DIY Mac mini Overclocking

mirko writes "So, you wanted a 1,42GHz Mac mini but either because of some distribution woes or because of your tight budget you could just get a 1,25GHz ? Don't worry : Leo Bodnar just found out how to overclock your machine. Of course, you'll have to open it prior to anything else but you already know how to do this."

Comments

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[mirko]

link...

Cooling?

[Leroy_Brown242]

I can't imagine that little box is all that great at cooling. I know the cube wasn't.
I wonder if there is going to be a surplus of dead mac minis hitting ebay soon. :)

Re:Cooling?

[William_Lee]

Well, if you're just moving up the speed from 1.25 to 1.42, cooling shouldn't be an issue since they are shipping minis at the higher speed in the upgraded one.

I would bet the chips are the same core in both, but the default 1.42 chips are certified qualitywise to run at that speed. Overclocking the 1.25 chip to 1.42 should really be no big deal.

Re:Cooling?

[Leroy_Brown242]

Sure, those are the odds.

But the chances go up there are going to be more failures now.

Especially if the 1.25 chips really didn't certify at 1.42. Some times, 170MHz makes all the difference. Especially if they are doing it to up thier distributed.net speeds. :)

Re:Cooling?

[kuwan]

Actually the Cube has proven to be pretty good at cooling judging by the number of processor, video and hard drive/CD/DVD upgrades for it.

You can get up to a 1.7 GHz G4 processor upgrade and there was even a Dual 800 MHz G4 upgrade offered at one point. Some people have been able to put in nVidia GeForce 3 and ATI Radeon 8500, 9000 Pro and 9200 graphics cards in these things. Not to mention you can put a full-size hard drive into it.

The Cube will probably end up being a lot more upgradable than the Mini, but the Mini sure has a better price.

--
Join the Pyramid - Free Mini Mac | Free Flat Screens

Re:Cooling?

[garcia]

Well I would assume that the 1.25 is made the same as the 1.42. I have the 1.42 myself and it runs quite cool while being extremely quiet (as long as you aren't reading a CD/DVD).

If you bump the 1.25 to 1.42 I'm sure it's fine. I wouldn't want to bump the 1.42 any higher as it's not worth voiding the warranty for the TINY speed increase and the possibilty of the case not being able to handle the increased heat.

Re:Cooling?

[bitswapper]

Its altogether possible that Apple ran them for awhile before marketing them.
Only a possibility, not a given, though.

Re:Cooling?

[jest3r]

I just got a mini yesterday and it runs very cool . compared to a Powerbook. The internal fan comes on when the CPU temperature reaches 55C (could even be 60C), which only happens during games or other really processor intensive applications.

Even then, the aluminum case remains room temperature (feels cool). The fan itself is very quiet. During light use (Internet, word processing) the Mini is absolutely silent and operates cool to the touch.

The Powerbook on the other hand gets almost too hot to touch when the CPU hits 55C, and the internal fan is rather noisy in comparison.

Re:Cooling?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the 1.42GHz version and I can tell you that not only are they quiet, they run pretty cool too. I'd be surprised if Apple have bothered to design different fans and heatsinks for the two different processor speeds. I'd bet the 1.25Ghz version can be upped to 1.42 with no overheating problems.

Re:Cooling?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Apple should have a problem making 1.42 chips. (Isn't IBM making them for them?) I think the speed-certification is more based on economics than what the chips can actually do. (Anyone remember Intel's Celeron 300A?)

Re:Cooling?

[Leroy_Brown242]

I don't get your point.

You thnk they overclocked the lower clocked machine and tested that?

Re:Cooling?

[Leroy_Brown242]

So, that says nothing about how cool it runs, but how well it dissapates heat.

The Powerbook radiates heat through it's case, while the Mac Mini is either keeping it internaly, or venting it in a more focused manner. (exhaust fan)

Re:Cooling?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not an issue. If you can cool a laptop, the mini is EASIER to cool. For various reasons - including external power supply, 184-pin RAM, and size of fan compared to Powerbook fan.

Re:Cooling?

[Have Blue]

The Cube was originally convection cooled (no fan). Most of the CPU and GPU upgrades add a fan, so it's not really the same thing.

Re:Cooling?

[AviLazar]

but can you add a scsi hard drive into this thing - with all its speed and heat :D

My scsi box is louder then a 747 during take-off

Re:Cooling?

[Anonymous Coward]

> The internal fan comes on when the CPU temperature reaches 55C (could even be 60C), which only happens during games or other really processor intensive applications.

Are you sure about that? I've read a number of reports that said that normally the fan runs all the time, but at low speed so it's very quiet but it does run. It ramps up to higher speed under load.

Re:Cooling?

[krisp]

motorola makes the g4. ibm makes the g5

Re:Cooling?

[iroll]

Motorola makes nothing. Freescale makes the G4 ;)

Re:Cooling?

[Basehart]

"My scsi box is louder then a 747 during take-off"

Wow, that must be tough on the neighbors.

Re:Cooling?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would bet the chips are the same core in both, but the default 1.42 chips are certified qualitywise to run at that speed. Overclocking the 1.25 chip to 1.42 should really be no big deal.

The 1.25GHz chips are certified to run at their temperature while running at... 1.25GHz. The 1.25GHz chips are going to run warmer at 1.42GHz, even if it is the same temperature the 1.42GHz chips normally run. Thus they are running at a termperature not certified to be stable. While they may be stable now, come summer you may find they are unstable.

Re:Cooling?

[kannibal_klown]

Which PowerBook are you using?

I remember trying a 12" PowerBook at the Apple store, and was disgusted with how hot it got. It was horrible.

I later bought myself a 15" Al Powerbook w/ 1.25Hz CPU. I've felt it get mildly warm, but never hot. Then again, I don't use it on my lap often.

Re:Cooling?

[Anubis350]

heh, you have a different experiance than me than. I love my AlBook 15" w/1.5ghz CPU dearly (I'll get rid of it when they pry it from my cold, dead, fingers) but it burns like hell when doing large amounts of compiling, video work, etc. Its literally too hot to keep on my lap much of the time (there are times when I think I could flip the thing over and use it as a griddle). Its an amazing piece of hardware, and runs pretty cold most of the time, but push the hardware to its max and *bam*, lots of heat.

That said, its one of the greatest piece of computer hardware I've had the privelege of owning (and I've owned, or my house has contained at least, quite a bit of hardware)

Re:Cooling?

[jest3r]

The 12" Al Powerbook. It gets extremely hot, especially right above and below where the HD sits. Almost too hot to touch sometimes.

Plus the fan can be pretty noisy at 65C. How is the fan on the 15"?

Re:Cooling?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think so. If the Powerbook gets red hot to the touch it obviously "runs hot". The powerbook also has fan ventilation but from experience it actually becomes too hot to handle.

If the Mac Mini doesn't radiate heat or does so in such a manner that the heat is no longer there ie. it is not noticable then obviously it "runs cool".

Re:Cooling?

[Jozer99]

The powerbook, like most laptops, has the heatsync on the largest surface of the laptop, the bottom, where it touches your lap. Your lap takes the brunt of the heat from it. The Mac Mini's heatsync does not touch the case itself, since they have slightly more room to work with. As for the fans, the Mac Mini has a larger (but not large) fan than the powerbook. Therefore it spins slower than the powerbook's, generating less noise. Most laptop fans are horribly noisy, I would have though Apple would have sourced a quieter one. Evidently now.

Re:Cooling?

[mrseigen]

Yeah, my 12" gets really hot around the drives too. I can't understand why it's the hard drive section and not, for example, the battery. I'll have to check my repair manual to see what else is in that general section.

Re:Cooling?

[ravenspear]

In SOVIET RUSSIA, you have the MATRIX!

In Soviet Russia, the Matrix hacks into you.

Re:Cooling?

[capmilk]

I don't think the increased heat poses the major risk of the upgrade. Rather the tinyness of the jumpers you're supposed to desolder seems crucial to miny. Compared to the Mac mini an Xbox is an easy solder job - and still tons of dead units appeared at ebay when the modding started.

Re:Cooling?

[abbibi]

I think the higher speeds (1.5GHZ & 1.58GHZ) might work using a Peltier thermoelectric device installed over the CPU. (As long as the processing errors mentioned weren't coming from another chip that would need to be overclocked too.) If this worked, it would be a very respectable 26.4% speed bump for the 1.25GHZ Mac mini. Any thoughts?

If you don't know what a Peltier device is, and feel like educating youself, check out this page: www.marlow.com/faq.htm

Re:Cooling?

[Phantom Gremlin]

I frequently watch TV from my easy chair and surf at the same time with my 12" 1.33 GHz powerbook on my lap.

I have never noticed the PB to be uncomfortably warm, nor have I noticed the fan to be very loud at all.

Not to deny the validity of everyone else posting on this topic, I just wanted to throw my 2 cents out.

Obviously, the PBs vary in terms of how hot they get. Maybe the older ones run hotter?

Re:Cooling?

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

You're absolutely right that the older ones run hotter. The original 867 MHz 12" PowerBooks were incredibly hot, but the more recent ones have been much better about heat.

If I'm just sitting on the couch with my iBook (800 MHz G4) checking my mail or chatting on IRC, it's cool to the touch, and the fan doesn't even turn on. Doing anything that uses the CPU, hard drive, or video card heavily makes it heat up in a hurry, though, especially things that use two or all three of those things at once, like games, audio/video processing, compiling, etc. This one actually seems to get a bit hotter than my old G3 iBook did, unlike the PowerBooks (12" ones, at least), which have gotten cooler.

Warranty?

[Cambrant]

...but then the warranty will be void, and any mistake will be fatal. Damn Apple.

Re:Warranty?

[Cambrant]

Oh, I was apparently wrong. As long as you don't break it, the warranty is still valid.

Re:Warranty?

[mgs1000]

So you are saying the warranty is valid only if you don't need it? :)

Re:Warranty?

[troc]

Erm, no. The warranty is never valid if YOU break it, only if it breaks because it's faulty. If YOU break it, it's insurance that comes to the rescue, maybe. :)

Troc

Re:Warranty?

[Golias]

When it comes to the Mac mini, you might want to consider this:

The default warranty (if you don't buy the extended AppleCare) is one year.

This is a $499 electronic device.

A 1-year hardware warranty on a gadget this cheap is worth, what? Maybe $50?

So whenever you are considering doing something like this (and yes, overclocking pretty much alwasys voids warranties, even if all the early FUD about opening the mini case turned out to be false), the judgement call you need to make is: Will this mod be worth more than about $50 to me?

In the case of this mod, it's a way to turn a 1.25 GHz mini into a 1.42 GHz mini.

But for $20 more than the price of upgrading the HD from 40GB to 80GB, you can get an actual 1.42 GHz mini with an 80GB drive already installed, and keep the warranty intact.

So in this case, no. Probably not really worth it.

However, on a system this inexpensive, it's really just a matter of time before some people start coming up with interesting hacks which are more than worth it.

I doubt the mini will replace the X-Box as the hardware hacker's favorite toy anytime soon, but it will be interesting to see what happens over the next year or so.

Re:Warranty?

[illumin8]

Erm, no. The warranty is never valid if YOU break it, only if it breaks because it's faulty. If YOU break it, it's insurance that comes to the rescue, maybe. :)

You're right, and I also think that removing soldered jumpers from the motherboard will definitely void your warranty.

Did you see the size of the jumpers?!?!?! Crazy small...

Re:Warranty?

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, the mini is three times the price of the Xbox, assuming you buy no accessories for either. The only benefit I can see as far as using it as a media player or similar is that you don't need an Xbox to USB cable. It's a lot faster and has more memory (and storage), even in the lowest trim, but the Xbox is cheap as hell.

Re:Warranty?

[Golias]

The only benefit I can see as far as using it as a media player or similar is that you don't need an Xbox to USB cable.

I see a few others.

1. The mini is very quiet, the X-Box is notoriously noisy.

2. The mini video card is modest by modern PC standards, but vastly superior to the one in the X-Box.

3. The mini is ready for use as a media server with no hacking required. iTunes is a fantastic app for storing your music library. Plug an EyeTV 500 into the firewire port, and you've got a digital broadcast Tivo-alike. Install VLC (which is a free download), and you're playing full-screen videos of whatever gray-market stuff you find on the Internet. The DVI out plugs right into most modern HD televisons and projectors without the need for an adapter. Plus, all of this can be controlled with an IR remote from Keyspan, which I've seen on the web for as little as $22. The built-in bluetooth and 802.11g options are nice to have, as well.

That said, it's not perfect.

1. The CPU isn't really fast enough to give you full-frame 1080i HDTV via the EyeTV. Not the end of the world if you are using an XGA or WXGA projector, but still...

2. You need a USB break-out box to get surround sound... but at least the OS supports both Dolby 5.1 and DTS.

3. Hmmm... actually, that's the whole list.

Re:Warranty?

[Inkieminstrel]

I fail to understand that logic. If you fry the mini while breaking the warranty, you have a paperweight you paid $500 for, not one you paid $50.

Also, you can bet that the reason this voids the warranty is that your system now has a higher than 1 in 10 chance of melting, and it's not worth the money to them.

Re:Warranty?

[Golias]

I fail to understand that logic. If you fry the mini while breaking the warranty, you have a paperweight you paid $500 for, not one you paid $50.

Any advice given on hacking hardware must begin with the assumption that you know what the hell you are doing. Otherwise the discussion is kind of a waste of time.

Re:Warranty?

[jericho4.0]

The jumpers are not soldered, just normal (tiny) jumpers. The picture in the article shows the other side of the board, with the numbers of each jumper.

I'm suprised Apple released these with jumpers rather than hardwiring it. Anyone know if many other Macs are overclockable this way.

The Mac Mini is looking like a better buy every day.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not really clear on how overclocking would necessarily be detectable, and thus void the warranty. If I go in and change the jumpers, melt it down, change the jumpers back - how is Apple going to know?

My other observation is whether the 1.25 vs 1.42 models are really different? Is it maybe just a marketing distinction, and the only difference is the jumper settings (I have certainly purchased hardware that has been crippled this way from other brands.)

But having said that, I gave up overclocking years ago. Systems are so much faster that it doesn't seem worthwhile to trade-off speed for reliability.

Re:Warranty?

[Golias]

I would imagine that they only bother to test the chips for the 1.25 system at 1.25, so it's always a gamble.

The thing is, while it's easy enough to pop open the mini case for minor things like swapping out memory or media drives, the motherboard is a little trickier to get at. The linked article is a little incomplete as to how easy it is to swap those jumpers. I know that a lot of computer companies in the past, including Apple, have put a piece of watermarked tape over the speed control jumpers, so they would be able to tell if you overclocked it.

Re:Warranty?

[Golias]

Yes, a lot of Macs use mobo jumpers for the speed setting. Back when I dropped a G4 (500 MHz) chip into my 1999-built G3 (350 MHz) Tower, I had to swap the jumpers around for the new speed.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

The video card in the mac mini is vastly inferior to the x-box card, since the x-box card is derived from a full power geforce 3.

The mini-card is a ATI Radeon 9200, which isn't better than a geforce 3.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Baka.

The GeForce 3 was an attempt to catch up to the performance of the ATI Raedons of the time. A failed attempt. Both the Ultra and the Pro from nVidia were better cards at the time. nVidia really didn't get back in the game until the GeForce 4 was released.

Furthermore, it's sharing the 64MB of system memory with the rest of the X-Box on a relatively slow bus, while the Raedon in the Mac mini has 32MB on a bus of its own.

Re:Warranty?

[Golias]

The video card in the mac mini is vastly inferior to the x-box card, since the x-box card is derived from a full power geforce 3.

The mini-card is a ATI Radeon 9200, which isn't better than a geforce 3.

You really have no clue, do you?

The X-Box is a 733 MHz Pentium system with 64 MB of system RAM, and the video "card" which you say is "derived from a full power geforce 3" is a 300 MHz GPU designed specifically for the X-Box by Microsoft and nVidia. It's an integrated chip which shares the system bus. It supports a maximum resolution of 1920x1080. Plenty good enough for hooking up to TV sets, even some HDTV sets, but pathetic by computer card standards.

I'll take the Radeon 9200 with it's own DDR video memory, thanks.

P.S. I've got both an X-Box and a mini, and have witnessed both of them perform. There's no question that the X-Box fails to even come close to the video performance of the mini. Sorry. It just isn't as good, no matter how much you might want it to be.

Re:Warranty?

[gbdc]

Are you sure the graphic chip on Xbox is inferior to the one in Mac Mini? I find it almost impossible to believe.

Re:Warranty?

[snuf23]

To be frank, both the Xbox and the Mac Mini can make great media boxes. They both have different benefits as well.
To address the parent:

1. Xbox noise: I haven't noticed it to be noisy at all. Even with the additional fan a added to help cool the upgraded drive it is still quiet.

2. Both Xbox and Mac Mini video cards are decent for a media box. Both can be output to HDTV. The Xbox can also output 480p and 1080p to VGA monitors with a special cable.

3. The Xbox requires some hacking to get it to become a media pc. This may either be considered a pain in the ass, or fun depending on your view. The modchip solder job is not all that complex (say compared to a PS2). There is no option for video recording on an Xbox this can be a down side. The Xbox has a remote as well.

Since we all no the Mac Mini's benefits - what can you do with an Xbox?
You can swap in a large hard drive (I went with a 160GB, you can go higher) for media storage.
Install Xbox Media Center (XBMC) which gives you:

audio playback (I'm not sure what codecs, MP3 of course)
video playback (DVD, MPG, DIVX, XVID, Quicktime etc.)
picture viewer
Internet streaming audio support
The current weather report
Streams all media types off of Samba shares on the network if you don't want to put them on the local Xbox hard drive.

XBMC is a slick menu driven application which is very simple to use while sitting on the couch. In depth configuration is accomplished through easy to edit XML files. It is also skinnable, so you can make the interface match your living room decor. It integrates all of your media access into one nice program.

If you want more information check out:
www.xboxmediacenter.de

So what else do you get with a modded Xbox? Well, the big thing is games. There are emulators for just about every old console and computer system available for Xbox. So if playing Atari's Adventure or Super Mario Brothers on your big old HDTV sounds good - this is the way to go. Plus you get to play Robotron with two joysticks just like back in the arcade. All of the emulators work nicely with the standard controllers - so there is no question of while my controller work properly with this emulator (as occurs int the PC world).
If you are interested in seeing what kind of Emulation is available for the Xbox check out:

Xport

The Xbox itself has a huge library of games which you can still play on your modified Xbox. Xbox live might be iffy though.

You can of course also install a full blown Linux installation on the Xbox if you like (as you can on the Mac although you hardly need to).
For information about Xbox Linux check out:

Xbox Linux

How much does this all cost?
$150 Xbox unit
$30-$70 Mod chip
$100-$150 Hard drive
You figure on spending about $300 or so for the modded setup.

