Mac Mini & 23" cinema display

novalis · February 8, 2005 1:42AM

Reports say that the Mac Mini is not able to pull the weight of a 23" cinema display at naitive resolution. That is to bad, when Apple says it can

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2328&p=6

Can anyone confirm this?

I mostly use my Mac (15" TiBook) for watching movies and writing in word, and the Mac Mini and a 23" display would have been perfect, because I never do photo or video-editing, and I hardly ever play games on computers.

mcq · February 8, 2005 1:54AM

Quote:

Originally posted by novalis

Reports say that the Mac Mini is not able to pull the weight of a 23" cinema display at naitive resolution. That is to bad, when Apple says it can

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2328&p=6

Can anyone confirm this?

I mostly use my Mac (15" TiBook) for watching movies and writing in word, and the Mac Mini and a 23" display would have been perfect, because I never do photo or video-editing, and I hardly ever play games on computers.

It depends on what you mean by "pulling the weight." It may be a little less smooth at times, but it should run it fine. Read Anand's comments carefully:

Quote:

Granted, what I'm discussing right now isn't a reduction in actual performance, but rather a reduction in the smoothness of animations

It's no different than trying to run my PB connected to a 20" widescreen display at the same time - Expose can get a little choppy, but otherwise things are pretty good.

novalis · February 8, 2005 2:20AM

So the Mini will not have any problems with playing a DVD or DivX movie in native res. on a 23" Cinema Display?

I see now that he is testing the 1.25 GHz. Maybe the 1.4 MHz will be smother with Exposé?

I use exposé very much, and it is important to me that this feature is snappy.

I would be very grateful if anyone with Mac Mini and 23" cinema display would post a report.

nowayout11 · February 8, 2005 3:30AM

Beefing up your RAM to at least 512MB will be more valuable than beefing up the CPU. If you read Anand's other Mac reviews, it seems that OSX really needs at least that much to shine. Especially on a Mini that uses the slower 2.5" drives.

novalis · February 8, 2005 4:40AM

Anand is saying that

Quote:

Despite what I had originally expected, the on-board Radeon 9200 is a bit of a performance limitation._ I had the Mac mini hooked up to a 23" Cinema Display running its native resolution of 1920 x 1200 and was wondering why Exposé and a handful of other animations were choppy. After tinkering with resolutions, I found out why._ At resolutions above 1280 x 960, the Radeon 9200's 32MB of local frame buffer isn't enough to handle Exposé of even just four windows - swapping to main memory, and thus reducing the smoothness of the Exposé effects._ At 1024 x 768, it's great and it's even fine at 1280 x 960, but once you start going above and beyond that, you start running out of video memory real quickly.

And this was after he had put in 512MB of RAM. Will 1GB RAM solve the problem with Exposé? Or is this problem solely due to the Radion 9200?

football751 · February 8, 2005 7:24AM

My opinion would be just go with the 20". If all your doing is watching videos and such, is 3" really worth $700? And if the movie is choppy at fullscreen on the 23", you would have to make the screen smaller anyway. You could even get a really nice 20" iMac with the $2300 a Mac mini and 23" would cost. the baseline imac is $1900, so you could add some nice options. I personally don't think that it is worth $700 for 3" of relastate to watch movies, especcially since according to the report you would have to lower the resolution anyway.

novalis · February 10, 2005 12:46PM

Thanks football751!

I'll settle for a G5 iMac 20", considering nobody has said that the Mac Mini is able to use the 23" display in sleek way.

That was a close call, considering I was on my way to ordering a setup with the Mini and a 23" because Apple said it would be OK.

Thanks again.

mynameis · February 11, 2005 1:26AM

That must be my problem, I am running my mac mini with a 20in display at 1600x1200, mostly it is fine but it sometimes gets a little choppy. I am glad it just isn't me.

dvd_junkie · February 11, 2005 12:09PM

Quote:

Originally posted by novalis

Anand is saying that

And this was after he had put in 512MB of RAM. Will 1GB RAM solve the problem with Exposé? Or is this problem solely due to the Radion 9200?

