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Written by Chris Tangora
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Monday, 28 August 2006 |
mini to the max
 As the eventual upgrade to the Mac mini's are just around the corner, I felt it was a good time to take a look at the current offering, specificly the Core Duo. Generally, the refurbished Macs get a 10 - 20% mark down on the Apple website. When this Intel generation of Mac mini gets replaced, it would be a great time to grab one of these powerful machines at a discounted price.
I recently received two Mac Mini Core Duo's for a project, and had one sitting on the back bench just asking for a review. I decided to take it for a spin to see what it could do, and I was impressed overall. While it did not do stellar when compared to G5 units, it was remarkably reliable and performed above my expectations. After seeing what a good Intel chip can do in the entry model Mac, I can not wait to get my hands on the more advanced models.
Looking at the read / write speeds of the Mac mini, I can see where the 5400 RPM drive is holding it back some even though it is amazingly reliable in performance. The speed difference in the 2 - 10 MB file transfers was nominal; it came across transferring all the sizes of data relative equal (about 32 MB / sec Read, 35 MB / sec Write). Granted, the speeds did not match up to average 7200 RPM drives, but the reliablity and design is a fair trade-off.
The size of the Mac mini is one of it's most impressive and obvious features. Countless people have asked where the computer is while I was setting one up. The phyiscal dimensions are only 6.5" x 6.5" x 2". Do these dimensions sound famililar? they should if you are into car stereos; a single DIN car stereo is 7" x 2". This could be the reason we have seen an uprising of awesome Mac mini installs into cars. Get your thinking caps on for the Great Mac Mod Challenge 2007!
The power comes from a power brick that gives you extra length from outlet to unit and keeps the mini relatively cool. Temperatures inside the mini ran under 50˚C (122˚F) on the CPU monitors when at idle, however they did get up to 90˚C (194˚F) when they were running at 100% for prolonged periods. The maximum temperature warning in Temperature Monitor is set to 100˚C (212˚F), but it never reached that temperature after 5 days running full bore on BOINC. The processor has been replaced by others and it looks to be possible to any good modder with the budget. Keep in mind the operating temperature maxs out at 35˚C (95˚F) and storage temperature shouldn't go above 46.6˚C (116˚F).
The Intel Core chip is as impressive as the G5 chipset; the Core Duo floating point speed is 1330 million operations / second and integer speed of 3511 million operations / second while a single iMac G5 comparitively comes in at 1169 mil ops / second floating and 3676.2 mil ops/sec floating. Close enough for me to call the two processors peers. The Mac mini also comes with a single firewire 400 port, four USB 2.0 ports, an ethernet port, Airport Extreme and BlueTooth ready. The Duo comes with a Superdrive and the Solo comes with a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, both slot loading. It also has the digital audio input and output jacks.
While the mini has caught alot of flack for having Intel's shared memory graphics processor, I gotta tell you it works great. The setup I tested on was pushing a 23" Apple Cinema Display, rotated to 270˚. No glitches, not even with the fast user switching, and it made surfing the web an entirely new experience. The processor can handle 1920 x 1200 pixels and maxes out on the 23" Apple Display. The video out is the Apple DVI, but you can get an adapter to push S-video or VGA video.
While the Mac mini is a great Mac, there are downsides to consider. First and foremost, the video. As I said earlier, lots of people have cracked on the mini for using a shared memory graphics processor. This piece of the Mac mini is NOT upgradable; you will be stuck with a 64 MB processor. It takes at least 80 MB of memory away from the base installed memory and can pull more memory as programs require, so you will need to upgrade or buy more RAM for best performance (system tested came with 1 GB of memory).
The other downside is upgrades in general. The only part mentioned on the Apple website as upgradable is the memory, and only at an Authorized Apple Store or Repair Center. If you are going to crack open the iMac regardless, this would not be a problem. However, if you are planning on keeping it in warranty, you would have to pay the Apple price for the memory (which should be paired for best performance). The other downside worth mentioning is the stock hard drive, it only runs at 5400 RPM. This is where a large ammount of the disk read / write issues came from in the test. It would NOT be a good drive to run any heavy read writes on.
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The Good: Fast, interchangable processor, reliable disk performance, size and design.
The Bad: Low end stock items, no upgrade paths for video and easily voided warranty.
The Skinny: The Mac mini rocks! While it's no Mac Pro, it does a great job for what it is built to be: an introductory Mac. Due to its seperate power supply and small size, it works for almost any enclosure; a perfect choice for modding. I can't wait to grab it from the sales rack!
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