One thing should be mentioned. Modding the Xbox is illegal, using emulators is pretty iffy too and certainly against copyright law if you don't own the ROMs etc. Most Xbox applications are illegal as they are built with Microsoft's SDK but are not licensed from Microsoft. You can't even download the apps off of a web page. You need to go to the super secret (not really) IRC channel to get the super-secret (not really) access to get the files.

So Mac Mini vs. Xbox? If you like hacking around, don't mind the legality issue, are comfortable with using FTP and whacking XML config files, have a strong interest in gaming (both current and historical) and don't need DVR functionality, the Xbox is a really fun and extremely hackable little computer.

Myself, I think I want both of them.

Re:Warranty?

[Golias]

Are you sure the graphic chip on Xbox is inferior to the one in Mac Mini? I find it almost impossible to believe.

You find it almost impossible to believe that a low-end integrated chip in a three-year-old set-top console which currently sells for $125 for the entire system and was intended to connect to TV sets is inferior to a low-end GPU card from a $500 computer with DVI output that was just released this month? Okay.

To answer your question: Yes. Yes I'm sure. I own both. The ATI Radeon is a better solution.

The X-Box puts the PS2 to shame, sure. That doesn't mean it holds up to the standards of a real AGP-based video card, even a low-memory one like the 32MB 9200. Notice that HALO (the original "show off what the X-Box can do" game) actually only ran at about 30 fps on a standard-definition TV set, and sometimes it couldn't even keep up that sluggish pace.

The Radeon 9200, on the other hand, actually seems to perform better than the GeForce 5200 FX Ultra which is currenly loaded into the Apple iMac, in spite of having half the video memory. It's a pretty darn good card.

Re:Warranty?

[Golias]

To be fair to the mini, you can also had more HD space to it via firewire. Even if you add two external firewire drives, it will still take up less shelf space than the X-Box.

Plus, the software it comes with can already do everything the X-Box Media Center can do, and then some.

Don't get me wrong, the purchase of a mini doesn't mean I'm throwing my X-Box in the trash. I'm just moving it out of the home theater room and putting it in the basement rec room.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have that backwards. The GeForce3 blew away everything at the time that it was released, and maintained it's speed (and high cost) lead for some time. Eventually ATI came out with faster cards. The GeForce4 was the one playing catch up.

However, the Xbox was not relased until the GeForce4Ti was out, and ATI already had faster cards. So it was no longer top of the line, at the time the Xbox was released.

I don't know anything about the capabilities of the 9200 relative to anything else, so whether it's faster or not, I have no idea. If it's a low end card, and faster, things have come a long way since I stopped keeping up with them.

Re:Warranty?

[cayenne8]

"3. The mini is ready for use as a media server with no hacking required. iTunes is a fantastic app for storing your music library. Plug an EyeTV 500 into the firewire port, and you've got a digital broadcast Tivo-alike. Install VLC (which is a free download), and you're playing full-screen videos of whatever gray-market stuff you find on the Internet. The DVI out plugs right into most modern HD televisons and projectors without the need for an adapter. Plus, all of this can be controlled with an IR remote from Keyspan, which I've seen on the web for as little as $22. The built-in bluetooth and 802.11g options are nice to have, as well."

I looked up the EyeTV 500 thing...it appears to only be for free over the air HDTV. Being that HDTV really probably isn't going to be mainstream thing in quite some time (hence not replacing analog 60" tv)...do you know of an analog tv tuner for the mac so it could be used as MythTV type application with normal cable tv?

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the mini have component (not composite) video out? I wonder how it could physically do HD without this?

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares when something is released. Every part of the mac mini is three year old tech anyway.

Re:Warranty?

[Wiz]

w00t, the Mac Mini is newer therefore it's graphics card must be better. No, I disagree. The 9200 is the lowest graphics card ATi even sell these days. It may be better than the 5200, but then again that is also a budget card. The GF3 was a full blown top card when it came out.

Whether the Mac Mini does better than the X-Box or not, the point is a GF3 (Tweaked, got some GF4 tech in it for the X-box) is better than a 9200. The difference in architecture/processors is one thing, but to say the Mac Mini's graphics card is purely better is wrong, shared bus or not.

As I much as I hate to link to Tom's Hardware, I feel I must. So go here and read. The GF3 in the XBox is basically a Ti500, and the 9000 is the 9200 (9200 is 9000 + 8xAGP, like that makes any difference).

Oh look, I don't see the ATi card beat the Ti500 anywhere.

Re:Warranty?

[default luser]

You underestimate the real limitations of the video hardware onboard the Mac Mini.

The "9200" onboard has been proven to be a "9200SE", which has a pitiful 64-bit memory interface. The two memory chips are 32-bit wide paired.

Assuming they are running to to ATI reference spec (DDR166), that paltry 32MB dedicated video memory has a peak bandwidth of 2.6GB/s.

Some comparisons for reference:

Peak bandwidth of AGP 8x: 2.1GB/s

TNT2 Ultra (A six year-old card): 2.8GB/s

A REAL Radeon 8500/9200(not this SE crap): 8.8GB/s

The Xbox unified memory bandwidth: 6.4GB/s

I'm sorry, but the 9200SE has NOTHING on the Xbox, let alone a real modern graphics engine, solely because the cheap memory interface holds it back.

I guess as long as you run with 16-bit color and low-quality textures, you might get something near XBox performance.

Re:Warranty?

[Golias]

The GF3 was a full blown top card when it came out.

But as we all know, the X-Box does not contain an actual GF3. It's a similar chip, but unlike the GeForce cards you buy for the AGP slot in your computer, it's integrated with the motherboard.

Say it with me now: Shared memory.

Unlike the ATI Radeon in the mini, the GPU in the X-Box has no memory of its own, and shares the system memory. If you've ever used a low-end budget-box PC with integrated video, you should be keenly aware of what a huge performance hit that is.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "9200" onboard has been proven to be a "9200SE"

Proven by whom?

Link, please.

A brief Google search yields dozens of people speculating that it's the SE, but none that confirm it as fact.

FWIW... ATI's own website claims it's a 9200, not a 9200SE. See for yourself.

Re:Warranty?

[drinkypoo]

The Xbox has more memory bandwidth (with dual channel DDR) and the ability for the GPU to access one bank of memory while the CPU accesses another, so the performance hit is probably significant but almost certainly not as significant as you think it is. The GPU is also significantly faster. On the other hand, the CPU in the Xbox is significantly slower, so I'd say the final analysis has to include a description of what, specifically, you will be doing. I suspect that for GPU-bound tasks, the Xbox will be approximately as powerful as the Mini.

Re:Warranty?

[Golias]

Yes. The EyeTV 300, or the port of MythTV for OS X.

Even though there's not very much HDTV content over the air yet, all of the stations in my market (Twin Cities) have 24-hour digital broadcasts, often on more than one station. Since I don't subscribe to cable, there's no reason why I feel the need for an analog tuner anymore. YMMV.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has DVI out, which is basically the same thing as component out on a single thick bundle of cables. Most of the newer HD projectors and sets accept DVI input.

Owners of sets that can't take DVI can use a $20 converter to downgrade it to S-Video instead. Not a perfect system, but still better than composite.

Re:Warranty?

[Vombatus]

Anyone know if many other Macs are overclockable this way.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ will tell you what you can and cant do

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and a XBOX is $149 and a Mini Mac is $499.

Re:Warranty?

[suckmysav]

" The jumpers are not soldered, just normal (tiny) jumpers. "

They are most definetly soldered.

There are in fact, as the article states, "zero ohm resistors". To be fully accurate, you would call them "surface mount zero Ohm resistors". The page author goes on to say that you do not need to put them back to set your desired clock speed because you can just use a "blob of solder".

Re:Warranty?

[suckmysav]

" I'm not really clear on how overclocking would necessarily be detectable, and thus void the warranty. If I go in and change the jumpers, melt it down, change the jumpers back - how is Apple going to know?"

Because the "jumpers" are actually "surface mount zero ohm resistors" and are soldered to the board, and any typically hamfisted attempt to remove and replace the "jumpers" by a hacker with a handheld soldering iron will be easily detectable to any hardware tech worth his salt.

Re:Warranty?

[Jozer99]

I agree with you for the most part, but there are some things you are missing. Because of the way the bus on the XBox is set up, the video performace is MUCH higher than on the Mini's separate graphics adapter. Since the processor and GPU share RAM, the bandwidth and latency between the two is MUCH MUCH lower than on the AGP Mini. Of course, the Mini allows much more flexability in terms of what you can do, and it is much easier to hook the Mini up to a high resolution monitor at native resolution. The Radeon 9200 scored lower on graphics benchmarks than the Radeon 9000 Pro. The Radeon 9000 Pro is a feature limited version of the Radeon 8500 (look it up). The Radeon 8500 scored lower on graphics benchmarks than the geForce 3. Therefore, the XBox GPU probably has more power than the 9200. I think I would rather have the Mini, but just to get the facts strait.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Current moderation of the parent is hilarious. Someone posts about the Mini being so much better then the Xbox with almost no real details and very little of a description of why and it is modified +5 interesting.
Someone else posts a direct reply about things you can do with the Xbox that the original poster obviously did not know about or overlooked. Included detailed descriptions and links if you want more infomation about it. That post gets modified as -1 Offtopic.

If anything they are both offtopic as in case anyone forgot, the article title is DIY Mac Mini Overclocking. What appears to have happened yet once again, mention Apple in a good manner regardless of the discussion and context and get a +5 moderation... Hard to believe more people do not see that on /. Even if I was truely interested in Apple, I would NEVER trust anyones opinion of Apple from /. as you never get an unbiased opinion here about Apple products so I don't know who the fanbois are trying to fool. All I hear is the [Apple processor] is fast enough, the style of [whatever Apple product] is great. Hard to compare with such non technical anaylsys from people that would NEVER admit even a hint of something negative. Those posts sound exactly like my 13 year old daughter trying to explain why she got an F on her report card.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

You find it almost impossible to believe that a low-end integrated chip in a three-year-old set-top console which currently sells for $125 for the entire system and was intended to connect to TV sets is inferior to a low-end GPU card from a $500 computer with DVI output that was just released this month? Okay.

I see your sarcasim..

Regardless of when the Mac Mini was released, the ATI 9200 chipset it contains was released just shy of 2 years ago (roughly April 2003) and its target even back then was a "price-conscious consumer" as stated in ATI's press release on 3/2003. Bragging about a two your old budget video chipset in a brand new PC is not going to help your claim much. I am not knocking the card at all but your silly time comparision to when the mini was actually released has nothing to do with the video chipset they used. You can pick up a 9200SE with 128MB (4x the mini) from Froogle for $35 and well worth it if you want a budget card.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear hear! I would mod you +5 Insightful if I had the points.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, it does NOT have a 1 year warranty. It has a 90 day warranty, with an additional 9 month warranty on parts & labor on only the hardware. Considering a computer ain't shit without software, not real impressive.

And you might think a 1 year warranty is worth $50, but you'd be wrong. It is $150 for an additional 2 years of the crap warranty, and to extend the real warranty to a full 2 years. But you have to put it in 2 year excrements.

And no, for $20 more than the price of getting an 80 GB instead of 40 GB drive you can not get the 1.42. It is $100 more to get the 1.42 and you also get a bigger drive. This is $50 more. And isn't worth it as you can almost get a Real Big firewire drive for that same $50 and you can certainly spend $100 and do much better.

But that's OK, keep drinking the kool-aid, as Cerebus said, fewer mouths to feed is fewer mouths to feed.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs still use jumpers to configure clock speed?

How quaint.

Re:Warranty?

[Scudsucker]

As the other AC pointed out, you've got it backwards, as the Geforce 3 ruled the roost at the time. ATI did have a lead over the Geforce 2 - at the highest resolutions and at 32 bit color. For about three weeks, until nVidia released new drivers and regained the lead. The only time ATI has had a notable performance lead was with the 9700/9800 family. NVidia had faster cards before that and with the 6800 family they have faster cards now.

Re:Warranty?

[cayenne8]

Do you have a link for MythTV on OSX? I went to the Myth site...and didn't see anything of documentation or downloads for OSX....

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

[blah blah offtopic blah blah fanbois]
Those posts sound exactly like my 13 year old daughter trying to explain why she got an F on her report card.

If she's your biological offspring, that would be explanation enough.

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

But you have to put it in 2 year excrements.

Wow, that's a really long time to be sitting on the pot...

Re:Warranty?

[Slack3r78]

First off, as another poster has pointed out, I did a search and couldn't find any reference to the Mini's GPU actually being a 9200SE. While Apple often fails to put leading edge components in their systems, they don't often outright lie about them anyway.

That said, working off the Mini sporting a regular R9200, as it's been reported by essentially everyone, it should have a GPU memory bandwidth of 6.6GB/s, according to HardwareZone's review that Google pulled up. In short, the Mini should have greater dedicated bandwidth to its GPU than the XBox has shared between the CPU and GPU.

Again, if you have links to reliable sources stating that the Mini sports a 9200SE, fine. But until I see that you're flat out contradicting every other report I've read up to this point.

Re:Warranty?

[default luser]

There are two Hynix HY5DU283222AF-33 128Mb DRAM chips onboard the mini, (16MB).

These are 4M x 32 parts, according to Hynix's webpage

That gives you two 32-bit words, for a maximum word size of 64-bits per fetch.

Now, the HY5DU283222AF-33 gives us a maximum speed of 300MHz (DDR600). Assuming Apple runs to maximum spec, this gives you a maximum thoroughput of 4.8GB/s.

This is better than the original 9200SE spec of DDR166(333) (no surprise, it's couple years old)

So, it's sort of a mixed bag. You get a part that lies halfway between the original spec 9200SE and a real 9200 in terms of memory performance, which may explain why it actually keeps up with a 5200 Ultra. It will actually be capable of playing older games respectably, or newer games at low settings.

But the 32MB frame buffer will still hold the platform back. For example, CNET's tests show the Mini scoring a paltry 60fps in Quake 3, 1024x768, default settings. The sad thing is, this is about the same performance level as a TNT2 Ultra, and this is a game DESIGNED for 32MB graphics cards.

Any game designed for 64MB cards or up (ie: made in the last two years), the mini is going to choke on unless you cut the texture settings way down.

I hpe this is settled.

I was planning the same thing

[jsares]

At least now I know it's possible.

Mmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stewed apple.

uhhh

[nomadic]

So, you wanted a 1,42GHz Mac mini but either because of some distribution woes or because of your tight budget you could just get a 1,25GHz ?

No, not really. 1.42 GHz isn't really so much faster than 1.25 to justify voiding the warranty.

Re:uhhh

[antifoidulus]

esp. when the bus speed is a paltry 167 Mhz. The real weakness of the G4 is it's bus, not what clock speeds you can crank it up to. Hell, even Dell's low end offering offer at least a 533Mhz bus....

Re:uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel claims all their busses are "quad-pumped". Those 533mhz busses are really 133mhz.

Re:uhhh

[Leroy_Brown242]

I dare any challenge in computing power between a low end dell and a Mac Mini. :)

Re:uhhh

[macklin01]

Intel claims all their busses are "quad-pumped". Those 533mhz busses are really 133mhz.

But they still send 4 instructions per clock, versus one instruction per clock. You're not really comparing apples to apples here. If you wanted to apply the same logic, PC3200 DDR memory really only runs at 200 MHz. (Except for the fact that the 2 signals per clock make it run at a functional equivalent of 400 MHz.) Same concept.

The P4 architecture definitely has its problems, but this isn't one of them. -- Paul

Re:uhhh

[green pizza]

The 533 MHz bus on a P4 is actually 133 MHz quad pumped. The actual thruput is less than what would be possible with a "real" 533 MHz FSB. However, even the 133x4=533 MHz FSB is still faster than the G4's 167 MHz FSB.

Where the low end PCs really suck is with their onboard integrated chipset graphics. "Intel Extreme Graphics", "VIA DeltaChome Graphics", etc are major performance killers. They zap CPU and RAM bus performance and are overall ickky. If you want a fun experiment, try some benchmarks with a PC with such integrated graphics. Then install a PCI Radeon 7000 (very low end GPU) and disable the integrated graphics. BOOM, instant huge performance boost. Basiclly, any GPU is better than no GPU. Or perhaps more correctly, real dedicated gfx RAM is better than sharing system RAM.

Re:uhhh

[confused one]

They're using DDR memory which runs at 333 MHz. AMD does something similar and publishes the higher memory bus rate as the "bus" speed, with the 32 bit Athlons. Intel uses a quad clock scheme that multiplies the bus x4 for memory transfers; but, it's only effective in bursts. The "533MHz" Intel bus is only clocking at 133MHz.

Re:uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

You're correct, but the memory management of a G4 is miles apart from that of a P4. Even AMD mobos have much lower bus speeds and compete with P4s.

P4s do some things much better because of their bus speeds, but you can't make a direct number for number comparison.

Re:uhhh

[larkost]

I am not sure about the CPU busses, but I know that DDR does not send multiple instructions per data cycle (in the example 200Mhz), but only allows for data that is ready to be transmitted on the other end of the cycle. Notice that this is data only! While the second bit of data is really nice, it is not nearly the same speed as a truly doubled clock rate. Of course it also does not have the RF penalties that that frequency would have either. It is an engineering tradeoff.

I would guess that the CPU busses have similar limitations, but have no real knowledge to back that up.

Re:uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the replies, folks. I'm glad to have learned something new so early in the day. :-) -- Paul

Re:uhhh

[jeblucas]

I hear what you're saying. I kind of got unimpressed with this whole thing a while ago. I remember when PC's went from 33MHz to 66 MHz--a FRIGGING 100% improvement! 1.42GHz from 1.25GHz is less than 14% better. Yawn.

Re:uhhh

[SunFan]

Intel claims all their busses are "quad-pumped".

I really dislike the phrases "blah-pumped", because it is just so effective as a marketing term. It sends people thinking back to days of playing with pump-action pellet guns and the like, which creates an illogical nostalgic connection to the computer in their minds. It also leads people to think they really have some 55.692THz bus, when it is actually just a tricky 100MHz bus. They really should quote bandwidth and latency numbers more often--I'm sure the marketing people can figure a good way to spin those, too.

Re:uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

It's fun to watch x11perf choke on some of these. As the tests get bigger and bigger, it is really sad to watch, as even archaic UNIX workstations can often handily beat them. Too often, people really just don't know how much their PC sucks, yet it burned a nice tidy hole in their pocket. I've always found more satisfaction pursuing "balanced" computers, slower CPU but better memory interconnect and better peripheral busses. This is where the archaic UNIX workstations still hold up to modern PCs (e.g., Sun's SBus is really old but keeps up with PCI quite well, their UPA bus surpassed only in the last few years).

Re:uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and by the way, this is where I have hopes for Opteron/Athlon 64. It's an x86 architecture that doesn't suck.

