKED OUT MUTHA F*CKIN HIGH END MINI
1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor
2MB L2 Cache
667MHz Frontside Bus
2GB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM)
120GB Serial ATA hard drive
Double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0
Apple Remote
$1459
As someone that as looking at an iMac the new mini is a good deal since like any mini owner I already have a screen, keyboard, and mouse.
How can you guys hate on that? I might have just saved 40 bucks for a machine not lacking in much other than graphics."
In American money it's $1249 vs $1299 baseline iMac how is that a bad deal for a core duo with 2gb ram and 120gig hd? [/B]
Uh, even ignoring the fact that the cost of the 17" iMac includes a brand new 17" LCD, keyboard & Mighty Mouse (your hypothetical situation has the new Mac mini owner using their old, rusty, crusty monitor (might even be CRT?!?), keyboard & mouse...
What about the included iSight & stereo speakers...?!?
Not to mention the slick all-in-one design...
Sorry dude, glad you are not in charge of purchasing in my company...!
Originally posted by jackbauer
I think you're right. It looks like the 945gm is Yonah only. I guess Steve wanted to ship now instead of waiting until the Celeron Yonahs come out (May?)
The whole thing with the Yonah is that Steve wanted to start shipping/transitioning ASAP...
Otherwise, Yonah is THE transitional CPU, where the nex-gen Merom/Conroe/Woodcrest family is the REAL Intel CPUs Steve had his eye on when he first informed us (the Mac faithful) of the switch to Intel..
All 64-bit goodness, for the spec whores... But Apple still has the spectre of Motorola hanging over them, what with the bottleneck at the Front-Side Bus following them from CPU supplier to CPU supplier... Time will tell...
Hopefully Mac OS X 10.5 aka Leopard will be fully 64-bit compliant, both the command line & the GUI...
Me, I am just jonesing for an Apple tablet:
8" widescreen multi-touch LCD
1.06GHz ULV Core Duo CPU w/2MB shared cache
533MHz FSB
2GB DDR2 SDRAM (two SO-DIMM slots)
80GB 1.8" HDD
Intel GMA950 integrated GPU
WUSB (wireless USB)
AirPort Extreme
BlueTooth
Pivoting iSight camera
stereo BlueTooth headset w/microphone
Stylus
About the size of a DVD case (which is really close to a 16:10 ratio) and half again as thick...
US$666 (Happy 30th Birthday Apple Computer)
Cheers!
;^p
Originally posted by sc_markt
Extremetech has a review of the GMA950 graphics.
Ouch...thank god for my 7800GTX.
Originally posted by MacRonin
Uh, even ignoring the fact that the cost of the 17" iMac includes a brand new 17" LCD, keyboard & Mighty Mouse (your hypothetical situation has the new Mac mini owner using their old, rusty, crusty monitor (might even be CRT?!?), keyboard & mouse...
What about the included iSight & stereo speakers...?!?
Not to mention the slick all-in-one design...
Sorry dude, glad you are not in charge of purchasing in my company...!
Thing is not everyone wants to have 2 screens, and the rest of the stuff isn't crusty, not at all.
If I was buying for a company why would need to get maxed out minis? Or mini's at all? Obviously a new company with that needs all new stuff I would get iMacs.
I'm talking about people. There are people like me that want pretty good power but headless, the mini is it, for 75 bucks less than an iMac I get core duo 2gig ram, 120hd and all those upgrades can be found cheaper if you look around.
Now you tell me that I can save 75 dollars and up for a computer pretty comparable to an iMac and when it's outlived its self all I have to do is sell the box instead of the whole system and start from scratch, and I'll listen.
Also this doesn't have be done all at once I can spend 799 up front and upgrade at my leisure ending up with essentally an imac over time. Bad deal? I don't think so.
So there's 1299 upfront for the imac and after adding 2gigs of ram (the most important upgrade to me) it's a 1599 machine.
Then there's 799 upfront for the mini and after adding 2gigs of ram (once again the most important upgrade to me) and the 120hd(just to make it size comparable to the imac) it's a 1224 machine.
No matter which I get I would max out the ram for sure.
That's a 375 difference a BIG difference to me.
