We’ll be in the market for a new Mac in the next few months. It’s for our home office, so specs exceeding need are completely useless. Basically, it needs to run CS4 apps (primarily DreamWeaver, Photoshop, and Illustrator) and Quark Passport (layout of 2–300 page texts with images, tables, figures, etc.). There are no dynamic imaging or video processing needs, nothing but text editing and Web/physical page layout. Any sophisticated Web or animation work (e.g., complex Flash movies) will get farmed out and not created on this machine.
We have a 24” Apple display, so a built-in screen is useless to us. There is, though, a strong preference for a laptop as occasional portability is a plus. Storage size is irrelevant, as all files are stored on a server (Linux). The house is networked already with a GB router/cabling, and we have a non-Mac USB access point that we occasionally use in an older Powerbook, so Bluetooth or Airport connectivity is not needed.
Right now, we’re doing everything we need on a Mac Mini with 2 GB RAM. While it runs fine, it’s a bit sluggish and just on the outside of slow. Again, the size of the screen is absolutely irrelevant, what matters most will be how well it handles the above applications.
I’m assuming that the entire family of CPUs is going to give relatively similar performance, at least within perceptible levels, and that the biggest difference (to us) is the graphics chip/board. However, benchmarks I’ve found tend to use gaming or video rendering, neither of which are of concern. Any ideas where to start?
Thanks,
Rhythm
ETA: Oh, could someone remind me of the set of pages on building a Mac? Has anyone here had experience with doing so? Are those machines reliable?
What part of the OP didn’t you read? Our functions here are relatively limited, and that’s exactly the problem I’m asking about – Apple tends to throw lots of unnecessary bells and whistles in their products.
Do we need two all-beef patties? I think not. Special sauce? Granted, lettuce, cheese pickles, and onion are part of the baseline, but sesame seeds? Sheesh. Talk about overpackaging. And don’t get me started on design… it hasn’t been the same since Styrofoam (or whatever it’s called) stopped being used.
The graphics chip’s performance really only matters when you’re talking about graphics-intensive work - like gaming or video rendering. For your purposes, it doesn’t matter.
The new Mac is supposed to replace/upgrade the Mini. It does a fine job function-wise, but it takes a relatively long time between application switching and rendering page moves (e.g., scrolling through a Quark file).
I know it’s not really a fair/direct comparison, but there are a couple things that suggest the Mini is underpowered (or there’s something wrong setup-wise). First, it’s not much faster than the circa 2004 Powerbook G4 notebook. That has 1.5 GB RAM, the older version of OS X, and virtually the same software (i.e., Quark passport on the Mini, Quark on the G4).
Second, there is the Mac-to-PC comparison. Granted, this is FAR from an actual benchmark (much more anecdotal) and has problems, but the PC (XP, Athlon 64x2, ATI 4850, 2GB RAM) can have a fifty-tab Firefox window, Outlook, Acrobat (with several files open), and a two to three hundred page Word document open with nary a sweat. Moving around the Word doc (with a smallish number of tables and graphics) doesn’t pose a problem. This would be unthinkable on the Mini.
The processors are relatively the same, so I’m assuming (hahaha) the bottleneck is in the graphics card. The processor on the Mini is the Intel GMA 950, and the most likely culprit is that it has 64 MB shared SDRAM. Upgrading the Mini from the stock 1 to 2 GB RAM did improve things slightly, but it doesn’t act/react like a modern machine.
Of course, there could be something wrong with the install, but we’ve recently gone through a host of cleaning and repairing. Also, very little gets put on it post installation of the main software library.
If you want backwards compatibility with apps from the Styrofoam era, you need to install the Polystyrene Compatibility Layer, and you’ll take a speed hit because of that. Better install an extra patty.
If you do go with the laptop, you can use that 24" as an external and then you’ve got two screens.
Like AHunter3 says, get a laptop and use the 24" screen as your monitor at home.
So your choice then falls to the MacBook or the MacBook Pro (I’m not even going to consider the Air). Given your needs, the 2.4GHz Macbook should do nicely. You might want to double the ram to 4G for a performance boost.
Well, more RAM would certainly help - but just how old is this Mini? The specifications have changed over time. The new Minis are quite fast - basically, they have the same configuration as the current MacBooks.
It definitely sounds like there is something wrong with yours, though, unless it’s 5 years old or something.
I’m not certain, but it looks like you are looking at old specs for the mac mini. intel 950 integrated graphics is not in the mac mini anymore. Apple upgraded the Mac Mini recently. I’m pretty sure the graphics processing got upgraded as well.
For what you want, a new mac mini meets your need with the minimum cost.
Mac Mini - $599
2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory (1066 mhz DDR3)
120GB hard drive
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
Mac Book - $1299
2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory (1066 mhz DDR3)
160GB hard drive
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
15" MacBook Pro - $1999
2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory (1066 mhz DDR3)
250GB hard drive
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB
If you can, go to an Apple Store, and put a new Mac Mini through it’s paces. Bring along a flash drive with some big documents, open them all up, and fire up a few CS4 apps, and play around with it. Try the same on the MacBook Pro to see if it handles better. Which ever you end up choosing, max out the memory from a third party vendor (or through Apple if you are concerned with “greenness,” as I understand Apple use more environmentally friendly RAM).
Oh, I should also mention the refurbs listed on the Apple website…
Refurbished iMac 20-inch - $999
2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
20-inch glossy widescreen display
2GB memory (800 mhz DDR2)
320GB hard drive
8x SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
I know you don’t need a built in monitor, but this system has the specs you need at a decent price. The memory is slower than the current models, but faster than what what you are using now.
I’d go with the MacBook or an iMac. Unless you’re hopelessly cramped for desktop space, set yourself up with two displays, and you’ll soon wonder how you ever scraped by with everything squished into just one monitor.
The MacBook has the advantage of portability - you can bring it along to a client, or work on something while on the train, or at a park, in the back yard, etc.
It’s got a 9400M with 256MB of shared DDR 3 (a huge step up from our current Mini, with but 64MB). Jumping from 2 to 4 GB is only $100, bringing it to $900.
In some ways, this is where I start to chafe against Apple, mostly because I’m used to having complete control over the systems I build. The base model is only $600. Two hundred more gets me extra space on a hard drive (unneeded, so wouldn’t buy), an extra GB of RAM, and 128MB more on the video card. I’d rather pay just for the video upgrade and add my own RAM, but nope, stuck with valueless (to me) upgrades. Ach… but I’m whining over a couple hundred bucks. Not chump change, but not as vexing as some of Apple’s past price structures.
A similar configuration of the iMac (same CPU, 256 video, 4GB RAM) looks like it runs $1400. Yikes. We’ve really appreciated the portability of the G4, but is it worth $600? I’m not so sure, especially as the G4 can still run older versions of our software, and has never been a problem in traveling. Heck, a decent LCD to use as a second monitor is less than that, which takes care of the other advantage.