Re:uhhh

[javax]

the DDR or QDR only works on data transmission, so selecting the memory address etc. is only performed at 133MHz (or whatever). The data that is sent over (in bursts these days) then comes with 266 or 533 MHz;

Re:uhhh

[zonker]

even then they were doing multiple clocking. dx2 and dx4 chips...

Re:uhhh

[pipingguy]

Are there inexpensive, reliable integrated-chip MBs that can be easily upgraded? I'm about to buy a computer for my 14 year-old son and it would it be nice to be able to toss in a really nice 3D card and CPU later. That is, assuming he first proves that he's using the initial low-grade setup effectively for homework.

Yeah, I could do the research myself but I'm looking for experienced advice.

Re:uhhh

[toddestan]

Most Dells, Compaqs, eMachines, and other cheap computers that make heavy use of integrated graphics use propriety motherboards (or in other words - they aren't some standard like ATX). Most of these motherboards do not have AGP slots either, which makes upgrading the video that much harder. The better ones integrate something like a GeForce 4MX with its own memory though, which might be OK. Most cheap computers are a dead-end in terms of upgrading, except maybe one PCI card, a bigger harddrive, or whatever you can hook up with USB.

My advice would be a cheap whitebox computer, (either build it yourself or let a shop do it). That way, you can easily upgrade it. Or just get something cheap for him anyway, with the expectation that you'll just replace the whole thing when it's time to "upgrade".

Re:uhhh

[pipingguy]

Thanks for the advice. I custom specify (well, with advice from vendors) all my computers and wouldn't get him a Dell or other clone machine.

Off on a tangent: there's a vendor here in Canada that advertises heavily on TV and they denigrate "clone computers". Funny how the marketing terminology evolves isn't it.

Anyway, I want to stay away from proprietary "non-clonish" motherboards and give him the most flexible system possible at the lowest price. I can't really afford to replace the whole system 6 months later and I want him to appreciate the concept of upgrading.

Come to think of it, you've given me a great idea: I'm going to buy the parts all seperately and let him assemble them with my help so that he learns about hardware.

Re:uhhh

[toddestan]

Your best bet for something cheap yet powerful yet upgradeable is a NForce2 chipset board with the built in Ge4MX graphics and an AGP slot. You get a Socket A motherboard with OK built in graphics, and an AGP slot so you can later upgrade it easily. I think you can get one for about $75 US on newegg. A Duron for it costs about $40-$50US, and will work great with the NForce2. Later, you can upgrade to an Athlon XP really easily. So far it's about $125 for a chip and board. Throw in a decent amount of memory, an optical drive, HD, and a case and power supply, and he'll have a pretty decent box for around $300 or so.

Re:uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel claims all our busses are belong to them.

Re:uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps more correctly, real dedicated gfx RAM is better than sharing system RAM.

Yes. Using a portion of system memory as the display frame buffer is taxing on CPU time and memory bandwidth and availability. 1024x768 is 786,432 pixels. If the display is set to 24bit "true colour" then 3 bytes per pixel are needed for the frame buffer, or 2,359,296 bytes. Often for best performance, 24bit is aligned to 32bit, typically wasting the 4th byte, so this becomes 3,145,728 bytes. Now multiply that by your refresh rate! 75Hz will be requiring 235,929,600 bytes per second of main memory to display a stable picture. Also take into consideration the caching of bitmaps that is done by the now long forgotten "Windows Accelerator" functionality of video cards and you have even more wasted memory.

This is terrible on an old PC133 SDRAM system, but still some of those motherboards included such abilities, which regretfully, some PC builders exploited to sell really cheap and high margin PC's. Now that RAM is really much faster nowdays, this system RAM frame buffer junk is becoming more and more prevalent due to them being able to get away with it.

Even some expensive big name notebooks are coming with this shit now.

I hope Apple would never stoop to a low like this.

Re:uhhh

[green pizza]

Yes. Using a portion of system memory as the display frame buffer is taxing on CPU time and memory bandwidth and availability. 1024x768 is 786,432 pixels. If the display is set to 24bit "true colour" then 3 bytes per pixel are needed for the frame buffer, or 2,359,296 bytes. Often for best performance, 24bit is aligned to 32bit, typically wasting the 4th byte, so this becomes 3,145,728 bytes. Now multiply that by your refresh rate! 75Hz will be requiring 235,929,600 bytes per second of main memory to display a stable picture. Also take into consideration the caching of bitmaps that is done by the now long forgotten "Windows Accelerator" functionality of video cards and you have even more wasted memory.

It's even worse than that. Most displays (even Windows GUI desktop) are double buffered, meaning that they consume two full framebuffers. One is being written to by the display drivers to generate the next frame, while the previous completed frame is being sent out to the DAC.

Same 167 MHz FSB

[green pizza]

The G4 is crippled by its 167 MHz FSB, so how about overclocking that for some real performance boosts?

Re:Same 167 MHz FSB

[Alan Partridge]

Buy a G5 if you want high performance. The 2.5Ghz has a 1.25Ghz memory bus.

Re:Same 167 MHz FSB

[AddressException]

Well for what it's worth, the 7448 (which I'm sure everyone will still call G4) has a 200MHz bus.

Two other designs which will probably be called G4, the 8641 and 8641D (dual cores), both use a 667MHz bus.

None of these products are yet available in an Apple machine though.

Re:Same 167 MHz FSB

[AddressException]

Factsheets on these designs:

http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/fact_shee t/MPC7448FACT.pdf
http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/fact_shee t/MPC8641DFACT.pdf

Re:Same 167 MHz FSB

[cosmo7]

The 8641D would be great in a PowerBook, but isn't the 8xxx series for embedded applications? Apple has always used the 7xxx chips as its G4s.

Re:Same 167 MHz FSB

[AddressException]

Yes, the 8641 would be ideal for embedded applications, due to its 'system-on-a-chip' architecture. Using it would reduce the chip count on the board, as it has most of the I/O hardware built in.

That's not to say it wouldn't also be a perfect fit for the PowerBooks, as it's a fully functional CPU (i.e. not stripped down), clocks to at least the same as the existing CPUs and benefits from the faster bus.

That's before we start talking about the dual processing cores!!

Re:Same 167 MHz FSB

[10Ghz]

FSB and memory-bus are two different things. 2.5Ghz G5 has a 1.25Ghz FSB, but it's memory-bus is 128bits wide and runs at 400Mhz (or rather, the RAM runs at 400Mhz).

Re:Same 167 MHz FSB

[10Ghz]

Current G4 was also meant for "embedded applications". It just happens to be a great CPU as well.

Didn't buy the Mac Mini for speed

[teiresias]

Is the jump from 1,25GHz to 1,42GHz that great an improvement. Yes I know how many operations are done in every Megahertz but in my mind, the point of the mini was not speed but rather using less power for simple things. My e-mail, browser, Word, soltaire, etc is not going to open that much noticably faster with this bump.

I like more speed as much as the next guy but the next guy didn't buy the Mac Mini for speed.

Re:Didn't buy the Mac Mini for speed

[oliana]

How many operations are done in every Megahertz? I'm curious to know how something can be completed in an inverse of time.

And yes, I am the kind of person to correct your grammar too.

Re:Didn't buy the Mac Mini for speed

[SunFan]

Well it actually looks like Apple priced the 1.42 model proportionally higher than the 1.25 model, considering the 80GB hard drive (i.e., there isn't a premium for the 1.42 model). In that case, I would consider the 1.42 model to be a fair deal.

Re:Didn't buy the Mac Mini for speed

[Anonymous Coward]

hehe solitare ? my computer is only a G4 400 with Radeon 7000 and i can at least play better games then that

Re:Didn't buy the Mac Mini for speed

[jonadab]

Indeed. The way I see it, Apple is selling the 1.25GHz model for $500 or the
1.42GHz model for $600, but they have the same 256MB of RAM, so unless the
40GB hard drive is too small for you but the extra 40GB bump to 80 makes it
enough, you'd get more bang for your buck buying the $500 model and spending
the extra hundred on RAM. In my experience, most people who can fill up a
40GB drive will fill up an 80GB one almost as fast, because they're doing
something drive-space-intensive, such as huge amounts of digital photography.
My Linux and Windows partitions together don't add to 40GB, even though the
Windows partition includes complete copies of everything from three other,
older partitions from the previous system. (i.e., I've got up to five copies
of numerous applications installed -- or even more, if I've got extra old
versions of things like Mozilla and OpenOffice sitting around that I haven't
bothered to remove). I'm a grade-A packrat: I've got *all* the email I've
sent or received since 1995, including quite a significant amount of spam;
I've got every document I've ever created, every photo I've ever scanned on
my mom's scanner, the .xcf versions of every one I've ever edited at all,
huge amounts of stuff I've downloaded over the years, ... in short, I
delete almost nothing. The 25GB Linux partition is 15% empty still, and
the Windows partition is only 15GB total (albeit, that one's close to full).

So I'd definitely say the $500 model is the better deal. RAM is the main
thing that would be a worthwhile upgrade, and the $600 model has the same
amount of that. Get the $500 model and spend the extra hundred on RAM.

Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Laivincolmo]

First of all, the mac mini is cooled passively... It is designed to dispate the heat of what stuff Apple put in there. I know the attitude might be to do it for the sake of doing it, but why ruin a perfectly good mac-mini through overheating with it, with a relatively small gain in performance. I hope people don't do this in the long run as a permanent solution.

- Help a college student get an iMac Mini, and then get one yourself

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[tgibbs]

First of all, the mac mini is cooled passively... It is designed to dispate the heat of what stuff Apple put in there. I know the attitude might be to do it for the sake of doing it, but why ruin a perfectly good mac-mini through overheating with it, with a relatively small gain in performance. I hope people don't do this in the long run as a permanent solution.

Although the Mac mini is said to be extremely quiet, it does have a fan. considering that Apple does produce a 1.42 MHz model, speeding up the 1.25 is probably not going to produce more heat than the system can handle.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just Trust What Apple Gave You..."
Aww, the CULT of Mac. They are the Apple, drink thier coolaid! Trust them and all will be well.
The 1.24 and the 1.42 are buitl the same, same fans, etc, so if you crank up a 1.24 up to 1.42 the system is *designed* to handle the speed.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Alan Partridge]

The CPUs are clock rate classified for a reason, you know.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[gl4ss]

it's not passive so when you finally get enough posts on bbs's to get those 10 referrals fullfilled you're in for a surprise.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[illumin8]

First of all, the mac mini is cooled passively... It is designed to dispate the heat of what stuff Apple put in there.

Actually, the mac mini does have a small fan, which is off most of the time, but kicks on when you're doing CPU intensive work. If you clock the 1.25 up to 1.42, you might find that the fan kicks in more often, which might not be the best if you're using the mini in a setting where you want it to be quiet (like a media center).

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Anonymous Coward]

A 1.24 CPU running at 1.42 will produce the same heat as a 1.42 running at 1.42. Clock rate classification has nothing to do with heat generation.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Alan Partridge]

I didn't state otherwise. The point is that the 1.25 rated CPU is MUCH more likely to fail at 1.42 than the 1.42 rated unit. I wouldn't even bother OCing a 1.25, it's just asking for trouble.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, money!

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[SuperBanana]

First of all, the mac mini is cooled passively... It is designed to dispate the heat of what stuff Apple put in there. I know the attitude might be to do it for the sake of doing it, but why ruin a perfectly good mac-mini through overheating with it, with a relatively small gain in performance.

How can you get modded Informative and not even read the article? The modification just bumps the 1.25 to 1.42, which is also a stock speed. The 1.25 and 1.42 are identical cases and whatnot...so it couldn't possibly overheat more than a stock 1.42 would.

The author says you can take it to 1.5, but that it caused glitches.

As for warranty- mod it in a year when you want something to console you for owning a machine with close to the worst warranty in the business (1 year lots-of-questions-asked...and 90 days telephone support.)

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Alan Partridge]

I OC'd my 450Mhz rated G3 to 600Mhz on the jumpers (been running at 600 now for nearly 5 years, 24/7/365) whereas my 300Mhz rated machine wouldn't even hit 400 and stay there.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[ssk77077]

Your right about avoiding this as a permanent solution. I applied this jumper trick to an older G3 model and over time even with additional cooling the performance tailed off until I was forced to switch back the the base settings.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[derubergeek]

Although the Mac mini is said to be extremely quiet, it does have a fan.

It's extremely quiet because the fan is on-demand. Mine only kicks in if I'm doing heavy computation or accessing the drives extensively. And when it does kick in, it slowly ramps up to speed. When the "heat event" is over, the fan slowly fades away. My SparcStation 5 worked similarly.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[SilentChris]

"I know the attitude might be to do it for the sake of doing it, but why ruin a perfectly good mac-mini through overheating with it, with a relatively small gain in performance."

For the sake of doing it. You're new here, aren't you?

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Laivincolmo]

I did read the article for your information... but I am not that familar with overclocking. I assumed that overclocking a slower chip to a faster speed would produce more heat than a chip designed to work at that speed. Plus, the 1.42 GHz model might employ a large/more efficient/more expensive heatsink. I was just trying to point out the possibilities.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

There are times when binning is done for a reason. Because of variances in fabbing, feature sizes might vary a bit. A chip might not be able to handle the higher speed reliably, so they mark it down for a slower clock. Of course, there are marketing reasons for doing do, but I simply don't believe marketing reasons are the entire story.

This feature size variance also affects how much heat is generated too, because gate capacitance is a function of gate area. A lot of times the server version of a chip is a slightly lower power version of the desktop chip, check out the thermal ratings of an Opteron vs. an Athlon 64 FX of the same clock speed. Opterons are rated to handle a little higher temperature but consume a little less power than the same clock Athlon 64 FX for this reason.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[mschiller]

Just because they make a 1.42ghz model does not mean that a 1.25 can be overclocked to 1.42 safely from a heat perspective. One of the reasons a particular part is sold at a particular speed is power consumption. A 1.25Ghz processor is a "lower-bin" part and is sold for a cheaper price. IE the transistors in the part do not function as efficently or quickly as the higher-bin 1.42ghz model. There is a lot of different things that can make that be so, but suffice it to say that Apple is probably buying parts based on a Power Consumption spec. ie... The cheap Mac Mini's are probably being built with parts that run at 1.25Ghz @ say for arguments sake 7 watts of power consuption. They are also buying parts that run at 1.42ghz @ 7 watts of power consumption. That way their heat profile is about the same regardless of which part they use. This isn't to say that either part won't run faster, but that they will generate more heat to do so. [Higher leakage currents etc]. Therefore it is patently false that you can safely overclock a slower part just because they have a faster model. The parts used in the faster model don't run hotter, they run more efficently typically. You're results will vary because IBM/Motorolla may have labelled a part that was technically good enough to be 1.42Ghz as 1.25 just to make quota... It depends on their yeilds. Physically the chips are made the same, higher speed chips just come from the center of the wafer while slower typically come from the edges, but in practice it's probabilistic thing and you may get a faster chip just because they didn't fully test the chip for fastest speed or that they needed more 1.25ghz chips then 1.42ghz chips.. Anyway's there is no guarantee, you're just as likely to have the part melt at 1.42ghz then work beautifully... Can also depend on your usage pattern low cpu usage in a cool environment will make things work much better then a 95 degree house with heavy usage...

-- Matthew Schiller
Electrical Engineer
Previous Apple Intern [Flat Panel iMac]

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[a1englishman]

They could fix all the issues with overheating by putting it in a bigger case. ;-)

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

As for warranty- mod it in a year when you want something to console you for owning a machine with close to the worst warranty in the business (1 year lots-of-questions-asked...and 90 days telephone support.)

For Dell's $499 home system:
90 Day Warranty3, 90 Day At-Home Service4, and 1Yr Technical Support, an extra $90 for two year service.

Gateway charges $60 to get the full year, their base warranty is buried in a PDF.

HPaq does provide a full year though.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[SilentChris]

"My SparcStation 5 worked similarly."

Every PC in the last 10 years or so works similarly.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[SilentChris]

"I assumed that overclocking a slower chip to a faster speed would produce more heat than a chip designed to work at that speed."

It doesn't. Every batch of wafers is tested within certain tolerances.

* If they run fine all the time at 1.42 GHz, they're branded 1.42 and roll out the door.
* If they run unreliably at 1.42, but work fine at the lower speed, they get pushed out the door at that speed. "Unreliably" usually means "failed a test once out of several hundred runs".
* If a chip fails multiple times it's tossed.

All 3 chips are identical, it's just that the 1.42s are known to reliably run at that speed. If you're an overclocker, you take that 1 out of 500 runs error as a risk that's worth taking.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[philkerr]

Be careful even with warrany repairs. Mi iBook logic board died a few months ago and when I sent the iBook in for repairs it came back with a fubar'd hard drive. Apple UK said tough, it's not covered.

This incident has put me right off Apple.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[anagama]

I think the point he made was that the fan slowly spins up and down - if the transition on and off is smooth enough, and the fan quiet enough, you would hardly hear it. If the fan simply goes on hard - the noise is very noticeable.

• Every PC in the last 10 years or so works similarly.

Not true. I have a 5 year old Toshiba PIII laptop with a fan in it. When it comes on, it comes on loud and fast. There is no slow and quiet spin up and as a result, it is very noticeable and annoying.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not specifically addresed to you but it does apply to your post as well.
In large production or assembly of commodity parts (which is just about everything inside ANY PC or iMac), it is much cheaper to use the as much of the same exact components as possible then two maintain double supply and production of the slightly different things. I'd being willing to bet my left testicle that 99% of the internals that can be the same are same between the two models and keeping as much as possible the same was a specific design criteria as it is with almost any electronic part made in the last 15 years. Ever see all of those empty dip solder pads on a soundcard or MB? That is because the MB or soundcard was designed and built for the highest optioned model and the unused chip slots are simply not filled with chips. They do not silscreen or make different boards for each option they offer. They are not going to stock 10 different capacitors of the same value just because the lower voltage models are .002 cents cheaper. It is not worth it from a manfactoring and parts ordering standpoint. Three of my previous cars are perfect examples. My Honda had the rear speaker wires run and attached to the back of the stereo even though it came stock with only two front speakers. One Ford had the wires run for auxiliary fog lights from the internal switch location (a blank plate) to the lights but there was no switch and no lights. Another Ford I had ordered without a radio had all the wires, antennea, and speakers in place, just no radio. This happens all the time and is VERY common. It is just not worth it to specifically produce specialized variants.

I highly doubt the production of the different speed CPU's happens to match up with exactly what the market demands either. Depending on how mature the specific process is, every single CPU they make could be certified at the higher speed and the lower speed is scrictly sold for marketting, no one here really has NO IDEA and any guesses would be exactly that, a pure guess. I bet their goal is make one chip that would work for all conditions and mark and price them as the market demands.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never owned a PC that throttled its fans. Then again, my PCs tend to be in the MacMini price* range :D *untrue, but funnier this way

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Penguinoflight]

Apple's warranty is ok, considering dell and gateway really are in the same business as Apple. The architecure is different, the aim is different.