I had an imac when I was ready to upgrade I lost everything I owned since I had to sell together, not everyone wants to at square one again, especially since at that time I was considering getting a powermac, a screen keyboard and mouse would have made the upgrade quite less expensive.
-------------
That said in my particular case I already own a bunch of nice shit and an external mini sized hd I'd be paying 1099 for core duo and 2gig ram.
Why would I want an iMac again? The only real important drawback is graphics which isn't a big deal to me as long as it can handle fcp hdv editing which next month I'll find out.
-------------
You mention a business? Like I said I wasn't planning for a business but if I was like I said iMacs are good.
Obviously the office has a server so hd space isn't really important.
But then again I could just almost CERTAINLY get away with the stock core solo mini (if I wanted to I could upgrade them all to 1gb ram) and then just get some volume discounts from dell on 15 inch lcds(probably like 199 per monitor) and so do the same with dell or anyother company for the mouse and keyboard.
So that's iMac 1299 per machine.
Or mini(599), 15" lcd(199), 50(probably less) for keyboard+mouse = 848 per machine. $451 is a lot for a business.
I don't know what kind of business your talking about though, which ultimately would dictate your machine but for a general office from what I've seen the computers suck ass so that mini config should run circles around a regular office, especially if I felt like making them all have 1gb ram each.
So what if there's integrated graphics in that option?
I've spent some time working in offices, the screens(still mostly crt) suck, the computers suck as well, that mini would rape an average office environment for non-upper level employees.
Once you're something slightly upper level, they get a imac or core duo mini and 17" screen depending on what prices they're offering me.
Businesses always get discounts.
But once again you never said what kind of business.
Originally posted by ecking
But once again you never said what kind of business.
Architecture, actually... Less than a dozen employees, so low to mild strain on the network/servers...
Looking to move the Dell/Windows units out and the Apple/OS X units in...
20" iMacs for the worker bees...
15" MacBook Pro & 23" ACD for the principals...
A pair of Mac mini Core Duos running Mac OS X Server (one a File & Print server; the other a Database server), each with a pair of Lacie HDDs in RAID 1 mode...
(Believe me, a Mac mini will more than suffice to replace the aging Dell server sitting here...)
I could even put an AirPort Express up by the receptionist, and attach her copy/fax/laserprinter & a shiny new iPod HiFi unit...
Mmm... Apple product placement goodness... Mmm...
NOTE THAT THIS DOESN'T INCLUDE BUSINESS DISCOUNTS
all are also in canadian pricing (I'm in canada)
In I want to correct the window key to apple key by hiring someone to do it for me day one
Dynex Optical Mouse 19.99 - bestbuy
Microsoft Internet Keyboard 14.99 - bestbuy
Metro 15" LCD Monitor 229.99 - bestbuy
Core Solo Mac Mini 699 - apple
963.97cad
If I want a mac style keyboard and mouse
Macally Slim Keyboard and Optical Mouse 99.99 - compusmart
Metro 15" LCD Monitor 229.99 - bestbuy
Core Solo Mac Mini 699 - apple
1028.98
IF I WANT 17" SCREENS
In I want to correct the window key to apple key by hiring someone to do it for me day one
Mag 17" lcd 259.99 - bestbuy
Dynex Optical Mouse 19.99 - bestbuy
Microsoft Internet Keyboard 14.99 - bestbuy
Core Solo Mac Mini 699 - apple
993.97cad
If I want a mac style keyboard and mouse
Mag 17" lcd 259.99 - bestbuy
Macally Slim Keyboard and Optical Mouse 99.99 - compusmart
Core Solo Mac Mini 699 - apple
1058.98cad
IMAC 17"
1499cad
That's anywhere from 440.02 to 535.03cad (338.02-471.80usd) savings depending on configuration.
320.02 to 415.03cad (238.02-371.80usd) savings if I got them with 1gb ram.
And I'm sure that would be fine for regular office computing.
And bestbuy, apple, and compusmart all do business discounts whether small or larger business so it's even cheaper.
So if I had 15 employees that needed those I just saved from 6600.30 to 8025.45 (depending on keyboard and screen config) vs buying them all imacs.
For what graphics? That doesn't matter for regular business. This isn't factoring a business discount.
