Mac Mini Performance...

Question

Hi
I have a very good old mac mini 1.25 G4, and it has definitely done me well. However i think the time has finally come to move up a step. Being on a low budget though i shall have to stick with mac minis rather than an imac, but thats not a problem for me, as i am confident that apple have produced yet another great computer. Anyway down to business. Comparing the new intel mini (2.0 Gz) to mine.
1. How much better is the performance/speed?
2. Will the graphics be any better? Using the built in RAM will it help to get 2Gb of memory?
3. Will Final Cut Express work well/smoothly?
And over all will there be a big enough difference between the two for it to be worth buying? If so ill wait a little longer for an imac.
Any help would be much appreciated along with any extra details i may have missed which would help., thanks.

Answer 1

1. How much better is the performance/speed?
Chalk and cheese. While the new mini is limited by the same slow performance of the internal hard drive, the CPU of the new model is faster than that of the original G5 DP powermac, which in itself was several factors faster than the 1.25 G4 mini.
Whether you will notice much in terms of performance gain is somewhat to do with what you use the system for - web browsing for example is far more limited by internet access performance than CPU, but even there you'd notice much more rapid page rendering, window rendering and overall system performance. On CPU-intensive tasks - if you were into video production for example and had to wait for transitions or effects to render on the 1.25 mini, you'd find them dramatically improved on the new model!
2. Will the graphics be any better? Using the built in RAM will it help to get 2Gb of memory?
2Gb RAM will help the system in broad terms, but won't do anything to assist the graphics performance because MacOS will allocate the same RAM for that regardless of how much the system has. Graphics on the Intel model is driven by an on-board integrated processor rather than the ATI Radeon 9200 in your mini, but it is far more capable, and handles many of the core image tasks that the ATI chipset you have would not. It's still not really a gamer's platform of course!
3. Will Final Cut Express work well/smoothly?
Much more so than on your 1.25, though if you haven't already, you will need a native copy of FCE to take advantage of the faster system. Trying to run FCE2.0 on an Intel mini for example is not a recipe for happiness, but upgrading to the latest version (or indeed the previous one) which runs natively on the Intel platform makes a world of difference.
And over all will there be a big enough difference between the two for it to be worth buying? If so ill wait a little longer for an imac.
If you had an earlier Mac - something like a G3 iMac for example, before the mini, then the switch to an Intel model, whether the 1.83 or 2.0 Core 2 Duo would provide you the same sort of increment of performance improvement you experienced with that switch - ie, very distinct! I'd opt for the slower mini and more RAM if money is tight, but by preference the 2.0 model and more RAM if the budget stretches that far. Alternatively, if you can save more and wait longer, the iMac is undoubtedly better still..... though a lot more expensive, and containing it's own display. If you find the 1.25 mini to be sufficient, then I doubt you'd find any reason to be disappointed if you were to opt for something like the 2.0 mini with 2Gb RAM!