[indigoimac]

I'm on a tight budget but at the same time I'm looking to get a new mac to replace the aging iMac in the sig. What I really want to know is how the CoreSolo version of the mini will compare when comperably equipped(ram, mostly) to the PowerBook G4 in the sig I would also like to know how this would compare to, once again, a comperably equipped old 1.42/1.5GHz G4 MacMini. And 2 more things how would this all compare to a CoreDuo iMac and a dual-proc G5. Now what will I be doing w/ this machine, well, not too much, but on occasion I do intend to beat iLife into submission and push it to its limits as I already do on the PowBook, otherwise it's gonna be office and web browsing. I have toyed w/ the idea of building a Linux box as I have found alternatives to everything except my need for the iTunesMusicStore and that too much of my home set-up is dependent on Apple PrinterSharing as well as the AFP.

Well, thanks alot for reading all that!

-indigo

[Tuishimi]

From what I've read, it should compare nicely to the AlBook and it compares favorably to the G4 mini.

For everything you have mentioned wanting to do, you could even get away with the G4 mini, easily. I had one and it worked well.

As far as comparing it to a dual G5... well, I can't.

[Tuoder]

If you don't game, the solo mini should be as fast or faster than the 1.5 Ghz mini. The solo also has a socketed and widely available CPU, so in the future if you are ever dissatisfied, and you aren't too quesy about opening it, You could upgrade the CPU, RAM, and HDD. On the G4 you could only upgrade the HDD and RAM.

[indigoimac]

Well this all sounds fine and dandy, especially the part about the upgradable socket, but what I was hoping for was a step up from the AlBook as it has been a little slow lately. I don't know though. I guess this really comes down to what I want to spend on, the upgrade path seems really appealing to me as it's much easier to upgrade the HD in a macmini that the PowerBk, and I guess it supports any socket 478 CPU so, sorry for thinking aloud there, but this just might work for me....Thanks Guys!

[sniffer]

MS Office isn't ported to UB yet, so it'll run under Rosetta on the Intel machine. Otherwise, if you are looking for a step up from the PowerBook, the duo might be a better alternative. Going from one "brain" to two "brains" alone should really speed up multitasking, unless you starve it on ram of course.

I have a solo in order and I am thinking to do a brain surgery on it sometime later when the Yonah chips drop in price and I still have the machine on desktop duty.

[edit: Ops, I didn't read the part that said you'd already decided, indigoimac. Good luck. ]

[D'Espice]

The new Mini Core Solo which in most cases will not be any faster than the Core Duo will be and especially feel a lot faster than the AlBook - OS X is a lot snappier. ArsTechnica has reviewed the new Mini and, among others, compared it to a PowerBook 1,67 and guess what - looks bad for the G4, not in every single benchmarks but in most of'em (11:4 if I'm not mistaken, sometimes the Mini being only a bit faster sometimes almost thrice as fast).
And about the video benchmarks: Just remember that while the ATI had years to optimize their drivers (and god knows it took them a LONG time...) the i950 drivers are brand-new and actually the very first shot of Intel drivers for OS X - give the half as much time as ATI had and Intel drivers will be even better than ATI drivers have ever been; ATI is famous for producing great hardware but also for writing crappy drivers

[JKT]

The new mini will kick the crap out of the old mini in iLife as it supports Core Image/Video which is how iLife 06 renders filters etc.

[iREZ]

not to mention a much larger fsb to handle garageband a bit better

[mduell]

Originally Posted by D'Espice

The new Mini Core Solo which in most cases will not be any faster than the Core Duo will be

I don't think that's what you meant to say.

[D'Espice]

Originally Posted by mduell

I don't think that's what you meant to say.

Au contraire, that's exaclty what I wanted to say. In most cases the 2nd CPU will be idling and turning energy into heat. In some cases, say SMP optimized software, it will be faster than the Solo (almost never twice as fast, not necessarily always noticeable but definitely faster) but in most cases, non-optimized non-SMP software, there will be no difference between the Core Duo and the Core Solo.
In other words, I see no point in putting a Duo processor into a consumer Mac that will be mostly used for browsing the internet, word processing, simple stuff. It's a marketing gag, nothing else. Duo sells better because you can claim that Duo is twice as fast as Solo.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by D'Espice

Au contraire, that's exaclty what I wanted to say. In most cases the 2nd CPU will be idling and turning energy into heat. In some cases, say SMP optimized software, it will be faster than the Solo (almost never twice as fast, not necessarily always noticeable but definitely faster) but in most cases, non-optimized non-SMP software, there will be no difference between the Core Duo and the Core Solo.
In other words, I see no point in putting a Duo processor into a consumer Mac that will be mostly used for browsing the internet, word processing, simple stuff. It's a marketing gag, nothing else. Duo sells better because you can claim that Duo is twice as fast as Solo.

The OS is multithreaded and optimized; if someone is running more than one app at a time, they'll benefit even if the apps aren't multithreaded.

But I don't think you meant to say "The new Mini Core Solo which in most cases will not be any faster than the Core Duo will be"; probably something more like "The new Mini Core Solo which in most cases will be as fast as the Core Duo will be" given your statement above.

[D'Espice]

Originally Posted by mduell

The OS is multithreaded and optimized; if someone is running more than one app at a time, they'll benefit even if the apps aren't multithreaded.

But I don't think you meant to say "The new Mini Core Solo which in most cases will not be any faster than the Core Duo will be"; probably something more like "The new Mini Core Solo which in most cases will be as fast as the Core Duo will be" given your statement above.

