Mac mini to PC Hack

DiZASTiX writes "Kevin Rose, the ever so popular host of G4/TechTV's The Screen Savers, has managed to fit a PC inside the Mac mini. 'I've seen a ton of articles around the web lately comparing the Mac mini to the near full size desktop PC. What they fail to compare is the amount of computing power per square inch you get with the Mini. So, I decided to take it upon myself to create the fastest PC possible with the size constraints of the Mini's small form factor.' The article covers most everything he did and includes pictures."

Comments

Apparently they never heard of the Cappuccino PC

[onelin]

The http://www.cappuccinopc.com/ has been out long before the Mac Mini, and the original was even a smaller form-factor, with modern P4 variants just slightly larger.

Anyway, this whole article is missing the point. Cheap OS X is good for everybody! I wouldn't buy a PC that small even though there's the option...

Coincidence?

[Greger47]

The Mac mini box is 16.5 cm along the edges. Compare that to the mini-ITX PC boards that are 17x17 cm.

I guess Apple decided to give all those nerds that insist on "upgrading" their Macs with a PC mobo a challenge. :) /greger

Car analogies rarely work, however...

[TheLittleJetson]

I think of Apple as more closely matched to BMW. It's a brand whose primary goal is to build a reliable piece of hardware that is enjoyable to use. It's easy to form an opinion about it, but until you get behind the wheel/screen, you just won't get it Much like BMW, Apple has recently put a lot of effort into aesthetics, and therefore the brand has been making its way into the "luxury" market, while keeping its core goals (quality, enjoyable use) intact.

BMW's aren't the fastest cars on the road, but they're still plenty fast. Anyone with some mechanical skill can turbocharge a Dodge Neon or something and end up with more bang-for-the-buck, but it's just not the same.

...now that that analogy is wearing thin, let me address a couple points...

I'd be surprised if we don't see a PC variant with better specs within a few months. -- Me too! Apple always has a bunch of companies rushing to implement a knock-off of it's current design. (I'm not saying that Apple never takes other peoples ideas, I'm simply saying that when they announce something big/cool, other companies copy it in droves. There are too many examples to list, but here's a few: System7, iPod, Titanium PowerBook, etc.)

Other than the SFF community who are they targeting? Are most Mac/PC users going to give up significant amounts of horsepower to save a couple inches of space? -- I don't think the Mac mini is meant to be the fastest, most upgradable machine they have. In fact, I would speculate that most people buying a Mac mini are buying it as a second computer. I think it has 2 target markets, one of which is more important than the others:

• The important one: non-mac users who are flirting with the idea of switching. Maybe they use Macs at work or school, and a PC at home. Perhaps they have an iPod and iTunes, and enjoy the experience, and want iPhoto, iMovie, iEtc. I think this is the critical target group, because this is like training wheels for the switch to Mac. If they like the Mac experience, they may end up switching, or if they don't divorce the PC, at least they could become a long term Apple customer, possibly buying more Apple products in the future. For this group, processor speed isn't all that important. This computer is just to organize their photos, music, and "digital life". Since the price of entry is so low, it's hard for these folks to say no at this point.
• The other group: those who want a net-appliance. Anyone who may have bought a Cobalt Qube is probably eyeing the Mac mini right now. A set-top box, a home router/server, etc. It's good for little projects like that. Again, processor speed isn't as important as it would be in other applications.

...they are going to produce their own set top box or game console... -- Apple has a nasty habbit of coming up with ideas a few years before the market is ripe for it. The video game console is no different: at one point they planned to release the Pippin, which was somewhere between an XBOX and WebTV as far as featureset.... I don't think this ever made it into production.

The guts of a Mac mini

[bonch]

Anyone whose taken apart their mini to upgrade has already seen how remarkably simple and elegant (the classic Mac elitist term, but it applies) the innards are. It's a tight fit, and yet the mini compares performance-wise with any other iBook G4 released last year. I use the 1.42Ghz model with 512MB of RAM, and it is speedier than my somewhat equivalent giant PC tower (the look of which suddenly became obsolete the very day the Mac mini was revealed...it's sad to see the tiny white Mac mini sitting on top of a giant, ugly gray tower from Gateway). I actually use the mini to do multitrack recording at 24-bit/96kHz through Logic Express, and it handles it fine. It's also a blast to program with, even for making UNIX apps if you want to.

You start to wrap your head around it more easily when you start realizing it's really an iBook without the keyboard and LCD, but the fact it's even smaller than a laptop blows your mind. Trying to put a PC in such a size failed--he couldn't even include the CD drive. The mini really is an entire home computer in a tiny box, but the real trick is that it actually doesn't suck. That's what seperates it from the rest--it's a real, usable computer that takes up less space than my laptop yet doesn't suck.

Mac Mini PC

[PhaxMohdem]

Looks like a fun project but to me, a 400 mhz slower... inferior processor and no optical drive doesn't seem like a design win to me.

On another note, about building one of these with high end graphics.... People get so focused on off the shelf cards they forget about a whole nother breed of integrated chips.... for laptops..

While I highly doubt the mini-itx standard will suffice in powering an x86 counterpart to the mac mini, a custom designed board with perhaps a radeon mobility 9700 or 9800 chipset would run most of the games Lan partiers play at playable framerates.

To acheive this type of miniaturization with the level of performace as Apple has done, it will NEED a company willing to custom design a laptop board varient to fit a case, that supports such mobile chipsets. Perhaps even the ability to upgrade the mobile graphics card via a slot in the bottom of the unit.

A dothan and a high end mobility graphics card would prove to be a nice little LAN party animal. but then the issue of $$$ comes into play a PC system outperforming the mini for $499 or less??? I highly doubt it.

Apple Mini - 1
PC mini - 0 & Currently TKO'd