[Hash]

I currently have BW G3, much upgraded from its original state to now G4 650 Ghz, 640 mb of RAM, 3 80Gb hard drives, LG combo drive, IDE PCI card, USB 2 card and so on. I am satisfied with BW performance in general, however, recently have been thinking that upgrading further, say to Radeon 9000 and so on, is making less sense, since I cannot find faster G4 for BW and its ageing a lot. So how much performance I would gain jumping from BW to Mini G4 1.25, maybe with 512 or 1 gig of RAM?

[mitchell_pgh]

I'm thinking it wouldn't be night and day, but it would be a solid bump. The problem with your current system is... the foundation is getting rather old.

That being said, you may not like the mini. I would say "think eMac or iMac"

[turtle777]

I agree with mitch. I got a mini, and I'm happy with it, but in retrospect, should have waited and invested in an iMac. They're real cheap if you get 'em refurbed.

Btw, if you opt for the mini, don't get the int. HD upgrade to 80 GB. It's not worth it. Get an external FW HD with 7200 rpm, that'll be 2 x as fast and give you much more GB for the $.

-t

[Hash]

Thanks for advice. I already have a 17 inch LCD and would prefer to utilize it with mini.. Thats said, I will get the very basic configuration and then replace HD and RAM.. I use it for light computing needs, such as word processing (a lot), occasional graphics, no video encoding, some GB stuff, iTunes and internet browsing. iMac, however, is interesting option, though much exceeding my initial budget outlay.

I guess there must be some guys who already made that jump from BW to mini

[turtle777]

I think you'll be very happy with the mini for what you want to do.

Here is a thread about external HD on a mini (compliments to myself )
http://forums.macnn.com/65/mac-desktops/260338/mac-mini-speed-gain-external-fw/

-t

[Hash]

I read that thread and I think that external solution kinda does not fit well the mini concept - small factor, few cables and so on.. Thats said, if your internal hard disk is full, external is the only solution..

[westrock]

Originally Posted by Hash

So how much performance I would gain jumping from BW to Mini G4 1.25, maybe with 512 or 1 gig of RAM?

Well here, you can look at my overclock and HDD upgrade thread I did (which didn't get a single response ). Get Xbench for your current Mac and see how you do.

[Hash]

I looked at your thread, it was good reading.. but I am not interested as much in overclocking mini (I have overclocked G4 550 mhz to 650 myself), as much as in performance gain from BW to mini, in other words, trying to find benefits of upgrading. By the way, your thread was fine.. if I found it earlier, I would respond, believe me

[westrock]

Originally Posted by Hash

I looked at your thread, it was good reading.. but I am not interested as much in overclocking mini (I have overclocked G4 550 mhz to 650 myself), as much as in performance gain from BW to mini, in other words, trying to find benefits of upgrading. By the way, your thread was fine.. if I found it earlier, I would respond, believe me

Oh sorry, I didn't mean you had to overclock But the Xbench on the left is from before I did the upgrades and you could compare those results to what you get running Xbench on your current computer. Then you would get at least some idea as to what kind of increase you would get. Remember that was with a gigabyte stick of Kingston ValueRam, so not sure if that would neccasirily skew the numbers, but it does make the Mini very useable.