Oi... you're right, my mistake

And about running more than one app at a time - while in theory correct in real life this is not always true. There's a difference between being able to measure a difference and to feel a difference. The rule-of-thumb is that you need at least 30% improvement in benchmarks before you can feel a difference.

[sniffer]

In other words, I see no point in putting a Duo processor into a consumer Mac...

D'Espice, you seem to forget these little suckers is capable of taking up to two gigabyte of dual channel ram, the FSB is wider than a football field, the GMA 950 is capable of handling two HD streams at ones and the CPU sits on a standard socket. Call it entry machines all you want, but multitasking on these small devils is going to kick-some-major-powerPC-butts for none 3D or disk intensive tasks. You shouldn't estimate that this wouldn't be a buying point for many of us.

[D'Espice]

Originally Posted by sniffer

D'Espice, you seem to forget these little suckers is capable of taking up to two gigabyte of dual channel ram, the FSB is wider than a football field, the GMA 950 is capable of handling two HD streams at ones and the CPU sits on a standard socket. Call it entry machines all you want, but multitasking on these small devils is going to kick-some-major-powerPC-butts for none 3D or disk intensive tasks. You shouldn't estimate that this wouldn't be a buying point for many of us.

sniffer, you seem to forget the Solo is capable of taking up to two gigabyte of dual channel ram as well, the FSB is also wider than a football field, the Solo's GMA950 is capable of handling two HD streams at once as well and the Solo CPU sits on a standard socket too (which is kickass btw, can't wait for the 2.16GHz CPU to become affordable ).
My point is not that we don't need all this, my point is that the second CPU will spend most time doing nothing, that's my point. Believe it or not, the Solo kicks some major PPC butt for non-3D and disk intensive tasks too. I had plenty of time to play around with both, a Duo with 2GB of memory and a Solo with 1,25GB of memory (hence not even dual channel) - and there was absolutely NO difference noticeable between those two in everyday tasks like word processing, simple Photoshop work, etc. - none at all.

While I realize that in very cpu-intensive tasks like rendering, applying PS filters, etc the Duo will perform better than the Solo, in most cases the second CPU will be idling and doing nothing. That's my point

[sniffer]

Actually I have a solo in order (it just take Apple three weeks to ship it to Scandinavians). Nice to hear you're impressed with it. I can see the second core will idle a lot for word typers, but the extra core also makes a nerd excited. It should be very useful for server duties, or if you need to run Windows in a virtualization app or whatever.

[Titom]

Well u guys have sold me on the solo mini mac!

Now the DVD add on is only $50, seems like a good deal.

And Apple ram ($100) to 1 GB also seems like a good deal, most places are selling ram for more then that.
Apple's design of the new mini makes manually upgrading the RAM in this machine a slightly more arduous task.

[D'Espice]

Originally Posted by sniffer

Actually I have a solo in order (it just take Apple three weeks to ship it to Scandinavians). Nice to hear you're impressed with it. I can see the second core will idle a lot for word typers, but the extra core also makes a nerd excited. It should be very useful for server duties, or if you need to run Windows in a virtualization app or whatever.

You've got the point - it gets a nerd all messed up and excited for no reason
I admit that it will be very useful for server duties if not for two problems: First of all, the Mini is not designed as server for 24/7 load, if you want a reliable server you need different hardware, not a notebook S-ATA drive for example. Second, if you need a server with SMP capabilities a good administrator will always take the computer with two separate processors and not a Core Duo - there's a huge difference between a Core Duo and a real SMP system with two separate processors when it comes to high end performance and reliability.

That said, I think it's nonsense. But it makes nerds excited and marketing happy - and that's the point. People will buy it because Apple's marketing department tells them it's twice as fast.

[sniffer]

I wasn't really thinking about dedicated server duties, just background tasks, like running a FTP server on your dorm room desktop computer, or sharing Frontrow media over your LAN at home. Personally I think the virtualization technology in Yonah sounds like a compelling reason to purchase a duo, but than again, I wear classes and take IT courses.
I do see your point D'Espice, but it's a fact parallel processing is where we are heading at, so don't agree multiple cores to be all hype. Beside it doesn't cost you an arm or a leg to add that extra core to your order either. (Unless you are a broke student. )

[D'Espice]

Originally Posted by sniffer

I wasn't really thinking about dedicated server duties, just background tasks, like running a FTP server on your dorm room desktop computer, or sharing Frontrow media over your LAN at home. Personally I think the virtualization technology in Yonah sounds like a compelling reason to purchase a duo, but than again, I wear classes and take IT courses.
I do see your point D'Espice, but it's a fact parallel processing is where we are heading at, so don't agree multiple cores to be all hype. Beside it doesn't cost you an arm or a leg to add that extra core to your order either. (Unless you are a broke student. )

If you ask me there's a huge difference between 640€ and 850€ - that's 210€ or ~33% more (sure, you get a SD as well but if you add that to the Solo it's 700€ vs. 850€). But maybe that's just me, I don't like spending more money especially not for something with questionable advantages

[MacOS-Fan]

Say what you will but the Duo is going to be faster than the Solo. I agree that in many instances the Duo isn't NECESSARY, but it is nice. When you start to run multiple tasks at once, the Duo will make a noticeable difference.

[furiousstyles416]

I just set up a Mini Core Solo for my mom - stock but with 1gb ram - and it's fast!!! Maybe it's due to a fresh install, but the Mini resizes Finder windows waaay faster than my Rev A 1.8ghz G5 iMac. I haven't done much else besides using Safari and Mail (which is the reason we bought it) and both seem quick.

[MacOS-Fan]

Glad to hear that you are enjoying it. Both of the new Minis are solid machines!