[rsandborn1]

Well i recently sold enough of my computer equipment to purchase a new Mac, I have about 650 dollars to spend and I was looking at getting a core solo mini. Any ideas what I should get, I was also looking at an earlier iMac G4 or QS G4 to replace my sawtooth.

[phantomdragonz]

My old story from when I bought my sawtooth was, I had the option to buy a laptop or the sawtooth... the laptop was the clamshell bondy blue... GLAD i did not go that route... buy something as powerful as you can, and stay away from things you cant upgrade...

Zach

[rsandborn1]

Well since the sawtooth is gone im down to a AMD XP 3000 PC that im using... it sucks Im thinking the Mac Mini, the core solo mini is the only one in my budget that I can afford with buying a keyboard and mouse. I already have a nice HP 17" LCD, I mean Id like to make the intel switch but Id almost rather have something I can expand like a QS or MDD G4

I mean im going from a 500mhz G4 to a 1.5ghz Core solo, the only thing different is my G4 had better graphics and 1GB RAM and 2x200gb hard drives in it. the core solo is with a 60GB 512MB

[Borman]

There is no core solo anymore

[rsandborn1]

I guess your right they changed it this morning, Im looking at the Core Duo 1.66ghz ill upgrade the ram later, and I can run my 2x250GB hard drives off the firewire. Ive also seen good prices on a 1.25ghz 20 inch iMac G4 on ebay

[OreoCookie]

Your G4 does not have a faster graphics card, it's a lot slower (especially if you still have the stock graphics card).

[rsandborn1]

Actually I put a nVidia GeForce 4MX into it 64MB its not the stock card. Quartz extreme capable on it rather fast and fludic

[OreoCookie]

The integrated graphics chipset will still be faster, in some instances a lot faster. If you take Quake 3 benchmarks as a basis, the integrated graphics chipset together is just considerably faster. It's also not slower than the predecessors external (entry-level) graphics card. In newer games (Doom 3, for instance), it runs circles around your old graphics card (keep in mind that the GeForce4 Ti is a lot faster than your MX; also, the cpus (Dual G4 1.42) are a lot faster than what you use now).

I've used OS X on a friend's MacBook (with the same graphics chipset) -- runs juuuust fine, even though he had connected it to his 23" ACD HD display.

[P]

While a GMA 950 generally whips a Geforce 4MX, there are situations where the GF 4MX wins by a factor 1000 or so - or the app won't even run with the GMA 950. The GMA 950 and its brethren are different in one fundamental way from all other GPUs manufactured in the last several years in that they still lack hardware T&L, which is the reason that some things are incrediblyslow on it.

In general, a GMA 950 means that games don't work. While there are exceptions, in particular older games, you shoudl nto expect to game at all on it.

[OreoCookie]

Are you sure? The GMA950 is a DirectX 10-capable chipset while the GeForce is just a DirectX 9 card -- which means, it should be exactly the other way around, that there are some games/apps which run on the GMA950 (slowly, that's for sure), but not no the GeForce4 MX.

I'm curious to know what apps will not run on the Mac Mini, but on a Mac with a GeForce 4 MX?