If Dell or Gateway were trying to make asthetically pleasing devices they probably wouldn't look as bad as they do. Gateway/Dell are trying to ship out many units at low-mid profit per unit. Apple has always tried to sell at high profit to my knowlege.

Simply, an xbox is more like a gateway than a mini mac is.

If apple's mini mac is really a different business than gateway/dell clunkers, you'd have to define apple's business. Apple always tries to stay out of well a business definition, so I guess you'd just have to put them in with 'Apple computers'

That said, this would be a lousy warranty, apple has been known for their reliability all along. With the mini mac being covered by such a short warranty, there's reason to suspect that it wont hold up.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[i wanted another nam]

Dell has the highest margins in the industry, last I heard.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Anonymous Coward]

But dell also has decent systems avaialbe to anyone who browses their site for less then $499 with a 2 year warranty as well. You just need to wait a week as the deals rotate all the time. Of course this will probably get modded as off topic or troll because it does not agree with the blind Apple fanboi view of the world.

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[jcr]

It's extremely quiet because the fan is on-demand.

The fan is also fairly large, so it doesn't have to run too fast.

-jcr

Re:Just Trust What Apple Gave You...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a short blurb. But has anyone taking to account that this was just a marketing ploy, specifically to justify the $100 bump. Consider how the market would react if the only difference between the two lines is just hard drive space? I would think the consumer would not reconcile the $100 for the mild difference. But incorporate a CPU increase on a device that you cannot simply exchange the CPU as easy as the hard drive, then would it be worth $100? I was certainly considering the 1.42 prior to knowing that it could be upgraded. (Though I have yet to.)

Re:rotten apples

[the_2nd_coming]

what problems do iPods have?

oh... users who think a battery lasts for ever.

Why blue?

[digitalgimpus]

This is for the electrical engineers:

Why is the MoBo blue? Is there a signifigance to the color of the board? Or did Apple just pick it because on the order sheet it was "aqua"?

Seriously.

Re:Why blue?

[beelsebob]

Why would they chose any other colour? Why green? Why not pink with yellow polka-dots?

Re:Why blue?

[green pizza]

This is for the electrical engineers:
Why is the MoBo blue? Is there a signifigance to the color of the board? Or did Apple just pick it because on the order sheet it was "aqua"?
Because Red mobos run the fastest, and Apple didn't want to make the Mac Mini too fast otherwise it would have killed G5 sales.

Re:Why blue?

[Alan Partridge]

Why the hell not? Some engineers like to take a little pride in their work and make things look neat - have you never seen the inside of a PowerMac G5?

No wires.

Not one.

Re:Why blue?

[i41Overlord]

This is for the electrical engineers:

Why is the MoBo blue? Is there a signifigance to the color of the board? Or did Apple just pick it because on the order sheet it was "aqua"?

That is not a question for electrical engineers. It's more of a question for marketers or fashion designers. You can make the board any color you want. There are red boards, green boards, yellow boards, black boards, blue boards, etc. It's to look nice.

Re:Why blue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though it's not meant to be seen at all except by repair technicians. Still strange.

Re:Why blue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't actually seen this particular board so there is the chance that they have actually done something radical, but I doubt it.

Probably the blue color you are seeing is the solder mask. The solder mask acts as a stencil and prevents solder from going where it shouldn't. There may be another layer (conformal coating) on top of the solder mask but it is usually clear.

Solder mask comes in a variety of colors and the kind of solder mask you use isn't a really big deal. It has to go on accurately, withstand the heat of soldering and not be wettable by solder.

Re:Why blue?

[zev1983]

Ten dollars to the company that makes the first tie-dye motherboard!

Re:Why blue?

[eclectro]

Why is the MoBo blue?

They come in all colors depending on the shop that makes them.

If you would like, you can call this Steve's "blue period."

Re:Why blue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Bill also had his "blue period"... ;)

Re:Why blue?

[Anonymous Coward]

The board isn't blue... The solder mask is blue. Solder mask is that top layer of translucent "paint" that covers the traces. It comes in any color you want...

Re:Why blue?

[50000BTU_barbecue]

The color of the PCB is actually the color of what's called the solder mask. Usually, PCBs in computers are made of a material called FR-4 (flame retardant grade 4), which is fiberglass woven together, impregnated in epoxy and laminated together in a hot press. Various types and weaves of glass and formulations of epoxy give you a vast range of materials that fall under the category FR-4, but they all pretty much have the same grayish color.

Solder mask is basically a paint that isolates the various 'pads', or landing areas for component pins, physically in space, so that the solder has much less tendency to bridge gaps and cause shorts. Usually, it is green, but it can be made in any color. Myself, I've made boards with black, red or transparent solder mask. Green is the traditional color, and afaik, there is no performance difference electrically or physically between the colors.

Just for completeness' sake, the lettering you sometimes see on a PCB is called silkscreen, and is usually white, but again can come in a variety of colors like yellow or black. Again, tradition says it should be white.

PS: I'm not an electrical engineer, and I never will be.

Re:Why blue?

[harrkev]

The color is not a characteristic of the board. All boards are a sort of yellow-tan in color (well, there are some materials that are closer to dark brown). The color that you see comes from the soldermask that is applied to the top and bottom of the board. So, the color of the soldermask is usually green, but it could be any color the manufacturer wants if they want to pay for it. So, it is simply a fashion statement, and there is no technical reason to choose one color over the other.

Re:Why blue?

[digitalgimpus]

Thank you.

That was the answer I was looking for.

And thanks to the other goons who couldn't answer the question, so they decided it was invalid.

Re:Why blue?

[jo_ham]

Apple colours its boards based on their classification.

Red boards are pre-production and prototype boards, blue ones are "customer ready" boards that will be shipped as the final product.

I think they use orange as well - the logic board in my iBook was orange.

Re:Why blue?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macin tosh&story=PC_Board_Esthetics.txt:

Steve started critiquing the layout on a purely esthetic basis. "That part's really pretty", he proclaimed. "But look at the memory chips. That's ugly. The lines are too close together".

George Crow, our recently hired analog engineer, interrupted Steve. "Who cares what the PC board looks like? The only thing that's important is how well that it works. Nobody is going to see the PC board."

Steve responded strongly. "I'm gonna see it! I want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it's inside the box. A great carpenter isn't going to use lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even though nobody's going to see it."

http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh &story=Signing_Party.txt:

Steve came up with the awesome idea of having each team member's signature engraved on the hard tool that molded the plastic case, so our signatures would appear inside the case of every Mac that rolled off the production line. Most customers would never see them, since you needed a special tool to look inside, but we would take pride in knowing that our names were in there, even if no one else knew.

Re:Why blue?

[Dolly_Llama]

But mauve has the most RAM!

Re:Why blue?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good theory, except that the G5 logic boards are also blue. I think it's because blue logic boards are cooler than green or red (red are obviously the hottest ones), so they can design the Macs with fewer and slower fans.

Re:Why blue?

[iminplaya]

Maybe somebody there used to work for these guys.

Re:Why blue?

[Anonymous Coward]

could be worse. they could have made the mobo uv activated with floresent everything and lights so it looks like some fucking raver toy :-P

Re:Why blue?

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes the lack of wire so beautiful?

Re:Why blue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, great. And of course, their customers have to pay for all that.

Selfish bitches, I say.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[peragrin]

$300 bucks? let me guess you used a case you already had, a hard drive you already had.

The componets are similiar to new PC's.

Your case is about 12 times the size of the mini. Heck even mini-itx systems end up being nearly twice the size.

So you spent $300 for a motherboard and CPU, because you already had everything else, and you can 'build' a mini for cheaper?

Yep you are officially not the target audeince.

My Mac Mini Project.

[Deathlizard]

Now All I need is a Mac Mini to test this on and I'm all set. Although I dont know why you would want to overclock a Mac Mini with the possibility of overheat looming over it.

That's where my other project (In My Sig) comes in. I know it's a snowballs chance in hell that I'll get one this way, but at least I'm doing something interesting with the data I'm getting from it.

Re:My Mac Mini Project.

[TheIndividual]

Geez what's with all those advertisement here. Read up on pyramid schemes and don't post your spam here. Thanks

Mini

[camcorder]

Did you check the jumpers? Good luck while playing with them.

Re:Mini

[Megor1]

That's one big thumb

Re:Mini

[NivenHuH]

I also found that this picture makes a great desktop wallpaper...

Kudos to the guy photographing this stuff.. He took some pretty good shots!

Re:Mini

[Anonymous Coward]

it looks scanned to me...

Re:Mini

[voisine]

I did this a few years back to overclock a 400Mhz Ti-Book to 500Mhz. The resistors are 0Ohm so it's a lot easier just make a solder bridge. You need to buy a really small tip for the iron, cut a tiny peice of solder with a razor, melt it on the tip and quickly and gently drag it across the contacts. If you maitain contact with the iron too long you'll fry other components on the board. That's the biggest difficulty.

Re:Mini

[alc6379]

Where are the jumpers? I clicked on the thumbnail picture, and didn't see anything.

Re:Mini

[javaxman]

I'm told that those are technically "0 ohm resistors", not "jumpers", though that's probably a distinction that only a real EE would make.

The distinction being, of course, that they're actually soldered on. Yet another reason why I won't be doing this to any Mac minis that cross my path.

Re:Mini

[suckmysav]

" I'm told that those are technically "0 ohm resistors", not "jumpers", though that's probably a distinction that only a real EE would make."

Not really. Usually when the term "jumper" is used it is to describe a user (re)movable connector that makes an optional electrical connection between two points.

A "resistor" on the other hand is almost always soldered onto a PCB and is not at all associated with being (re)movable or in anyway "optional" from the perspective of an end user.

The original article correctly called them "zero ohm resistors" and then added "call them jumpers if you will" to indicate that they perform the same eletrical role as a jumper and can be considered as such in the contect of the article, but being soldered on they realy don't qualify as being true jumpers.

He probably caused more confusion by equating them to jumpers than he saved, really.

Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[CoccaNut]

The school district that I work for has been looking for a sub $500 video editing and DVD playback solution (budgets are REALLY tight these days). How does the Mac Mini stack up (with and without overclocking it)?

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[the_2nd_coming]

for a school district? it will do fine. I make home movies on my 1 GHz Powermac (upgraded from a Circa 2000 400 MHz Mac)

just need 512 MBs of Ram and your good to go for the kiddies to play with it.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[Anonymous Coward]

The hard drive is only 4200RPM. Video editing really needs drive speeds of at least 7200RPM to be useful for anything broadcast on regular television.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[Anita Coney]

Heck, I used to do firewire/DV editing on an old 550MHz PIII with a half gig of ram. It did have a RAID-0 drive, but I doubt if that helped that much.

The only problem I see with using the Mini for video editing are the small hard drives. External Firewire drives are still pretty slow.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[green pizza]

The school district that I work for has been looking for a sub $500 video editing and DVD playback solution (budgets are REALLY tight these days). How does the Mac Mini stack up (with and without overclocking it)?
You can't get one for less than $480, and that's for the 256 MB combodrive version.

I bought a 512 MB superdrive Mac Mini last week. It works great for video editing, it's actually a pretty fast little machine.

BUT... transcoding from DV to MPEG2 takes awhile. Editing and even designing the buttons and menus for the DVD image is fast as can be, but be prepared to wait *at least* an hour before the finished DVD pops out after you click the burn button.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[William_Lee]

IMO it doesn't. A Mac Mini with the necessary amount of RAM to actually function is going to run you around $600 for the slower model with the smaller hard drive. I'm assuming you also need keyboards and mice, and you should really upgrade to the superdrive and faster processor if you're planning on editing and burning dvds. All that will put you over $800 for the mini.

If you're constrained by budget, you can get much more PC horsepower and capabilities building homebrew Athlon 64 systems. If you're creative and can get good pricing, sub $500 is doable on an x86 based system that is going to be much more powerful for editing.

I am toying with getting a mini to play with OS X, but it is a tough sell once you price in everything else you actually need with it and look at what you're actually getting specwise.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[green pizza]

The hard drive is only 4200RPM
While a faster hard drive will give you better scrubbing performance, you don't really *need* to have a fast drive for editing DV.

The DV codec that most of us use with our camcorders is DV25, which is 25 Mbits/sec = 3.125 MB/sec.

DV editing was fine on notebooks even 4 years ago on the original "toilet seat" iBook.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[Anonymous Coward]

software dumbass. the school district isn't going to smile on using warez. you don't need to purchase any more software for the mini, that's the point. your creative $500 pc will still need windows and dvd editing software, so just make that a $1000+ creative machine. the mini with super-drive and 512MB ram is $600 even (education pricing).

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[Alan Partridge]

Well, they're RELATIVELY slow. DV only needs to use FW in 100 mode anyway, and it only uses around a third of THAT bandwidth running along at 1X. Modern external desktop FW drives give you pretty much continuous full FW 400 bandwidth, way more than enough for iMovie style usage.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[Anita Coney]

I didn't mean to imply that external firewire hard drives wouldn't work. You're right, they'd certainly work. I would just find it annoying. I'm of the opinion that faster is always better. Uncompressed DV files are huge. I get about 12 gigs for one one-hour tape.

I think the Mini would be great for students to learn video editing.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[b1t r0t]

External Firewire drives are still pretty slow.

Um, not really. If you hook up two drives to the same Firewire port and try to copy between them, then it will indeed be slower. But 400 mbits/sec is still faster than the sustained data rate of a single 7200rpm drive. Just because ATA-100 goes to 100 mbytes/sec doesn't mean your drive will go that fast. In fact, ATA-100 is that fast so you can hook up two drives.

All you lose is the burst speed of the drive cache, which doesn't help much if the OS is caching the data itself anyhow.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[b1t r0t]

You can't get one for less than $480, and that's for the 256 MB combodrive version.

Wow, discounts sure are backwards on the mini. I just checked, and the K-12 discount price on the base mini is indeed $480. The developer discount price is $475, and I am aware of a corporate discount price at $470. I know margins are slim on the mini, but this is completely backwards from their discounts on higher priced stuff.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[Anita Coney]

Mmm... maybe my external firewire drive is set up improperly. Copying from one internal drive to another is faster than copying to or from my external.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[larkost]

The $470 price is probably for volume purchases, and Apple does have some really nice setups for volume purchases for education institutions (remember the Apple Store for Eduction is for individual purchase, not institution buys). I would imaging that the 5 pack (or whatever Apple is doing these days) is a better price to educational institutions.

As an aside, back in the "gumdrop" iMac days the education channel was annoyed that the 5pack of iMacs had to be purchased with all 5 colors. I was working for a school that had red as our color, and we really wanted 5 packs of red iMacs, and we eve discussed opening them up to put school decals on the inside of the translucent case.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[SilentChris]

Anandtech reported that some models came out with 5400 drives.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[zx-6e]

Raw DV isn't compressed. 12-13G/hour is about right as DV is 3.6Mb/sec.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[jcromartie]

My personal experiences prove this to be dead wrong... I have a 40GB hard drive in my PowerBook, which is just too small for downloading 3 hours worth of DV tapes at a time. So, I picked up a 160GB firewire/USB drive that was on sale at Circuit City. When I got it home, I immediately started ripping the tapes to DV streams in iMovie. The thing that really speaks for the bandwidth capabilities of FireWire is that the Bus was arranged like so:

[PowerBook][Ext. Drive][DV Camcorder]

So over FireWire I am capable of taking the incoming DV stream from the camera through the drive's hub, and then display the video on-screen while sending it back out the same port that it came in on to a hard drive that is writing it on the fly. That's good enough for me!

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[Alan Partridge]

DV certainly IS compressed. Uncompressed it would be 270mbits/sec rather than the 25mbits/sec that it actually runs at.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[Anita Coney]

Yeah, I've already admitted I'm wrong on this point. When I get home I'm going to have to look into why my firewire drive is slow. It's not REAL slow. But it's noticeably slower than either a SATA or IDE connection.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[alan_dershowitz]

He said regular broadcast TV, which is analog and does require a fast hard drive. As to why someone would use a mac mini for this (not the least of which is that you would need to buy a USB analog capture device which all suck), is beyond me however.

A 4200 RPM hard drive is too slow to capture analog without dropping frames all over the place. Way too slow.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't say anything about capturing analog video. He was asking about editing it. I have the same question. I capture my video on another system (linux/mythtv) and would like to be able to edit it and some movies from my video camera on a mac mini. Is the slow hard drive in the mini going to make this incredibly slow? I'm not opposed to getting a firewire hard drive if that will make this work faster.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[jcromartie]

Sorry if my previous post sounded mean (modded as 0?)

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[alan_dershowitz]

You are right, woops. It never occurred to me that a hobbyist would edit on a different machine than they capture on, but I now see where you are coming from. I've done video editing, but quite a number of years ago before mythtv and the like. I have a friend who edits DV on a laptop with 4200RPM drive, and he doesn't complain, so I guess it's doable.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[Anita Coney]

Nope, no apology needed. It appears I screwed up and I just wanted that clear.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[b1t r0t]

Is your external possibly a 5400 RPM drive? A laptop drive in an external case is likely to be a 4500 or 5400 RPM drive. And a regular 3 1/2" drive will be either 5400 or 7200 RPM.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[Anonymous Coward]

School districts shouldn't have to pay full price. Contact the people who sell to Education, I don't remember what they're called, you should get at least 10% off and more depending on how many boxes you want.

Re:Mac Mini DVD Playback/Video Editing

[suckmysav]

" DV certainly IS compressed."

This is correct

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[oberondarksoul]

If you can build a machine on practically a single PCB, that small, with DVD-reading and CD-RW capabilities, and sell it for under $500...

If you want the same specs as a Mac mini for less, go look on eBay or a second-hand reseller (try 2ndchancepc.co.uk). The point of the Mac mini isn't to have top-of-the-line components - it's to be a usable, cheap box for your Mum or Dad to just pick up and plug in.

I second that... (plus my Mac Mini experiences)

[green pizza]

Good point.

I bought a 512 MB 1.25 GHz Mac Mini last week. It's been a pretty sweet little machine. iMovie works great with MiniDV video, I don't have a HDV camcorder to try HD though.

Garage Band ROCKS! 18 tracks of audio of different formats and it keeps on trucking!

I haven't tried anything harder than Warcraft 3 or Sim City 4 on it yet though.

Re:I second that... (plus my Mac Mini experiences)

[jcr]

Garage Band ROCKS! 18 tracks of audio of different formats and it keeps on trucking!

Yeah, it turns out that the Altivec unit is really good at adding streams of audio data together ;-)

-jcr

Re:Strange

[sjf]

digitalgimpus: Do you regret asking that question ?