But regular spread sheet office can survive on core solo.
Originally posted by ecking
If I want a mac style keyboard and mouse
Macally Slim Keyboard and Optical Mouse 99.99 - compusmart
I'll save you 41 more dollars per unit...
If you want a mac style keyboard and mouse, why not just get the Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse (optical) for US$58...?!?
Cheers!
Originally posted by Xool
Same deal. "My guess is that it will likely support [Aperture] but will be pokey."
But like Rosetta, pokey may be too slow depending on what you're doing and what you're used to.
Just make sure to max out the Ram.
I sort of disagree...
With a native version - I am confident that this would be a more than adequate machine for Aperture. Especially if the 950 is configured with a large video ram buffer. (I think it can go up to 256M) The hardware pixel processing is adequate too.
These Intel chips are sluggish when the polygon count gets high. The performance bottleneck seems to be vertices - and that would not be an issue for Aperture.
With Motion, it's less clear-cut. Typical Motion scenes would render well - but scenes with particle style effects (hundreds or thousands of sprites etc) would start to reveal this chip's weak spot.
Until the native versions of the pro apps appear - this is a bit academic.
C.
Originally posted by Carniphage
With a native version - I am confident that this would be a more than adequate machine for Aperture. Especially if the 950 is configured with a large video ram buffer. (I think it can go up to 256M) The hardware pixel processing is adequate too.
224 MB
Originally posted by spliff monkey
Who the hell is going to run motion on a mac mini? If you guys are trying to work ike that you will be dissappointed!
I say again:
Something people unfamiliar with Motion should understand is that one wouldn't necessarily use Motion on a Mac Mini or forthcoming Intel iBook, but rather just having it installed so those systems could understand Motion files is the important thing. As it stands today, those systems that don't support Motion get left out of the workflow because if Motion content is added to a Final Cut Project, DVD or After Effects project from another system, those unsupported systems can't understand it and thusly cannot render, export, playback, or encode said projects. The only workaround is to render the graphics out from Motion as movies, thus defeating the great seamless integration Motion otherwise offers.
A Core Duo Mac Mini or 13" 1280x800 Core Duo iBook would make a great secondary Final Cut station, but if Motion can't be installed on them it means your price of entry for a headless Apple desktop or Apple notebook starts at $1,999. That's too much for a secondary system. My personal interest in running Motion on the new Mac Mini is because I fear Apple will put Intel Integrated Graphics in their iBook line. I'm in the market for an Apple notebook as a second system, and I don't want to spend $2,000 just so it can comprehend Motion files.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Wait. Motion just uses CoreGraphics effects, IIRC, which means that any machine that *could* run Motion *will* run Motion effects without having to install Motion the application. No?
Sadly, no. When you install Motion it also installs a QuickTime plug-in and Framework so that applications which use QuickTime (Final Cut, After Effects, etc) can understand Motion projects as if they were QuickTime movies. Furthermore, simply copying those plug-ins and frameworks to another machine does not a Motion-compatible system make. At least not in my experience. You'll be met with "File Not Found" and "Out of Memory" errors once you try to view projects which contain unrendered Motion content. On a system which supports Core Video and Core Graphics, copying the Motion QuickTime plug-in and framework may work - I don't have such a system to test.
Originally posted by spliff monkey
Who the hell is going to run motion on a mac mini? If you guys are trying to work ike that you will be dissappointed! No doubt about it. If you need "pro" features you'd shoud at least startoff with an imac and in truth for 3d and anything other than sd dv footage, you need a tower. Bottome line the mac mini is for your living room. It's not for games nor is it for productions work. I just bought one of the core duos for my home theater rig cuz it seems like apple is revving up for the final push. Whe I get it i'll let you know how it compares to my quad G5 with NVIDIA Quadro.
Tell that to the tons of people that do editing on mini's all the time. I would even argue that you really don't need that quad, unless you're doing really high end stuff any of the powermacs and enough ram and a good video card will do a good enough job.
Obviously I'm not gonna edit jarhead on a mini but it'd be nice to edit hdv on one.
Back when the SGI O2 came out (what, 10 or 12 years ago?) one of the hot new features was the UMA. Unified Memory Architecture, that is... Basically the same thing the AGP was doing, graphics-wise at least...