Answer is no. Anand clear says it's the Radeon's limitation when playing with different resolutions. No additional memory or CPU performance will change this. Too bad Apple stuck such a minimal gpu in this closed machine.

a_greer · February 11, 2005 12:27PM

What is the big deal? I think it is a bit of a mismatch to put a 500$ computer on a $1500+ display to start with, if you are looking at a 23 inch display, get a pmg5, you will be happeir in the long run anyway.

If you have one sitting arround, and you use it with a PM that you are concidering replaceing, why not get another PM?

The 9200 is fine at 1024x768-1280x1024, which is where the "switchers" will be running with their 17 inch CRTs, IMHO, anything greater than a 9200 is really waisted on a unit driven by a 4200 rpm hdd, 167 mhz bus, and a 1.2 ghz cpu.

why put $5000 in rims on a $500 car?

dvd_junkie · February 11, 2005 12:36PM

Quote:

Originally posted by a_greer

What is the big deal? I think it is a bit of a mismatch to put a 500$ computer on a $1500+ display to start with, if you are looking at a 23 inch display, get a pmg5, you will be happeir in the long run anyway.

If you have one sitting arround, and you use it with a PM that you are concidering replaceing, why not get another PM?

The 9200 is fine at 1024x768-1280x1024, which is where the "switchers" will be running with their 17 inch CRTs, IMHO, anything greater than a 9200 is really waisted on a unit driven by a 4200 rpm hdd, 167 mhz bus, and a 1.2 ghz cpu.

why put $5000 in rims on a $500 car?

I don't think there's a big deal however, people are being told or led to believe they could do everything with this computer. And given that most people are not really techno-literate with computers, they can't understand limitations such as this. Apple should get some blame since they show on their website that you can hook up and run a 23" display. Misleading to say the least.

amorph · February 11, 2005 12:48PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DVD_Junkie

I don't think there's a big deal however, people are being told or led to believe they could do everything with this computer. And given that most people are not really techno-literate with computers, they can't understand limitations such as this. Apple should get some blame since they show on their website that you can hook up and run a 23" display. Misleading to say the least.

You can. It powers the 23" CD at full color, full refresh rate and full native resolution. What else do you want "support" to mean?

Maybe it's not OMG totally slick, but it wouldn't be with a PowerBook that had a 32MB video card either. People still used 23" Cinema Displays with those PowerBooks.

Presumably people understand that the $499 mini isn't going to perform the way a $2499 PowerMac does.

dvd_junkie · February 11, 2005 1:09PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Amorph

You can. It powers the 23" CD at full color, full refresh rate and full native resolution. What else do you want "support" to mean?

Maybe it's not OMG totally slick, but it wouldn't be with a PowerBook that had a 32MB video card either. People still used 23" Cinema Displays with those PowerBooks.

Presumably people understand that the $499 mini isn't going to perform the way a $2499 PowerMac does.

Are you saying that with a straight face? If you're going to buy a display that Apple supports and even promotes on their website, then shouldn't the computer and display perform properly when displaying things on the screen in native resolution without stuttering? We're not talking about playing games here just the desktop. When was the last time you enjoyed watching a stuttering video playback? Your argument is the same one Apple uses to sell computers with 256MB when they know fair well that the machine will run like crap with so little memory. Why does Apple wait for people to complain when they could easily put a disclaimer about not enough memory or too large a video display? I've been a long time Mac user and Apple has started to look and sound like everybody else in the Wintel world.

amorph · February 11, 2005 2:07PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DVD_Junkie

Are you saying that with a straight face? If you're going to buy a display that Apple supports and even promotes on their website, then shouldn't the computer and display perform properly when displaying things on the screen in native resolution without stuttering?

Um, Flash does that now, on any Mac you care to name.

This is not a display support problem. I could get the same effect on my 4 year old, 1024x768 screen by opening enough windows and hitting F12.