You gotta be kidding me

[Anonymous Coward]

Who are the morons that modded this "interesting". Customers really want and need a computer that works, is stable, and provides the end users the functionality they need to either do what they want to do, or need to do. Bumping your cpu speed by 5% don't do squat for what a customer REALLY wants. Hell, I have a 20 yo computer in my garage that I can tweak the microcode for it's processor on, I got you way beat. Is that what users REALLY want, uh, NOT. You have it totally backwards my friend. Apple, on the other hand, absolutely "gets it".

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[tgibbs]

I want one. badly. But the Mac mini is a perfect example.. I can't justify paying 500 dollars just for an operating system.

Actually, it's not just an OS. There's word processing, presentation, photo, video editing, and music creation applications provided as well. And I hear that they even throw in a cute little computer as a bonus.

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what YOU Geeks want, not ordinary computer users. All they want is everything to WORK. Period. You think someone thats just getting into the computing world will want to overclock their processor? If every single computer user was a geek then you'd have a valid point, but you fail to realize 0% of the worlds computing population care about that stuff.

Why are there so many Apple stories on here?

[i41Overlord]

There seems to be a disproportionate amount of Apple news on this site when you consider how small of a share of the market they have.

I'm a hardcore computer nerd, but this Apple news isn't the slightest bit interesting to me.

(now all the Mac zealots are going to mod me down for saying that, even though a PC fan wouldn't mod down Mac fan for stating his viewpoint. "Thinking different" seems to be a one way street with Apple fans)

Re:Why are there so many Apple stories on here?

[deadgoon42]

If you check your preferences you will notice that you can block stories from the homepage on various topics, including Apple stories. Any "hardcore computer nerd" worth his salt would have noticed this immediately.

Re:Why are there so many Apple stories on here?

[pfoorion]

I don't get the complaints about the news/market share ratio. The most interesting stuff is not what everyone's doing, but rather what's happening on the fringes. I mean, if that's the news you're looking for, try here.

Re:Why are there so many Apple stories on here?

[JudgeFurious]

That's not entirely true. I'm a Mac fan and I wouldn't mod you down for stating the obvious and I've seen more than one PC fan mod down a Mac zealot the exact same thing.

As I said I'm a Mac fan, bordering on being a zealot at times but I didn't much care about this one either. How could I? Macs can be overclocked. This is news? The Mac Mini can be overclocked. Again? What makes this news?

I agree with you about there being too many stories about trivial stuff that made the page simply because it was about an Apple product. Now if someone had pushed this thing up to 2.4Ghz with some freaky looking pipes full of liquid nitrogen hanging out the back of it through some rough cut holes in the case and it had steam coming out the sides while it ran that would have been interesting. "I overclocked my Mini" just doesn't cut it.

These days it seems to me like there are more Apple related stories on Slashdot than ever before but I'm enjoying them less. They just aren't anything special.

Re:Why are there so many Apple stories on here?

[Rude Turnip]

"...when you consider how small of a share of the market they have."

Yeah, same with all these Linux and Firefox stories!

Re:Why are there so many Apple stories on here?

[bonch]

I'm happy to see Slashdot posting more front page Apple stories. I guess the release of the Mac mini has intrigued the geek masses. For the most part, Apple really is a good company and the biggest competitor to Microsoft right now.

Re:Why are there so many Apple stories on here?

[rjung2k]

I'm a hardcore computer nerd, but this Apple news isn't the slightest bit interesting to me.

Let's see: the resurrection of NeXTSTEP, the blissful marriage of open source with corporate proprietary technology, a rallying point against the Microsoft hedgonomy, a desktop UNIX that your grandmother can use, a box with a groundbreaking price-point and footprint, and definite proof that geeks can have style, and you have zero interest whatsoever?

The definition of "hardcore computer nerd" must be very lax in your neck of the woods.

Re:Why are there so many Apple stories on here?

[Anonymous Coward]

i thought i read apple was the R&D department of microsoft, i'm almost certain that was here.

Re:Why are there so many Apple stories on here?

[Thumpnugget]

Microsoft hedgonomy

The word you were looking for is 'hegemony' - but I really like hedgonomy! The science of bushes!

And hey, we can call the current U.S. administration a hedgocracy!

Re:Why are there so many Apple stories on here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried that, almost every single portable music player article turns into the I love my iPod story and the same exact posts about the iPod that we have been reading about for 2 years still somehow get modded as insightful every single time.

It just works, I love the scroll wheel, it just feels right in my hand, all other players suck, the battery is replaceable and lasts longer then what everyone says, Apple DRM is actually good for you, I don't want that feature because it will decrease battery life, the iPod does not have that feature and I do not want it.
Rince, lather, repeat the next portable story. Again, nothing insightful about any of those as they have been mentioned at least 50 times in every handheld story for the last 2 years.

Re:Why are there so many Apple stories on here?

[nolife]

It only intriqued the same group of people that are intriqued by any Apple story.

Apple release new version of toilet paper
Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday February 04, @05:17PM

The first comments to be moderated to +5 insightful would be:

It just feels right.

It just works.

It comes off the roll with style, very pleasing.

Maybe this will get people to finally switch

I know it is more expensive and comes with less sheets per roll then the Dell brand toilet paper but IMHO, the lower sheet frequency is not a direct measure of wiping power.

I love the way it feels and it really makes the bathroom look so much nicer

The first troll post:

Steve Jobs, the king of ass wipes.

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, ok, you win...?

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[DarKry]

So what your saying is that mac is targeting the mini to take the place of the 30 old machines in my closet. I can use it as a server or as a router?

And if I did want the equivilant of a mini.. yes I could build it for much cheaper, after all we are talking about 2 year old hardware here. People practically give it away. Perhaps you Apple fan boys need to actually read before you flame, I said that I want a Mac. Actually you gave me another reson not to get one, you guys are more snooty than us Linux boys.

:P

Someone marked this informative?

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me get this straight...

Frequency doesn't matter when comparing processor performance because PPC chips do more per cycle _but_ frequency is important when comparing FSB's because doing more per per cycle is some how irrelevant?!

Re:Someone marked this informative?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this isn't an up-in-arms double standard.
When comparing processors, I've never claimed a PPC was a higher clock speed just because it performed that way, which is what Intel has been doing with their FSB speeds.

Re:Someone marked this informative?

[jcr]

The frequency of the FSB translates directly into processor-to-memory bandwidth.

-jcr

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[B_tace]

Yeah, but you still have to reboot the machine everytime you install a piece of software. ;)

Re:Stock Cooling a good idea?

[Leroy_Brown242]

That was the same issue in the cube. But as long as the cooling needs aren't too different from the higher cpu speed, there shouldn't be an issue.

"shouldn't"

:)

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[slimak]

If the customers (more than just the slashdot crowd) truely want/need a feature then a company will provided or cease to exist. The all-powerful users that need complete control of every miniscule aspect of their hardware and software create a niche market that is targeted by small producers and products trying to differentiate themselves from the masses.

I find it a bit scarry that you can change these things from within windows rather than the BIOS. This seems like its more likely that an average user would modify the values and cause problems. Nothing like low core voltage or high FSB to give a nice stable system! Computer too loud? I'll just turn off the fan - much better.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[Anonymous Coward]

well still better than http://www.pegasosppc.com/tech_specs.php that sells 6 year old technology and they charge more for the motherboard alone, than apple charge for an complete macmini.

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[Doug Barth]

You're able to set those variables because your motherboard manufacturer added features to differentiate themselves from the other motherboard manufacturers. It's still what the company is willing to provide. If overclocking negatively affected motherboard makers, you can be sure that they wouldn't provide these features. Just look at AMD and Intel's practice of locking bus multipliers for proof.

OC

[dmacleod808]

i got excited for a second, then i took a look at these. http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/macmini/macmini_r emoved_jumpers.jpg my hands shake, frankly, this wont work for me. Gotta find someone to do it for me !

use filters

[BigChigger]

You can set your account to use filters so that Mac stories do not show up when you visit /.

That's what I did to try and weed out the leftist fascist political stuff here.

BC

Re:use filters

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad the NY Times, CNN, ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN doesn't offer the same feature.

Re:use filters

[CapnRob]

You gotta love it when people throw the word 'fascist' around without knowing what it means. For the record:

Fascism means "A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, integration of government and corporation power, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism."

Last I checked, it wasn't the *left* telling people to do things because The President Said So, selling out the government to corporations, and invading other countries to benefit one major industry.

I hope this helps. Insult the left all you like, but, please, get your definitions right.

Re:use filters

[easter1916]

Boy, you're dumb. Ever checked the dictionary definition of fascism? It's remarkably close to the current US regime, which claims to be conservative, not leftist.

Re:use filters

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fascism means "A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, integration of government and corporation power, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.""

Lets see, what is closer, a conservative small federal government where the power belongs to the individual states or a liberal (socialist) large federal government
-centralization of authority under a dictator - Well, without a large gov you cant have a centralization of power. Small fed = more state power. So it fits liberals so far

-stringent socioeconomic controls = Large fed spending, "social" security, welfare, taxing and wealth redistributions, sounds liberal so far...

- integration of government and corporation power= Yes, tax the evil corporations and legislate what they can and cannot do. All corporations are evil and the government must proect us from them. Make sure the Feds have strict control over all evil corporations. Yet more marks for the liberals.

-suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship - Humm, let see, censorship through political correctness? Liberals still have it...

-policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. = Racial perferences? Affermative action? Liberals get half a point here...

So, in the balance, it looks like the liberals could easily be viewed as moving a country towards fascism. But oh no, its always the other side (left or right) that are the bad guys.

Now let me set the record strait, a valid argument can be made against either side, left or right and we on both sides should be vigilant against such. No side has any claim to superiority in this matter.

I just want the fed out of my life and my pay check, two things liberals hate to hear.

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[__aafutm5472]

they will always lack this aspect of providing what the customers REALLY want or need

Yes, but most customers don't really NEED those features. Just geeks. And the geeks who want to play with their hardware that way know they won't get that from Apple.

Basically what I'm saying is that, while it's true Apple doesn't let you play with FSB, voltage, etc, people don't buy Apple hardware to do that. And would they if Apple provided a means to make your system unstable in that way? Probably not.

I mean, the company motto is "It Just Works."

If the two models really have the same CPU...

[Thijs van As]

... I don't think it's a bad thing to overclock the 1,25 GHz. to 1,42 GHz., because the same case also holds the official 1,42 GHz. Technically speaking that is.

One big thing is that you are just throwing away your warranty, and I don't think that's worth the 170 MHz...

Mirrored...

[w4f7z]

just in case.

Burn baby burn!

[Capt_Troy]

Then your iMac Mini will be about as valuable as a melted iMac Mini! This will give a whole new meaning to the Rip, Mix, Burn media campaign.

Re:Burn baby burn!

[Anonymous Coward]

Remeber the "Baked Apple" Ad in the early 80s? Something about an Apple II that survived a house fire and still worked....melted monitor perched atop. Here it is for the next generation!

Re:Burn baby burn!

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Fires act in counter-intuitive ways.

Not everything burns, and the temperature is higher the higher up you go.

It very well could have been that in only got to the high 100s or low 200s where the computer itself is. The monitor is higher up, and thus, likely got much hotter.

With it powered off surviving that is less impressive than surviving being burned (which is likely impossible) would be.

Re:Burn baby burn!

[Anonymous Coward]

A melted iMac Mini would still look (and be) cool though.

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[i41Overlord]

If every single computer user was a geek then you'd have a valid point, but you fail to realize 0% of the worlds computing population care about that stuff.

Surely geeks must make up some non-zero percentage of the computing population.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[green pizza]

2. Someone steal the source for AQUA and ports it to x86

http://www.gnustep.org/

Bundled software

[green pizza]

Mac Mini does come with some pretty nice software out of the box. To me this makes up the difference between the price of a Mini and the price of a low end PC ($300 Celeron/Semperon + Radeon 9200)

Mac OS X (Windows XP OEM costs at least $50)
iMovie - editing software, better than Avid FreeDV or Microsoft Movie Maker 2.0
iDVD - DVD mastering software for making menus, etc, and burning to DVD
Garage Band - compose, edit, and mix music

Also included, but not too useful for schools:
iPhoto - sort, edit, and print digital photos
iTunes
Xcode - software development suite for C/C++/Java
Quicken 2005
Nanosaur 2

Re:Bundled software

[Richard_at_work]

Where does it include Quicken2005? Its not on my Mac mini!

Re:Bundled software

[green pizza]

Where does it include Quicken2005? Its not on my Mac mini! /Applications/Quicken2005/

That's where it's on my Mac mini, right along side all of the other preinstalled applications. It's also on the installer CD.

Maybe you got a Mini with a botched drive image? If all else is working, stick in the installer CD and open up the "Install Bundled Software Only" package.

Re:Bundled software

[Richard_at_work]

Nope, not on either the Mini or the Installer DVD. Must be a region thing, as Im in the UK and Im betting you are in the States.

Re:Bundled software

[green pizza]

Nope, not on either the Mini or the Installer DVD. Must be a region thing, as Im in the UK and Im betting you are in the States.
Bingo.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[BlueCodeWarrior]

Okay, I'll feed the troll...

Darwin on an Athlon 64..... sooooo sexy.


I've got good news. It's already happened/happening.

From the Darwin FAQ:

Q. What is Darwin?
A. Darwin is a version of the BSD UNIX operating system that offers advanced networking, services such as the Apache web server, and support for both Macintosh and UNIX file systems. It was originally released in March 1999. Darwin currently runs on PowerPC-based Macintosh computers, and is being ported to Intel processor-based computers and compatible systems by the Darwin community.

is cooling it REALLY an issue??

[J_Omega]

I see a bunch of posts discussing the fact that the mini will have problems cooling the overclocked CPU.

Too lazy/busy to do some real research here, I know that someone here on /. can answer anyways.

The same case is used for the faster processor. How different are the processors themselves? ie, The mini has already been designed to handle the heat output of the 1.45GHz, so how much more heat (if any) would an overclocked lesser cpu generate?

Is cooling the overclocked chip even a concern?

Re:is cooling it REALLY an issue??

[Anonymous Coward]

Please read the intelligent posts above.

A 1.42 GHz model probably puts out the same heat as the 1.25 GHz, not more. It's all about efficiencies and yields during manufacturing. The 1.25 GHz chip is either inefficient or inaccurate at 1.42GHz so its sold at 1.25 GHz where it is stable.

Overclocking the 1.25 to 1.42 GHz probably will require more power (and thus generate more heat) than the properly spec'd 1.42 GHz chip.

Re:is cooling it REALLY an issue??

[javaxman]

see this post.

Cooling may indeed be an issue. At the very least, expect to hear a more noise coming from the machine as the fans attempt to remove more heat than they were designed too. At worst, it may indeed run too hot, because the chips used may have different heat characteristics.

Perhaps, just perhaps, it won't be an issue because the speed jump is so small... but really, this guy's done something interesting, not necessarily something practical.

All overclocking is done with some risk, and just because it was successful with one processor doesn't mean it will work with another processor of exactly the same model.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[Pfhreakaz0id]

sometimes, I think apple folks don't understand how cheap PC hardware is.. similar to new PC's? WTF?... a quick pricewatch search shows a comparable mobo/cpu combo for $77 with an Athlon XP 1700+ 1.47GHZ cpu.

I'm in the same boat. I'd love to use OSx. I'd pay $100-$150 for it. But I'm not paying Apple for there outrageous hardware that I can't really upgrade. NO amount of delusion on your part can show that it isn't overpriced. It's simple market economics. there is so little price pressure on Apple compared to the pc world, where there are hundreds (thousands) of hardware companies competing on price/features.

Taking a Sharpie to the Mona Lisa

[gelfling]

Or a rockhammer to the Pieta is what this sounds like.

Re:Taking a Sharpie to the Mona Lisa

[somethinghollow]

"Taking a Sharpie to the Mona Lisa"

Marcel Duchamp did it, and called it LHOOQ. Along with Fountain, it's one of his major claims-to-fame.

The point of the hack

[thodu]

People complaining that the hack is really not worth voiding the warranty are missing the whole point. It is just the coolness factor out here. Somebody, somewhere figured out that by setting those specific tiny little jumpers (I still can't believe how tiny they are), the Mac Mini could be overclocked and shared this info with the whole wide world. Appreciate that and just think about what *you* have figured out lately. Losers.

Re:The point of the hack

[whathappenedtomonday]

People complaining that the hack is really not worth voiding the warranty are missing the whole point. It is just the coolness factor out here.

mod parent up, please.
you could have had my last mod point, but it has to be said (again?): those "jumpers" are actually resistors (note their numbering - its not J351 but R351 etc). They're so small because they are SMD components.

I wonder how someone who mistakes resistors for jumpers can come up with such a cool hack, though.

Re:The point of the hack

[Montag2k]

Well usually a 0-ohm resistor is called a jumper in electronics-land.

Also, here's my guess on how he performed this hack. He looked up the datasheet either for the clock chip or for the processor and saw which jumper configurations set up the speed. Then he traced back the lines to those resistor pads, either by using sight or a multimeter.

Anyway, its a cool hack and pretty simple to do if you are comfortable handling 0402's.

Re:The point of the hack

[telecsan]

>> It is just the coolness factor out here.

Has it really been that long that us 'Nerds' have forgotten how to set jumpers on a motherboard? I mean really, you open a 1.42 GHz machine, write down the jumper settings, open a 1.25 GHz machine, set the jumpers accordingly. I don't understand how that gets a 'coolness' factor? Yawn.

Re:The point of the hack

[cosmic_0x526179]

Yeah yeah yeah... speed mods... but where are the case mods ?

The case may be diminutive, but I want to see neon colors dancing around the case !

Re:The point of the hack

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably because the "jumpers" are resistors that have to be removed with a soldering iron and surgical precision?

Re:The point of the hack

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the 800MHz eMac overclocks the same way - I figured the mini would be almost identical, and it is.

Re:The point of the hack

[suckmysav]

" People complaining that the hack is really not worth voiding the warranty are missing the whole point. It is just the coolness factor out here."

This is true, it is cool to konow it can be done. I don't o'clock new stuff myself. I buy what suits me performance vs price wise at the time and just use it. Several months later when the upgrade itch starts itching, and the stuff is out of warranty (or nearly) then I scratch the itch for free by embarking on an overclocking adventure (which by then will be well documented on the web) and if I burn something then what they hey, it was time for an upgrade anyway.

Re:The point of the hack

[Maserati]

Heck, he could have had my last mod point EVAR. It's an excellent point.

Re:The point of the hack

[Anonymous Coward]

Once the differences from the 1.25GHz and 1.42GHz motherboards are written down (hardly a nerd feat in itself), all it takes is someone who's skilled with a soldering iron (might as well be a brain surgeon), which isn't a nerd feat either.

