Help mac geeks!!
Hey guys,
Newbie here and need some help. I am looking to become a Mac owner for the first time since my lame PC has crashed and burned for the last time. I've had the computer for about 6 years and here's a few specs:
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz
160 GB SATA
256 MB DDR PC3200
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200 128 MB AGP Graphics
Knowing this, can some of you experts give me some advice as to how this will compare to a Mac Mini. I am looking to just have the Mini to get me through til about next year until I have enough money stashed away for an iMac that will ship with Snow Leopard preinstalled. Will the performance be close to or better than the computer that I had? How do the processors compare? Video cards? Etc...any advice/tips would be GREATLY appreciated!! I usually would be using it for some music recording, browsing the web, and email mostly.
THANKS!!!
Newbie here and need some help. I am looking to become a Mac owner for the first time since my lame PC has crashed and burned for the last time. I've had the computer for about 6 years and here's a few specs:
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz
160 GB SATA
256 MB DDR PC3200
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200 128 MB AGP Graphics
Knowing this, can some of you experts give me some advice as to how this will compare to a Mac Mini. I am looking to just have the Mini to get me through til about next year until I have enough money stashed away for an iMac that will ship with Snow Leopard preinstalled. Will the performance be close to or better than the computer that I had? How do the processors compare? Video cards? Etc...any advice/tips would be GREATLY appreciated!! I usually would be using it for some music recording, browsing the web, and email mostly.
THANKS!!!
Comments
Hey guys,
Newbie here and need some help. I am looking to become a Mac owner for the first time since my lame PC has crashed and burned for the last time. I've had the computer for about 6 years and here's a few specs:
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz
160 GB SATA
256 MB DDR PC3200
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200 128 MB AGP Graphics
Knowing this, can some of you experts give me some advice as to how this will compare to a Mac Mini.
The Mini ships with a 5400 rpm hard drive so that part is a bit slower. If you get the 2GB Ram upgrade then that should be enough. Apple charge way to much for Ram so don't go for the 4GB option.
The processors in the Mini are dual 2GHz, whereas the Pentium you have is likely a single core. This is more important than just clock speed because dual cores can load balance tasks much better so you will experience far fewer complete system lockups when doing intensive work.
The graphics chip in the Mini should be better than the Geforce 4 Ti as it's quite an old card. It does share memory but it doesn't really matter much as the system uses DDR3 Ram. You should get the higher internal Ram though so the graphics chip can use more VRam.
Overall, I think you'd get on pretty well with the Mini, just pick the base model and increase the Ram to 2GB. If you are ok opening machines up yourself, you can get the Ram 3rd party but the Mini is quite tricky to open.