Stuttering is not a loss of functionality. It's not ideal, but it's a long way from "not supported."

Should I complain that my PC at work doesn't support its 17" display because I get eraser effects and stuttering? I don't, because I know it has nothing to do with the display. I'm not PC-bashing, either: If you push a computer hard enough, it stutters.

a_greer · February 11, 2005 4:03PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DVD_Junkie

I don't think there's a big deal however, people are being told or led to believe they could do everything with this computer. And given that most people are not really techno-literate with computers, they can't understand limitations such as this. Apple should get some blame since they show on their website that you can hook up and run a 23" display. Misleading to say the least.

For your information, if you tow a fifth wheel on your pickup, it is going to accelerate slower than it would if you were only hauling 10 2x4s in the bed.

can you expect a Chevy El Camino to tow a 30 foot yacht, would you?

You still fail to answer my main point: who spends $1500+ on a display for a ~$500 computer?

mynameis · February 11, 2005 7:37PM

Quote:

Originally posted by a_greer

You still fail to answer my main point: who spends $1500+ on a display for a ~$500 computer?

I don't see anything wrong with that, but I don't know anyone that has it.

mmmpie · February 11, 2005 8:59PM

Quote:

Originally posted by a_greer

You still fail to answer my main point: who spends $1500+ on a display for a ~$500 computer?

While that is a valid question ( how about someone with $2k? ), you dont have to spend 1500 to get a big display. Dell are often selling their 20" widescreen on special for around 550. Thats 1650x1080, probably more than enough to put the load on a mini, and pretty much the minimum Im looking at in a new monitor.

gon · February 12, 2005 11:52AM

Quote:

Originally posted by a_greer

You still fail to answer my main point: who spends $1500+ on a display for a ~$500 computer?

You don't present a single reason someone would not do so.

My reasons: I want a big screen. I care about a big screen more than I care about having a faster computer. I use my computer a lot more for watching pictures and video, reading and typing text than processing anything. Computers age three times quicker than screens. These enough reason for you?

I don't have one yet but I'm getting either a 20" or 23" soon and plug it in my iBook. 8)

a_greer · February 12, 2005 12:26PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gon

You don't present a single reason someone would not do so.

My reasons: I want a big screen. I care about a big screen more than I care about having a faster computer. I use my computer a lot more for watching pictures and video, reading and typing text than processing anything. Computers age three times quicker than screens. These enough reason for you?

I don't have one yet but I'm getting either a 20" or 23" soon and plug it in my iBook. 8)

Dude, your logic has almost sold me on the 23 incher...if I had the funds, that, a mini, a KVM, and a new GPU for my pc mid tower would be killer.

bcompdude · February 12, 2005 12:39PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gon

You don't present a single reason someone would not do so.

My reasons: I want a big screen. I care about a big screen more than I care about having a faster computer. I use my computer a lot more for watching pictures and video, reading and typing text than processing anything. Computers age three times quicker than screens. These enough reason for you?

I don't have one yet but I'm getting either a 20" or 23" soon and plug it in my iBook. 8)

I concur on all points. I will be purchasing one of those screens as well--for my PB 12".

gon · February 12, 2005 12:53PM

Quote:

Originally posted by a_greer

Dude, your logic has almost sold me on the 23 incher...if I had the funds, that, a mini, a KVM, and a new GPU for my pc mid tower would be killer.

KVM:s seem to be problematic:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/...m/195001329631

Even the Linkskey KVM the Arstechnica folk find okay, only supports up to 1600x1200 so no luck on the 23".

If you don't need to switch several times an hour, maybe you could pick a screen other than Apple's which had DVI+VGA and a USB hub. Then you could connect other computer via VGA and other via DVI depending which one's picture you want to be the absolute sharpest, use a simple $10 USB switch for the inputs, and switch the picture and inputs separately.

Benq FP231W would work and undercuts anything else in 23". I'm not sure if I like the looks though. In 20" all choices are good.

Mac Mini & 23" cinema display

Comments