This is not "cool", this is just pointing out differences between two boards (any idiot can do this) and being a show-off about his skills with a soldering iron.

mirror

[zebs]

mirror here

call me a skeptic/coward, but...

[jxyama]

6% increase in the CPU speed merits voiding the warranty? (and this *will* void the warranty - good luck trying to explain any heat damages when the apple S/N says what was purchased was a 1.25 GHz, but the machine profile says 1.42 GHz.)

Re:call me a skeptic/coward, but...

[buttersnout]

13.6% increase. 6% referred to upgrade 1.42 to 1.5

Re:call me a skeptic/coward, but...

[ErikZ]

How pathetic. Tremble in fear, for you have voided the almighty Mac Warranty!

Seriously, did you think that someone with the knowelege and skills to do this hack DOESN'T realize that taking a soldering iron to the inside of the Mac will void the warranty?

And you, tell me, what's the difference between the 1.25 and the 1.42? Just those jumpers. That's it. It's the SAME CHIP. They just overclock it themselves and sell it to the end user for more money.

The machine can handle it.

Re:call me a skeptic/coward, but...

[jcr]

what's the difference between the 1.25 and the 1.42? Just those jumpers. That's it. It's the SAME CHIP.

Guess again.

The difference is, the ones that come set up to run at 1.42 gigaherz passed the factory testing to qualify for that clock rating.

Chips that come off the same manufacturing line vary. Not all of them will work reliably at the higher speeds, so they're all tested and graded. Some make the grade and are sold as 1.42 Ghz parts. Others make a lower grade and are sold as slower parts. Still others end up in the trash.

-jcr

Re:call me a skeptic/coward, but...

[ErikZ]

"The difference is, the ones that come set up to run at 1.42 gigaherz passed the factory testing to qualify for that clock rating."

Sorry, what I said was 100% correct and your answer did no refute it.

Yes they test the chips to make sure they can go 1.42, then put all the ones that can't in another bin.

But they're all THE SAME CHIP.

And just because you're getting a ship that's set to go 1.25 doesn't mean it isn't perfectly capable of going 1.42. Sometimes they run out of the poorer 1.25 chips, then they just use 1.42 in their place.

Get it?

Re:call me a skeptic/coward, but...

[jcr]

But they're all THE SAME CHIP.

Nope. They go through the same manufacturing process, but some come out better than others.

-jcr

Overclocking the BMW Mini

[payndz]

Funnily enough, the BMW Mini One can be 'overclocked' too. Like the CPU in the two Mac Mini models, both the One and the Cooper have the same 1.6 litre engine, the only difference being the engine management software. Must be something in the name 'Mini'...

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[smithmc]

Funnily enough, the BMW Mini One can be 'overclocked' too. Like the CPU in the two Mac Mini models, both the One and the Cooper have the same 1.6 litre engine, the only difference being the engine management software.

We don't get the Mini One in the US; I had to look it up. 90 horsepower? You poor bastards.

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[Anonymous Coward]

> We don't get the Mini One in the US; I had to look it up. 90 horsepower? You poor bastards.

My girlfriend has one of those, and 90 hp feels like a _lot_ more in the Mini - the car is very light. Subjectively, the Mini is more powerful than my - much heavier - 2.0 liter turbocharged Saab 9-3 (well, I "only" have the 153 hp LPT model).

Combined with the short length, the positioning of the wheels, the suspension, the low position of the seats and the "direct" steering it makes for an incredibly fun ride, especially on curvy mountain roads - and you can't swing a dead cat around the tail here in Switzerland without hitting at least 10 of those. Try it out on a mountain pass road if you get the chance, you'll see what I mean. It's not the car I'd choose for long highway trips, though.

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[Anonymous Coward]

Funnily?

For fucks sake.

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[mrchaotica]

No, "poor bastards" is right -- 90HP isn't that much even for a car as light as the Mini. For example, even my (US-spec) Hyundai Accent weighs 2250lbs and has 104HP (compared to 2500lbs and 90HP for the Mini One) -- which means that my Hyundai has better performance for much less money (11K US dollars vs. 11K UK pounds). My Accent does 0-60MPH in ten seconds flat, while the Mini One takes almost eleven (10.9).

I'd take my Accent GT with sport suspension over a Mini One any day (the Cooper S would be a different story, however).

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[mla_anderson]

My Yamaha weighs just under 500lb and can put out 94hp all for $6.5K, 0-60MPH or 0-120MPH will knock your socks off, and if I ride it hard I only get 40MPG (US Gal), 6L/100KM. Almost anyone in a car/cage is a "poor bastard".

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost anyone in a car/cage is a "poor bastard".

Two years and a day ago, I'd be dead if I was on a motorcycle. I was making a left hand turn at a 4-way intersection and had a green arrow. I was following behind a large SUV that was blocking my view of the oncoming lane. An asshole in the oncoming lane was speeding and didn't see the red light - he crashed into the passenger side of my van, totaling it. I walked away from the accident without a scratch, save having to dust the safety glass off my clothes.

You may think you're the master of your universe on the road, but fate can deal you a bad hand in the blink of an eye. You keep riding your "donorcycle".

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[pipingguy]

Yeah, but can you yak on a cellphone and juggle a double caf caf expresso latte while piloting it?

I thought not.

Uncultured plebe...

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[GnarlyNome]

I've seen it done on US 101 scary drivers are everywhere

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[mrchaotica]

On a motorcycle?!

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[mrchaotica]

Well, yeah, but I was comparing within the same style of car. You could also call me a poor bastard because my car won't crawl over rocks as well as a Jeep, or because it can't carry 12 passengers like a van, but that's beside the point.

I could call you a poor bastard because if it rains you get wet, and you can't carry more than one passenger (or any cargo), and there's nothing to protect you in a crash... but that's beside the point.

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[GnarlyNome]

'truth 101 north just south of Redwood city

Re:Overclocking the BMW Mini

[Not-a-Neg]

"On a motorcycle?!"

There are a lot of PHBs, and retired hippie/yuppie engineers around here that think they're cool by riding those big ol' crates-on-wheels. The motorcycles with full windshield, massive fuel-tank, and 3 or more storage bins on the back... Anyway, i've seen them with a mug of coffee in the cupholder(yes, they have cupholders too!), and chatting away on a handsfree cellphone wired to their helmet. On a side note, I avoid 101 at all costs and take 280 instead. It's more scenic, people drive 60-90mph instead of 1-45mph, the road surface is better maintained, and you don't run over gardening tools that fell out of a Mazda pickup truck being driven by some illegal immigrant. The only downside, is that no matter what lane you get in, there is always one idiot driving under the speed limit that you''l end up behind, but i'll take that over the horrors of 101 any day.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Darwin on an Athlon 64..... sooooo sexy.

Nope, not really. Darwin looks like pretty much every other terminal-based Unix-a-like out there.

Unless of course seeing 'Welcome to Darwin' in the login banner really does it for you. In which case, just edit /etc/issue.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[NeoSkandranon]

That's great assuming you have a need for any of those extra things.

Is this proof Windows users are insecure?

[rjung2k]

I think this is a result of the open competition between manufacturers, and as longa s Mac's are the toy of a single company, they will always lack this aspect of providing what the customers REALLY want or need, but only what the company is willing to provide.

Actually, I think this is the result of Windows users who are emotionally insecure, and willing to clutch at any straws they can to reassure themselves their rig is "better" than a Mac.

Re:Is this proof Windows users are insecure?

[kmartshopper]

size doesn't matter, size doesn't matter, size doesn't ... shit

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely geeks must make up some non-zero percentage of the computing population.


Geek make up zero percentage of the breeding population.

Kidding...

Get used to using Unix

[Matey-O]

Really the WHOLE point of having a real OS is that the interactive stuff is interactive and the batch stuff happens when you're not lookin'...

The MacMini will NOT make a good Doom3 machine. For interactive stuff (even, gasp, light video editing!) it's fine the way it is. For long term stuff (DVD encoding), background the app and do something else (even at the same time!) Who cares if it takes 25 minutes instead of 20 minutes?

Generally, 'make DVD' is the last thing I do befor e I go to bed...it's always done by morning.

If you wanted the last oomph of power, you shouldn't have bought apple's cheapest box!

UNDERclocking

[macklin01]

Actually, this might be interesting to use for underclocking. Take your Mac Mini 1.42, underclock it a bit to 1.25, and it's even less likely that the included fan will turn on. Makes it all the more of a silent computing solution.

They do this type of thing all the time at silentpcreview, although they gain a bit more (by way of silence) because they can also adjust the CPU voltage down once the clockspeed is reduced. Just a thought. -- Paul

Re:UNDERclocking

[garcia]

Actually, this might be interesting to use for underclocking. Take your Mac Mini 1.42, underclock it a bit to 1.25, and it's even less likely that the included fan will turn on. Makes it all the more of a silent computing solution.

Or you could pay the $100 less for the 1.25 and not have to void your warranty or fool around with pinhead sized jumpers.

Or even better yet you could buy a 1.42 and realize that they are unbelievably quiet all the time as long as you aren't using the CD/DVD drive.

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[Anonymous Coward]

'I mean, the company motto is "It Just Works."'

To which Microsoft appended: "but only just".

Pee Cee price comparison weenies don't get it

[Danathar]

All this talk about saving money by overclocking it is goofy (not so goofy if you are just a nerd looking to play with it)

I find it interesting that all the comparisons I've read primarily compare the hardware of the mac mini to the hardware at a comparibly priced Pee Cee system.

The fact that one system runs OS X and the other runs Windoze always seems to be a secondary consideration when looking at the price tag and comparing it to a Dell/clone/ect...

The fact that you can buy an OS X system that "feels" just as fast or faster than a comparible Pee Cee system AND has all the advantages of OS X over Windoze (security, ease of use, ect..) is something you should factor in when evaluating the price. How much is it worth to you in $$$? Is saving $200 bucks on a Dell worth the heartache that living in the windoze world entails?

Re:Pee Cee price comparison weenies don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe the "Pee Cee weenies" have tried OSX and found it to not have any significant advantage over Windows.

I use OSX on one machine at home, Windows at work, and use Linux on the two computers at home I use most often. I tend to find each of these comperable, with very similar features and ease of use. None has been exceptionally unpleasant. So if I don't consider any of these operating systems to be leading the pack by a wide margin, I guess I can easily live with the heartache of saving $200 on a Dell, can't I?

By the way, how do you compare the advantage of buying a computer based on standardized parts with an open architecture and support from multiple vendors? I tend to find single vendor lock-in to be much scarier than the often feared command line.

Re:Pee Cee price comparison weenies don't get it

[dustmite]

Pee Cee price comparison weenies

While you do have a point, and I happen to agree with your underlying point, you're never going to convince anyone like that. Because starting off by calling the people you're trying to convince "weenies" just attacks and aggravates them and puts them on the defensive. Once you've put someone on the defensive, any hope of having a rational, constructive argument is gone, as well as any hope of convincing them to see your viewpoint. The question is do you want to just insult people who are wrong about something, or do you actually want to help those people see that they are wrong and introduce positive change? (That's not easy.) If the latter, you'll have to change your strategy. Calling people "weenies" and telling them they're "living in the wrong world" is no way to convince anyone of anything, except for people who already agree with you (perhaps you just want the affirmation from that group?). Anyway, a better strategy is to open by "giving" something to the listener that they would like to hear, a concession that doesn't make them feel stupid, e.g. start out by pointing out the perceived merits of their argument are not baseless, e.g. you could say "it's true that a Dell PC with similar performance can be obtained slightly cheaper", but then (rationally) add valid (backed up) counter-arguments for why that little saving is not worth it, in a non-offensive way that doesn't make you sound like a zealot, which results in having the opposite of the desired effect, because most people instinctively do the opposite of what zealots do even if the zealot happens (by coincidence) to be doing the right thing.

Re:Pee Cee price comparison weenies don't get it

[Mistah Blue]

Hopefully this will end up at +5 Insightful. You just gave a short concise lesson on negotiation.

Re:Pee Cee price comparison weenies don't get it

[Danathar]

I can always apolgize after the fact...if it get's somebody's attention then it had it's effect.

Re:Pee Cee price comparison weenies don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it sufficiently established for me that you're a retard. I, for one, prefer when retarded people make their mental handicap obvious to me as early-on as possible.

Re:Pee Cee price comparison weenies don't get it

[laffer1]

I agree with the underlying point made and this point about calling others weenies. I suspect it is easy for Mac users like myself to get defensive and call pc users weenies. I am a CS student and walking down the hall with my iBook, i often get made fun of for having a Mac. I really find it annoying since a portable unix workstation is quite handy! I've even had professors call me stupid in class. (especially electrical engineers) Its nice to see the shoe on the other foot even though I also have a dual xeon at home. (windows, FreeBSD, and gnu/linux!) As for price and performance, I think the Mac Mini is ideal for home audio/video usage. It would technically run World of Warcraft too!

Re:Pee Cee price comparison weenies don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

...and what is wrong in buying a PC (preferably without Windoze, it can be done) and installing a NetBSD or Linux on it ??

Re:Pee Cee price comparison weenies don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

While you do have a point, and I happen to agree with your underlying point, you're never going to convince anyone like that. Because starting off by calling the people you're trying to convince "weenies" just attacks and aggravates them and puts them on the defensive.

But why should we care about "convincing anyone" anyway? Computers aren't a religion. I don't care if PC weenies are wasting their time - it just gives me a competitive advantage (and their jobs) from using a Mac.

It's not my job to help weenies make better decisions - they should grow a brain and work it out themselves.

Re:Pee Cee price comparison weenies don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I second this, altough I would have choosen the word looney.

Re:Pee Cee price comparison weenies don't get it

[Chuckalo]

Also, be sure to use plenty of commas (') and parentheses( () ); they're sure to make you look and feel smart

and always ask for receipts, it makes you look like a businessman

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[realdpk]

$199 gets you a PC, with everything you need except a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. It even has a decent speed processor (granted it is only a Semperon)

And before you ask -- yes, these sorts of deals are commonplace. PC hardware is damned cheap, Mac hardware is so much more it is really hard to compare it.

Re:Strange

[ethanms]

It's just you

Overclocking a PowerBook?

[matyas47]

Does anyone know if you can overclock a PowerBook? I know that overclocking notebooks is generally considered a bad idea (heat dissipation), but if you can overclock a mini, why not? I've got a much used and abused 12" 867 AlBook that I would love to get up to 1 Ghz.

Re:Overclocking a PowerBook?

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Letting a laptop get too hot has its bad side and its good site.

Bad: You could kill it.
Good: Free birth control. (remember the story about laptops, heat and fertility?) :)

Re:Overclocking a PowerBook?

[DwarfGoanna]

Actually, my coworker did this the day he got his titanium Powerbook way back when. It was fairly major surgery, requiring him to solder something or other (it's been awhile). While we were all in awe of the balls of steel this hack took, it wasn't very successful. After numerous lockups and crashes, he had to reverse the entire harrowing process.

Re:Overclocking a PowerBook?

[Elwood P Dowd]

G3 iBooks have their clockspeed set by software. You have to hex edit system software, but you can make them run at whatever speed you want pretty easily.

Not worth baking my only computer.

Re:Overclocking a PowerBook?

[fmaxwell]

Does anyone know if you can overclock a PowerBook?

It is a "bad idea" on several fronts: Heat, battery life, and stability.

You should be looking for ways to underclock it to extend battery life and reduce heat. I want a laptop that will run on one battery for the longest plane flight I'm going to take, not one that burns through a battery every 73 minutes and singes the hair off of my scrotum.

but if you can overclock a mini, why not?

Because they are completely different machines?

Re:Overclocking a PowerBook?

[nathanh]

You should be looking for ways to underclock it to extend battery life and reduce heat. I want a laptop that will run on one battery for the longest plane flight I'm going to take, not one that burns through a battery every 73 minutes and singes the hair off of my scrotum.

Hell yeah. Something that really annoys me about my PowerBook is that the G4 chip only has two valid speeds; 765MHz or 1GHz. Most of the time my CPU needs could be satisfied with 100MHz.

Re:Overclocking a PowerBook?

[Xyde]

I haven't seen any information on overclocking albooks, but I overclocked my 400mhz tibook to 550mhz a few years ago with this guide:

http://www.voelker.com/service/void_powerbookg4/ po werbookg4.php

Worked perfectly the next 18 months I had it, until I sold it and got this 1ghz albook. Didn't notice any extra heat or system instability. Got maybe 10 minutes less battery life.

Re:Overclocking a PowerBook?

[matyas47]

All well and good, but I use mine for real-time DSP (Max/MSP). I really need all the horsepower I can get. I've had my eye on the iMac G5 since it came out, but I don't have that kind of money.

Re:Overclocking a PowerBook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know if you can overclock a PowerBook? I know that overclocking notebooks is generally considered a bad idea (heat dissipation), but if you can overclock a mini, why not? I've got a much used and abused 12" 867 AlBook that I would love to get up to 1 Ghz.

I know that Powerbooks have adjustable power within the firmware setup. Although, being OpenFirmware, it is not obvious and you will need to know the undocumented commands to do it. I don't know if they can be clocked beyond their factory speed though.

Google for Powerbook firmware overclock or something like that. I first noticed this in an OpenBSD mailing list I think.

Re:CmdrTaco, this page renders improperly in Mozil

[displaced80]

That's due to a bug in Firefox. Bugzilla will tell you. Fixed in the trunk IIRC, but not in the Aviary branch that FF1.0's based on. FF1.1 will be fine.

Of course, Slashdot's HTML does suck, but that particular problem isn't related.

The dupes and the editing? No-one's got a gun to their head forcing you to read /. or pay for subscription.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[DarKry]

Thats all well and good but lets face it OS X is years ahead of anything else as far as ease of use, experience... and pretty much every other catagory you can name. The open Source community is hardly going to catch up to Apple on this.. We tend to focus more on the way things work than how they look. Sure there are those of us who would like our desktops to look pretty while we code but I am not about to spend my time trying to make transparancy look when I could be coding something new (at least to me). Thats why I say Apple would be doing the world a service if they sold OS X for other platforms. (Don't say it because I know that will never happen) The point is that their operating system is based on something that was developed by the open source community.. Come on Steve do us a favor and give something back.

Fast enough...for almost everything

[acomj]

The mini really should be fast enough for most things. I have 1 ghz g4 tower. I do video editing/photoshop and dvd creation on it. The speed of that machine is good and the bus is about the same as the mini. I have 1.2 gigs of ram though.

DVD mastering and my degraining phtotoshop filter are the only things that make me wish a faster processor. I'm patient with the photoshop filter which can take 20 seconds or so, because my images are large (70 meg per file) (The DVD stuff which can take hours.)

Re:Fast enough...for almost everything

[Uart]

DVD Mastering is painfully slow on almost any processor. We had a dual 2.0ghz G5 at school that took 30 to 45 minutes to turn a 15 minute short film into a dvd.