Thing with UMA was EVERYTHING was using the system RAM as an switching exchange; but the bandwidth was great, for the time...
As folks started using the O2s, they noticed that it rocked for editing/compositing, but kinda sucked (compared to a multi-pipeline Indigo Hi-Impact Ultra Xtreme 7000... you get the idea) for 3d work...
I think the Mac mini is a definate improvement over the last model, and for the intended market (casual users, cog in home theatre, switcher, installations) it works just fine...
For 3d games or hobbiest/semi-pro 3d artists, get an iMac...
Actually for 3d games, get a frakkin' platform already...! Xbox 360, PS2, GameCube; plenty of choices...
What Apple needs to do is figure a way to pipe the feed from a console into Front Row, making games just another choice on the wheel of media... Same for TV, be it over the airwaves, cable or dish...
The trick there (especially with the games) is to eliminate the lag between game action & screen appearance... Which in turn would keep you from getting your ass frakkin' fragged...
For real 3d, for folks cranking it out for feature films; folks need all the CPU/RAM/GPU they can get...
Enter the Quad/Quadro w/16GB of RAM...
Sweet...
Originally posted by ecking
Thing is not everyone wants to have 2 screens, and the rest of the stuff isn't crusty, not at all.
If I was buying for a company why would need to get maxed out minis? Or mini's at all? Obviously a new company with that needs all new stuff I would get iMacs.
I'm talking about people. There are people like me that want pretty good power but headless, the mini is it, for 75 bucks less than an iMac I get core duo 2gig ram, 120hd and all those upgrades can be found cheaper if you look around.
Now you tell me that I can save 75 dollars and up for a computer pretty comparable to an iMac and when it's outlived its self all I have to do is sell the box instead of the whole system and start from scratch, and I'll listen.
Also this doesn't have be done all at once I can spend 799 up front and upgrade at my leisure ending up with essentally an imac over time. Bad deal? I don't think so.
So there's 1299 upfront for the imac and after adding 2gigs of ram (the most important upgrade to me) it's a 1599 machine.
Then there's 799 upfront for the mini and after adding 2gigs of ram (once again the most important upgrade to me) and the 120hd(just to make it size comparable to the imac) it's a 1224 machine.
No matter which I get I would max out the ram for sure.
That's a 375 difference a BIG difference to me.
I had an imac when I was ready to upgrade I lost everything I owned since I had to sell together, not everyone wants to at square one again, especially since at that time I was considering getting a powermac, a screen keyboard and mouse would have made the upgrade quite less expensive.
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That said in my particular case I already own a bunch of nice shit and an external mini sized hd I'd be paying 1099 for core duo and 2gig ram.
Why would I want an iMac again? The only real important drawback is graphics which isn't a big deal to me as long as it can handle fcp hdv editing which next month I'll find out.
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You mention a business? Like I said I wasn't planning for a business but if I was like I said iMacs are good.
Obviously the office has a server so hd space isn't really important.
But then again I could just almost CERTAINLY get away with the stock core solo mini (if I wanted to I could upgrade them all to 1gb ram) and then just get some volume discounts from dell on 15 inch lcds(probably like 199 per monitor) and so do the same with dell or anyother company for the mouse and keyboard.
So that's iMac 1299 per machine.
Or mini(599), 15" lcd(199), 50(probably less) for keyboard+mouse = 848 per machine. $451 is a lot for a business.
I don't know what kind of business your talking about though, which ultimately would dictate your machine but for a general office from what I've seen the computers suck ass so that mini config should run circles around a regular office, especially if I felt like making them all have 1gb ram each.
So what if there's integrated graphics in that option?
I've spent some time working in offices, the screens(still mostly crt) suck, the computers suck as well, that mini would rape an average office environment for non-upper level employees.
Once you're something slightly upper level, they get a imac or core duo mini and 17" screen depending on what prices they're offering me.
Businesses always get discounts.
But once again you never said what kind of business.
Corporations lease complete systems. They don't keep their crusty monitors lying around for general staff. So if you think the Mac mini will make headway into corporations you just lack the experience on how such business decisions are made.
The iMac is the system that will make the largest inroads into Corporate America.