I consider that slow, then again, maybe it was waiting around for 30 minutes with nothing else to do that made it so bad.

Re:Fast enough...for almost everything

[Glsai]

I see you do video editing, so maybe you can help me out with this. I currently use my PC for video capturing and editing. Right now I use my camcorder and it's firewire connection to capture the raw DVI to my computer. I'm looking at getting a mini to help with photo and video editing (because I'm tired of not being able to use my PC for hours at a time while capturing video). I'm looking at the 1.42 Mini and buying 1 gig of third party ram. Will that be enough to allow video capture of the same quality as I am getting on my PC? Thanks for any light you can shed on this.

Re:Fast enough...for almost everything

[WiseWeasel]

That will be more than adequate. You wouldn't lose any quality if you went with the 1.25 GHz and 512 MB RAM. The only issue is the limited HD (size and speed), so you won't want to use the mini's HD for anything else while the capturing is going on. Also, if you choose to get a FireWire hard drive later on, make sure you do NOT capture from your FireWire camera to the FireWire hard drive on the same bus, as it would result in lost frames and poor performance (since the incoming video needs to be buffered in RAM before being sent to the HD, causing two simultaneous transfers over the single FW bus). An external drive would be fine for acting as a repository once you've got the content captured already. I would definitely go for the 80 GB drive if you plan on working with a lot of video, and the only place you might notice a performance improvement in bumping it up to 1.42 GHz and 1 GB RAM would be in the encoding to DVD format process if you plan on doing that.

Re:Fast enough...for almost everything

[Pfhor]

Your real question is about imovie. Yes, it will work fine. Firewire streams video out at DV quality, the machine doesn't compress it at all, it just dumps it straight to disk. It is the highest quality you can get out of the camera, it will be fine, as you are working with a digital copy from the tape, not digital -> analog -> recompression back to digital.

It is for this reason no one should ever buy those stupid DVD Video cameras, that burn to dvd instead of MiniDV. You're video is compressed to mpeg2 which is compressed in comparison to DV and while it looks good, you lose quality if you want to do professional cuts / editing, etc.

Re:Fast enough...for almost everything

[acomj]

Yes. The system will work well. I've edited video with imovie on a g3 600 mhz powerbook with 384 megs ram. It captured fine as well. The movie was short (10 minutes) but it was a little slow rendering transitions. MY G4 is much better editing experience. Pleasant experience even.

the editing software is better than all the consumer editing software I've used on a PC. Stopped using the PC completely when started using imovie.

More Ram is great. As in my original post I have over 1 gig. I would get at least 512 meg. 1 gig if you can afford it. You can add it yourself if your brave.

I've tried capturing video on an eternal firewire drive from my camcorder via firewire on my g4 tower. It worked for me, but it wasn't alot of video. I have fast drives mounted externally on firewire.

One nice thing about I movie is it puts all your project files in one directory. This is convient because when I'm done editing a project, I move all the files to external HD. I also back up on a DVD burner. Movies take a lot of ram.

One thing to watch out for as you add more and more features to the mini is you start approaching the price of an G5 imac/ low end g5 tower.

Re:Fast enough...for almost everything

[Glsai]

Thanks for the replys everyone. Since the main purpose of the Mini would be to rip and create movies I have no problem with having it be at a standstill while I'm ripping video (the same thing happens right now while I use my P4, so my P4 would be freed up). Also most of my rips are limited to about 22 gigs of data at a time, and the most I've ever done is about 50 so I imagine the 80 gigs would be plenty of space for me. I usually use it for ripping soccer games and TV shows that I have recorded to my DVR (as I understand it, that's perfectly legal). Now I just have to do my taxes so I can get my rent rebate back and buy a mini :)

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[DarKry]

Why does everyone assume this is a troll.. Read the above comment it applies to this post too.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess AppleWorks doesn't edit text.

Mods are missing something today

[iamacat]

Let's see. Low end Dells and Mac Minis are both sold as high-performance computing devices, there is that. Also, ":)" at the end of the message means the author is flamin' serious. Nope! Still something missing! If your head just didn't hurt so much when you were trying to think...

To find out, get an $725 Dell, download a 2 hour movie from your digital camcoder, add some music, watermark captions and video transitions and burn it to DVD. Report your experience here.

Re:Mods are missing something today

[Leroy_Brown242]

For such a venture, I'm going to need a grant or sponsorship.

Re:Mods are missing something today

[michaeldot]

To find out, get an $725 Dell, download a 2 hour movie from your digital camcoder, add some music, watermark captions and video transitions and burn it to DVD. Report your experience here.

Dell owner: "I couldn't give a **** about stuff like that, but I have fired up Access and klutzed up a half-assed database for you! Now I'm going to kick back and frag some jackals."

[Seriously, the sad problem for Apple has always been that the stuff they do well is stuff that the majority of people do not want to do.]

Re:Mods are missing something today

[iamacat]

but I have fired up Access and klutzed up a half-assed database for you!

Do you think average home computer users have more need of a database than of a home video editing tool?

Now I'm going to kick back and frag some jackals

You do that with your Intel graphics card. I hope you like Doom 1.

Seriously, the sad problem for Apple has always been that the stuff they do well is stuff that the majority of people do not want to do

On the contrary, Macs always catered to people who want to do common tasks quickly without configuring too many settings. The sad problem was that they sat on their aging OS while Microsoft stole their market share. A

Apples aren't cheapest but compare like machines

[acomj]

Apples aren't the cheapest machines. You can always get a slighty higher spec machine for less $ in the PC realm.

But the 199$ pc you point to has some real difference to the mini. I think they have significant differences in there target markets.
The PC--
No Dvd player.
No CD burner.
only 128 megs of ram (what century is this?)
Linshpere which is fine, but if you wanted windows add $$ (I think about 200$ if bought retail).

With mac your also paying for the applications they through in and OS X os and support.

Appleworks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it come with apple works? Not a full featured office application, but certainly somewhat usefull.

Um. I'm scared.

[piecewise]

Sorry, but if someone is going to tell me how to open my brand new computer and mess around with its internal workings, I don't want to read things like this:

Here is the bottom of the board. Or whatever you call it.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[cosmo7]

with everything you need

Assuming you can live with integrated video, no DVD, 128M RAM, Lindows OS, no FireWire, no DVI, no iLife, ugly box, etc.

Come on, you're not really suggesting that that computer would be a good purchase are you?

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[Tony Hoyle]

So, unless you count TextEdit (yeah, I know some people do), there is no word processing included - and certainly no presentation programm.

Untrue.

The Mini comes with Appleworks 6, which has WP, Spreadsheet, Database and presentation (plus drawing and painting which I guess aren't too useful).

Gigabyte, Asus...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gigabyte cards i have seen are blue, Asus are red-orange. I've seen green, red, black... dude, it's just whatever color they choose and is avaliable.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[EtherGnat]

It certainly *IS* possible to get a decent PC for substantially less than a Mini. I just bought a Dell Dimension 3000 with a 2.4GHz Celly, 512MB RAM, 40GB hard drive, CDRW, and 17" LCD for $398 (after rebate). This was new, direct from Dell Small Business with no coupons or anything.

Still, I applaud Mac for entering the budget computer market. In fact I've got a Mac Mini on order, which I will use with a KVM along side my current PC rig. It will be my first Mac and I'm pretty excited about it. The Mini is far from cheapest, but it's still cheap enough for me.

This makes sense if you don't consider the

[PotatoHead]

value of the software included with the Mini.

There are better hardware deals for sure. (I may actually pick one of these up for Linux actually.) However, the OS and nicely packaged and useable tools make up for a lot where the overall value proposition is concerned.

Re:This makes sense if you don't consider the

[oberondarksoul]

Actually, 2ndchancepc are a Mac reseller as well as PC. I'm looking to get one of their cheap 'Pismo' PowerBook G3s - since they come with MacOS (version depending on the Mac), you don't miss out on iLife et al.

Mac Mini sound with ALSA

[lspd]

Has anyone managed to get the sound on a Mac Mini working under Linux?

Re:Apples aren't cheapest but compare like machine

[realdpk]

To this and the other reply: Add $60 for a DVD+/-RW/CDR burner, $60 for 512MB RAM. $319 (without tax). The bundled applications can be an issue (but I thought the slashdot consensus was that bundling is bad, so I dunno).

Apple computers may be nice but I'll probably never know for sure. I'd have to repurchase my games (I really don't want to have two computers if I can avoid it) to play most of them -- the Mac would have to come down in price about 33% to get me in the door. Just my frank opinion.

Re:An apple a day

[Anonymous Coward]

Common mods have a sense of humor. The parent is refering to the (almost) daily post on Macs/iPods

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[peragrin]

Well first start with the CPU the G4 can crunch about 150% more than a x86 (it varies)

Price watch

tower 2 ghz on board network and video and windows $250
Video card (because a shared memory isn't equal to a nvidia$50
Upgrade the memory to 512mb ~$50(depends on type)

Total $350 Plus say an hour to assemble at $40/bucks an hour employee rate.

$390 and you have a comparable performace. Of course your still using a butt ugly case that is noisey, takes up 10 time the physical space.

Quality does matter, Apple isn't perfect, but I do prefer it over my dell everyday.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[Anonymous Coward]

And more importantly -- what is your time worth? You are going to sink countless more hours into a PC than a Mac trying to keep it running, rebooting, running anti-spyware, running anti-virus etc. Even if a PC were cheaper in initial dollars -- the extra time commitment required to keep a PC running will quickly make the PC significantly more expensive.

90? Too much for fun

[hawk]

If I ever get a car as a toy, I want *less* than that.

My old Superbeetle supposedly had 48. It was perfect to be just plain fun at reasonable speeds on windy mountain roads. It had the power to go up at a reasonable (though not blazing) speed, but not so much that it didn't take any effor, or that you could ignore the gear-flipping.

I say "supposedly" because it was notably quicker than my brother's regular bug of the same year, which supposedly had the same engine & transmission (but significantly different, less fun, suspension--I got a real surprise driving it one day around what was a routine turn in mine). Not just that, but because it died an unexplained heat death--that lead the dealer to accuse me of running it without a fanbelt.

hawk

Re:An apple a day

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see why this is trollish .. Apple routinely sets the standard for the rest of the PC industry with their design sensibilities and technological innovations. Regular updates on what they're up to is plenty relevant to the geek community at large.

Re:I used to work with Leo Bodnar

[Anonymous Coward]

Just when you were starving yourself to death!.. Muahaha

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[slim]

So why oh why does apple sell a 500 dollars computer with 2 year old components.

To meet a price point, while retaining the build quality they want.

It has occurred to me that making it so tiny DOES make it desirable, but it must push the price up. Would I be as tempted by a $400 Mac which is slightly larger than the Mini, about as powerful, with a cheaper full-size HDD?

My head says yes: all I want is a cheap way to try out Mac OS (because although I don't expect to like it, I'd like to have an informed opinion).

My heart says no: it's appealing because it's so small.

And how will they know?

[brunes69]

How would they know you overclocked it?

If the CPU fails, you just put the jumper back, remove the CPU fan, sitck some dust bunny in it big enough to clog it, and put it back.

The Mac Mini is very sensitive to airflow because it is so small. The fan not working for even a shirt period of time could be reason enough for the CPU to overheat and fail.

Re:And how will they know?

[swiftstream]

Um, yeah.

So, you are going to keep these around long enough without losing them so you can put them back? Good luck.

Re:And how will they know?

[suckmysav]

And good luck with soldering them back on so that you can't tell that they have been touched by a sodering iron. You can be sure that an email from Apple HQ has already been drafted directing their hardware techs to check for solder tampering on these "jumpers" on all 1.25Ghz Mini warranty claims before commencing any repairs.

You can count on it.

Re:And how will they know?

[DarkVader]

Just for the fun of it, I checked the repair cost.

If you've screwed up your logic board doing this, I would charge you $505.91 for the repair.

That price does include tax.

Re:Apples aren't cheapest but compare like machine

[peragrin]

Dumb question.

Why don't you want to own two computers? I have for years, mainly windows or linux machines(I just bought my first Mac).

The number one reason why I like two computers, is when one fails, I have a way to get online to lookup information. I guess I have just had Windows destroy to many network drivers on me.

They don't run all the time, and Yes I still do run Windows. I just got tired of fixing it every week.

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[Rasta Prefect]

On my computer, I can controll voltage, FSB, multiplier, fan speed, and so on from Windows, and don't even have to reboot to change those settings. I think this is a result of the open competition between manufacturers, and as longa s Mac's are the toy of a single company, they will always lack this aspect of providing what the customers REALLY want or need, but only what the company is willing to provide.

No, thats because you can buy a variety of different processors to put in that motherboard, so you need to be able to adjust these settings. The MacMini ships as a while unit so these settings aren't needed.

Re:Apples aren't cheapest but compare like machine

[realdpk]

I used to have 4 computers running 24x7. It was an obsession to have more and more. One day I recognized it and shut off all but 1, and I didn't miss the other three. My one computer runs Windows XP and I've only ever had problems with a particular piece of hardware (el-cheapo wireless card), so far.

My home is quieter now, I use less electricity, and I think I actually spend less on hardware since I'm only upgrading one box.

For backup Internet access, I have a Treo smartphone. It lets me get in to work, which is pretty much the only "emergency" situation I could have with regards to Internet access. I could even download small drivers to it (SD card), but I haven't had to do that yet.

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[CapnRob]

Yeah, but we drop out through rounding errors.

Re:Apples aren't cheapest but compare like machine

[peragrin]

I can understand most of that. when I bought my powerbook I took my second computer which and a bad motherboard, and about 4 video cards, three network cards, 2 sound cards,a monitor, etc to a computer shop who I traded all the good parts for a discount on an Apple USB keyboard, and the recycling fees for the bad hardware.

I gave out all my extra hardware, keeping only an 80gb drive, which went into an external firewire enclosure. Now my Dell tower only gets booted once every couple of days for games. Half the time the monitor for the dell is plugged into the Powerbook.

No, no it isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn a little something about the G4. If you really knew the architecture you would know bus speed has nothing to do its performance issues. The G4 is only 2-way super-scalar and is fed much more effectively by its slow bus than the G5. The G5 has a much faster bus but an inferior cache to the G4 but it still cannot feed that beast. The G4 core design is so old that at 167mhz that bus is 100mhz faster than the original design, remember the core 2-way super-scalar setup with 4 stage pipeline was from the PPC 603. Sure the new PPC G4's have a 7 stage pipeline but still it is only 2-way super-scalar and has a relatively good cache setup. So yeah the least of your performance problem is the bus, clearly on the intel side the p4 has a 20 stage pipeline and 100 or more instructions in flight. Comparatively the G4 has seven stages, and an 8-entry reorder buffer so their are less than 50 instructions in flight or approximately 1/5 of the instructions in flight of the G5. Please learn computer architecture before commenting on hardware.

Also fyi, DDR ram is dual data rate memory, the trick is it works on the rising and the falling edge of the clock effectively doubling the data throughput.

Thats it....

[DwarfGoanna]

I'm finally going to respond to one of these.

While I have to use windows at work, since the original iMac came out I've used Macs at home exclusively. Now you notice, this was pre-OSX. Yes, MacOS 9x sucked, but I endured it out of principle (not that anyone does that for any modern x86 OS, right?). What I didn't do was complain that there were no Mac stories on slashdot. Why? Because the OS was deemed unfeasible for the sufficiently technically inclined (you, I'm guessing). Fast forward six years, and not only does Apple ship arguably the nicest 'nix out there, but they've also done some amazing things with their hardware from both an engineering and design standpoint. I'm sorry, but Apple is quite relevant to the /. crowd now, and since people are *constantly* talking about them elsewhere, we see lots of Apple stories on slashdot. That is kinda how this site works. If you don't like it, get the rest of the world wide web to stop talking about apple, and there will be no stories for slashdot to link to.

This assuming you are looking for an alternative to setting your prefs to block apple stories.

Pencil Trick?

[DocSavage64109]

I wonder if the pencil trick that was so successful on old Athlons (and on my Radeon 9500np) would work in place of soldering the little jumpers...

Monitor and Keyboard?

[Mistah Blue]

What monitor and keyboard are you guys using? Ones you have hanging around, or are you purchasing one with the mini? If you are going with the Apple displays, would you recommend 20" or 23" one? Just curious, I'm leaning towards a PB 15".

Re:Monitor and Keyboard?

[jest3r]

I am using an Apple keyboard, however the display is just a VGA NEC 17" lcd .. nothing special.

Works well.

Dude...

[Anonymous Coward]

If something breaks, you just move the jumper back.

Re:Dude...

[Thijs van As]

You can't just 'move the jumper back', because you have to solder it back. No way you can solder it back with so much precision that it can't be seen...

C'mon

[Anonymous Coward]

lets get real here for a second. Overclocking a chip 10% won't have any effect on anything.

If the guy were bumping it from 1.25 to 2.0, then your argument would be entirely correct, but the jump from 1.2 to 1.4 is so small that this is just a way of segmenting the market and there is no technical infeasibility to speak of.

Worth the extra hundred bucks

[Digital Pizza]

I think it's worth the extra $100 for the faster machine, not because of the negligible speed increase, but because of the 80GB hard drive; those drives (that I've seen anyway) all cost more than $100. I'm sure there's some fly-by-night operation on pricewatch.com that sells them cheap, but those places seem pretty dodgy if you check them out on resellerratings.com.

I'd like to know how high you can clock one of the 1.4Ghz models, though I doubt I'd do it myself if I had a Mini; those jumpers are tiny, and it's not like you can put a big ol' HSF on the CPU to compensate for the heat, at least not without ruining the Mini's appeal.

Re:Worth the extra hundred bucks

[Bilestoad]

When you buy the 1.42 model you lose a little performance because of the "upgraded" hard drive. Every report on the 1.25GHz mini says it comes with a 5400rpm 8M cache 40GB drive. I have two 1.42 minis - one came with a 4200rpm 8M cache 80GB drive, the other came with a 4200rpm 2M cache drive.

Since then I've fitted a 7200rpm 8M cache drive - it makes a BIG difference!

Re:Worth the extra hundred bucks

[Digital Pizza]

OK, thanks for the info; I didn't know they were putting a slower drive in the higher-end model :-(

I agree, the RPM and (especially) the cache can make a big difference, as I found when I upgraded the drive in my Dell laptop.

The Seagate Momentus ST9100823A-RK is 100GB @ 5400RPM with a 8MB cache - now that's a nice drive for the mini, but it is $200 at Newegg.com (and they're out of stock anyway). Too bad that notebook drives are so much more expensive than the regular 3.5" drives.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Well first start with the CPU the G4 can crunch about 150% more than a x86 (it varies)

That metric is completely useless. The IPC for each processor must be considered separately, and each chipset and memory configuration used with the processor must also be taken into account. You also have to consider integer, fpu, and simd performance separately. A G4 application that makes use of AltiVec, will do considerably better than a comparably clocked AthlonXP or P4, but in other areas the performance characteristics will be much different.

Secondly, the Mini does not come with an nVidia GPU, it comes with an ATi Radeon 9200 which is basically slower than a GeForce 2 MX. Its integrated video is practically worthless, so throw in a $35 budget card.

More later.

Double duh

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, I'm not aware of "heat damage" that could occur. Do you want to be more specific?

Second of all, if you moved a jumper, and had a warranty issue, here's what you do:
YOU MOVE IT BACK BEFORE YOU TAKE IT TO THE SHOP!

Cripes. I'll bet you were 4 before you were properly toilet trained.

Re:Double duh

[suckmysav]

"YOU MOVE IT BACK BEFORE YOU TAKE IT TO THE SHOP!"

You can't move the "jumpers" back BECAUSE THEY ARE SOLDERED ON TO THE MOTHERBOARD!

great

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you have a cluster of these running in a closet, the whole thing goes off like a bomb. That should be exciting, but you might have a hard time explaining it to your boss.

Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[Luscious868]

Check out this hilarious Mac mini "review". It's tongue and cheek, written from the prospective of an MCSE. I couldn't stop laughing.

Re:Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[Stides]

That has to be a joke... oh please say it's a joke. Either that or it is one of the clueless consultants I deal with regularly. You tell them the switch port is bad and after reinstalling XP, replacing their ethernet card and then formatting and reinstalling XP again, they finally listen and plug the cable into another port on the switch. After all of this they blame it on us, the ISP.

Re:Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[GrahamCox]

Hrrm, I guess hilarity is in the eye of the beholder. I do see the funny side, but it is also full of errors and smacks of some seriously sour grapes.

From TFA: if you believe Apple's marketing department, the new Mini is "smaller than most packs of gum" and weighs "less than four quarters". Well, we received our test unit from Apple yesterday, and let me say right off the bat that those claims are a wee bit of an exaggeration.

Easy mistake to make, but seems he's mixed the mini up with the iPod shuffle. Or maybe that was a "joke". Hee haw.

While the hardware is about roughly equivalent to a Windows PC circa 1995

Errr... yeah right. I seem to recall that a Windows PC circa 1995 was in fact running software 'roughly equivalent' to a Mac circa 1984.

less than half the Mini's price, with the added benefit of being able to run Windows XP. Decisions, decisions.

Decisions indeed. Hmm, let me see, a modern rock-solid genuine unix-based OS with a great usable GUI that actually works instead of a buggy, security-problem ridden crock of shite. Tough one!

The Mini boots up into a stripped-down operating system which Apple calls OS X, similar to the stripped-down WindowsCE OS found on many handhelds

LOL!!

When I consider that a good deal of my time is spent running applications like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk, Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware--none of which are available for the Mac platform--it doesn't make sense for me to "switch" to a Mac at this time.

Yeah, well obviously the guy is joking. Hoo hoo. The only problem is that there is already so much ignorance around about Macs in the PC universe that anyone who doesn't know the truth or sees the very dry wit at work here is likely to take this at face value. So it might be meant to be funny, but in fact it's just FUD.

Re:Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[ickoonite]

Hmmm. I'm inebriate right now, and pissed off at a lot of people, but I'm going to make you bear some of the brunt.

I'm a Mac user. A Mac lover, in fact. A hardcore evangelist too. But pricks like you taking "anti" Mac humour even semi-seriously do not help the cause. It just makes us all look stupid and gives the idiots using Windows fodder.

The article is written by someone who quite possibly loves Macs - at the very least s/he is a user and appreciator thereof - and is of sufficient intellgience to employ sophisticated literary devices such as sarcasm and irony to convey his point to individuals similarly sophisticated and intelligent. (And, I will had, tongue only half inserted in cheeck, that those that don't "get" his humour are not really eligible for Mac use anyway.) This article is funny.

And as for real trolls - don't respond to their provocation - not even the Kottke troll. It lets the side down.

Read my post history and you'll realise you got off likely.

iqu >:@

Re:Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[Anonymous Coward]

im sure my pentium 200 MMX from 1995 could keep up with the mini :-D

Re:Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[GrahamCox]

Well, whatever you say. I'm also a Mac user/programmer and a lot of what people say both FOR and against Macs piss me off too.

I can appreciate humour, if it's funny. This wasn't. It's lame and dull. Sarcasm and irony are not "sophisticated literary devices", but the lowest form of wit, according to the cliche.

Look, I get it. It's a pisstake. But I'm British and I get irony. I also known that there are many folk out there that won't, and many Windows weenies who'll take it at face value. I'm not taking it even semi-seriously, but many out there are quite likely to.

Now if you don't mind, I'll get back to writing Mac (only) software which I interrupted to respond to your idiotic response. You call yourself a hardcore evangelist - I'm writing cool software for the Mac, so I'm doing my bit for "the cause" (WTF??) - what are YOU doing, apart from carping?

Read my post history and you'll realise you got off likely.

And just who the fuck are you again? If you take everyone to task for responding to anti-Mac trolls it's YOU who's going to look pretty stupid, as well as having a never-ending supply of willing baiters.

Re:Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[ickoonite]

I'll grant that it wasn't the most inspired humour ever, but that's not the point - the fact is that the unwashed masses on here will read what you've written and conclude as they always do - "Ach, Mac users, bunch of reactionary twats." (Actually, as far as I know, the Yanks don't use 'twat' (somebody correct me if I'm wrong), so that's inaccurate, but...) Anyway, all I'm saying is that it's not the best advert for the community.

More precisely, a point-by-point explanation of the "inaccuracies" in the "article," is not helpful. It made me think of how the (great) Angophile writer and American emigré Bill Bryson winced as he wrote about American attitudes to humour, and how sometimes they felt an explanation of why a joke was or was not funny was necessary. Hint: it's bad. It takes the fun out of it. And, as the inebriation continues and I note that neither of us should be up at 2am, I must insert a jibe here about you being a programmer and thus not having a sense of humour.

In any event, perhaps your "Windows weenies" will take the "article" at face value, but they will then, unfortunately, laugh derisively at your attempts to defend the Mac in such a way. It's just like the people who respond to Kottke trolls. I love the Mac, but it really hurts to see them beating themselves up over it.

Trolls are trolls for a reason. They are there to provoke, and geeks are really easy to provoke. So why not drink some of the Koolaid, slip on the RDF glasses, and Think Different? :P

iqu :P

Re:Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[Anonymous Coward]

don't be so fucking stupid.

Re:Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[dustmote]

Yes, we Yanks do use "twat", but rarely. It's a fairly dirty word here, and not common.

Re:Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[GrahamCox]

OK, point taken. 'Nuff said, I think. At least your tone appears to have mellowed - keep drinking. By the way, it's not 2am here, I'm in Australia, and it's the middle of the afternoon. Back to the code....

Re:Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[Luscious868]

I go ahead and correct you. We yanks use the word twat all the time :-) ...

Re:Check out this Mac Mini "Review"

[ickoonite]

Oooh right. It just sounded rather British.

iqu :P

Where's my clue stick....

[Anonymous Coward]

"Customers really want and need a computer that works, is stable, and provides the end users the functionality they need to either do what they want to do, or need to do. Bumping your cpu speed by 5% don't do squat for what a customer REALLY wants"

1) First of all, you don't speak for anybody but yourself. So stop claiming to know what these mythical "customers" want. It just sounds dumb.

2) The people who move jumpers like this obviously aren't people who just buy stuff off the shelves and use them, they like to tinker.

Are you one of those fanbois who thinks they're protecting apple? Do you feel people are "cheating" apple when the buy the 1.25ghz, overclock to 1.42? Do you feel like those people are hurting apple? That's so cute!

That's common to feel that way

[Anonymous Coward]

"I find it a bit scarry that you can change these things from within windows rather than the BIOS"

Sure. I understand. Technical. Complicated. All SCAAAARY like that.

But as you become technical and understand that a computer is just a bit of plastic, silicon, solder, and resin, you won't think its magic to change these settings.

Now go have some warm milk, mayonaise and white bread and don't worry your pretty little head about it again!

Re:Is this proof that PC is better?

[coopaq]

Surely geeks must make up some non-zero percentage of the computing population.

Nope. Geeks do it for spite. Geek apathy is at an all time high.

So again... 0% of the worlds computing population care about that stuff.

Like this?

[jhesse]

The overclocked iMac

This is off topic, but

[wcrowe]

I figure some Mac enthusiasts might respond.

I am considering getting a Mini Mac. I want to know how well a Mac works and plays with Windows computers on the network. Most important to me is the ability to move files among the various machines.

Re:This is off topic, but

[mehgul]

Well, I hook my PowerBook everyday to the network here at work, and I exchange constantly files between it and the P4-2.6 GHz Windows desktop. Be it by ssh'ing into the PB from the desktop or smb'ing from the PB to the desktop. You could also activate the FTP server on the Mac and use your prefered FTP-client on the PC. Or even activate "Windows sharing" on the Mac and make it an smb server. All this is simply done by clicking in checkboxes in OS X's sharing preference pane.

Sometimes I even use the PB's keyboard and mouse to access the desktop's screen 1m away with osx2x and VNC.

Re:This is off topic, but

[Jon_Hanson]

It works fine. I bought my wife a PowerBook for last Chirstmas and it has no problems mounting Windows volumes and my Samba shares on my Linux machine.

Re:This is off topic, but

[Stefan MacGeek]

Mac OS X works well with Windows machines on a network - it will mount Windows shares and you can use shared printers.
The other way is just as easy, you can enable Windows file- and printer-sharing with a click in the Sharing control panel of System Preferences.
Another option ist an external hard disk - it should be formatted with FAT32, because Mac OS X can read NTFS, but cannot write to it.

Stefan

Re:This is off topic, but

[wcrowe]

I thank everyone for the replies. I have been wanting a Mac for some time; ever since OSX I've wanted to play with the operating system.

Behold, the PowerBook 'G5' real plans!

[MarcQuadra]

Well if you read freescale's product pages you'd see that they have a 'G4' series CPU that has a totally revamped front-side. I expect that this is what you'll see _instead_ of a PPC970-based PowerBook, you'll have a G4 with onboard memory controller (think Athlon FX). Check out this page:

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overvie w. jsp?nodeId=018rH3bTdG7249

for details. Basically, they have a pin-compatible PowerPC 7448, which is a drop-in replacement to the current 74xx line, and a much-awaited 8641 and 8641D, which are not pin-compatible, but fully instruction compatible, have 667MHz FSBs, and a dual-core model.

There's really almost no reason to have a PPC970 running on a laptop today, I don't think anyone can fit over 2GB of RAM into a portable anyway. Honestly, I'd RATHER have a 8641-based PowerBook than a 970-based one, the 8641 comes from a long line of portable-oriented CPUs, whereas the 970 will need massive cooling in a most un-Apple fashion.

Re:Behold, the PowerBook 'G5' real plans!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, a few thoughts on this.

I just gave my Pismo to my daughter and so I'm PB-less for the first time in several years, and I have to say that the current line just isn't worth it to me right now because it doesn't do anything exceedingly well. It doesn't have great CPU performance, it doesn't have a great video card. It, tragically, never got a docking station. It looked swoopy when it came out, now it looks dated to me.

Anyway, my point is that I'm less hooked to the idea of a G5 than a few folks, but if they do the G4, it has to offer a radical boost in performance over what they've got now.

I've been using an HP/Compaq 8000, and what it lacks in industrial design, it gets right in battery life (4-5 hours), screen (15", 1440x1080), and a reasonably fast ATI video card with 64M of RAM. It features the Pentium M CPU, and I was skeptical, but this chip is Intel's best product right now. Oh, and it costs about $1800, base, mine's tricked out with 2G of memory.

The point is, its a pretty potent laptop (its work's, not mine ), and so for me to get a new PB, it has to offer an equivalent value. No more 2 1/2 hour battery life. No more weak video card. It has to be excellent.

I'm concerned that Apple can't deliver in the high-end laptop arena these days, and the iBook may be their best all-around laptop now and in the near future.

All that said, I'm not opposed to a G4, but it better use less juice than a mouse, and it better perform with the best. The current PB line is not anything except expensive these days.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[Pfhreakaz0id]

I'll quote the AC to get him more visible:

That metric is completely useless. The IPC for each processor must be considered separately, and each chipset and memory configuration used with the processor must also be taken into account. You also have to consider integer, fpu, and simd performance separately. A G4 application that makes use of AltiVec, will do considerably better than a comparably clocked AthlonXP or P4, but in other areas the performance characteristics will be much different.

Secondly, the Mini does not come with an nVidia GPU, it comes with an ATi Radeon 9200 which is basically slower than a GeForce 2 MX. Its integrated video is practically worthless, so throw in a $35 budget card.

This was gonna be my point. The processor/video is , I think, comparable, with an XP + and and GeForce 2 MX. I've USED a powerbook that has a faster G4 and it "feels" for the ordinary, everyday task about the same as my machine at home (which is an athlon XP 2100 + like above) and a Geforec2 MX. Maybe all of OSX's eye candy sucks up that much stuff.

Re:PC competition?

[Paragoon]

A laptop. It will be similarly unupgradeable, and even smaller, after you include the keyboard and mouse you'd need with the mini.

MythTV on Mac Mini

[Anonymous Coward]

The MythTV frontend has been ported to MacOSX, so in theory you can do all of the above on the Mini as well.

Of course, you could also run linux on it. I've seen a screenshot of one running Gentoo...

533?

[misterpies]

Someone should tell intel that 133*4=532. Looks like they still haven't fixed that multiplication bug from the original pentium...

Re:533?

[jonadab]

That's just a rounding error. Everyone knows BUS speeds end in 00, 33, or 66
(i.e., they go in increments of thirds of 100), so they rounded to the nearest
possible increment.

Re:533?

[stephentyrone]

If that were the case, it would be 67, not 66.

Ok, so I'm being a smartass.

Re:533?

[jonadab]

66 sounded better to the marketing people than 67. Easier to say. Plus,
everyone knows that if you double 33 you get 66. If you like, think of
it as truncating instead of rounding.

your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

your post was informative, but this OT reply is about your sig--it brings back memories of my first computer, a commodore 64.

Are you also a commodore person, or did other computers also have that syntax for accessing peripherals? Just asking. commodore was all I knew in the early years.

Re:your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft wrote the BASIC for the Commodores, so I'm sure that syntax is not unique. I think Ataris used BLOAD for disks and CLOAD for cassettes... The VIC-20, C64 and probably all PETs used that syntax. I've used all of these.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[neuroklinik]

Unless of course seeing 'Welcome to Darwin' in the login banner really does it for you. In which case, just edit /etc/issue.

Isn't it /etc/motd?

What you don't know about overclocking!

[vcbumg2]

One of the first things you learn in microprocessor design is how to efficiently balance machine instructions vs. clock cycles to set your clock speed. To determine maximum clock speed you evaluate the longest path and highest possible propagation for an instruction based on what logical gates, adders, etc. the processor could use in an instruction. The designers make sure the processor can not physically end a clock cycle before the logic has been propagated. The more you overclock a processor the more you run the risk of getting bad data or in the case where error checking is in place the instruction will continue to process until it get the correct value drastically multiplying the number of clock cycles it should take to execute. Overclocking a white box AMD/Intel running XP/*nix might get you a few more fps encoding Xvids but for anything of a critical nature overclocking is technically a very bad idea. Why would you take an environment like Sun/Sparc or Apple/OSX where hardware and software are matched for stability and purposely give it a reason to fail?

P.S. You can cook you proc to!

Codeman

mac mini performance?

[dimss]

Don't think extra 200 MHz are worth breaking your mac. As well as any other overclocking of any other computer.

BTW, has anyone tried things like LAPACK or LINPACK (or other numerical benchmarks) on mac mini?

Re:mac mini performance?

[GrahamCox]

As well as any other overclocking of any other computer

Well, it's getting a bit long in the tooth now but I overclocked my 2001 12" iBook from 500MHz to 600MHz and boosted its memory bus from 66MHz to 100MHz. The difference was staggering - it meant the ability to run OS X well instead of very badly. And it's now been nearly three years and I haven't had the slightest problem with reliablility. So in this case at least, your statement is obviously a bit too sweepingly general to be true.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[BlueCodeWarrior]

Usually when you switch architectures, you have to re-purchase software for that architecture...if you don't own a Mac, how the hell are you going to get Office for Windows to run on it? I'm pretty sure you don't have Mac stuff sitting around, except for the dual cd games.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[lanc]

erm ... This is just as dumb as saying that windows' biggest disadvantage is, that wihtout MS Office installed you cannot open Excel files.
Have a look at http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.4/index.html


(oh that article about the disadvantage of OSs you find here

Virgin Mary in Mac Mini

[Linuxathome]

Mine melted into the face of a woman. I was about to toss it. But as I grabbed it by its side, there it was, the face of a woman staring at me. I've saved it by my bedside encased in cotton and plastic. It's never grown any mold and I've won thousands of dollars at casinos because the woman told me to do it (I have the receipts to prove it). Some may say a melted mac mini is worthless, but I've proven it otherwise.

Windows interoperability...

[MachineShedFred]

As an MCSE (I know I know...) and an Apple Certified Technical Coordinator, it's my job to know how to answer this.

Quite frankly, it's never been easier. When you want to connect to a windows server, in the URI field just type in smb:///

Your Mac will also have Samba running after checking one box in the system preferences. At that point, your windows boxes can either connect to home folder public / private folders, or with the admin password you'll get the whole hard disk.

Also, Mac OS X 10.3 will authenticate against Active Directory, and enable Single Sign-On through the use of AD's Kerberos keys. Setting that up is easy.

Setting up networked home folders using the AD auth is *not* easy, especially when moving from a NetInfo environment that has been operational for the last three years. That, however, is my issue to solve, and not yours. :D

Best overclocking method

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy a pc. For the same money you get a lot better hardware.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[Anonymous Coward]

look here for a $360 complete pc with better performance than the mac mini.

Truly, it Just Works™

[GrahamCox]

As others have pointed out, basically it's no problem. A few weeks ago a PC laptop using friend visited and we needed to swap some files to my iBook. We both had wireless cards, but his was "broken", and hadn't worked for some time according to him. Luckily my wife knows Windows (I don't) and had it fixed in short order. Getting an ad-hoc wireless connection between the machines was then the work of about 2 minutes, mainly spent grappling with the arcane network settings on the XP machine, which turned out to be configured oddly - In the end it was much easier to simply change the Mac's settings to go with the PC's existing setup. From then on it was child's play to drag and drop files between the machines. My friend was impressed that it seemed so easy as he normally struggles with connecting his laptop anywhere (given its settings, probably no surprise), though to be fair he was an ex-Mac user forced to switch to a PC by his employer.

Why did you click the article then?

[GrahamCox]

I'm a hardcore computer nerd, but this Apple news isn't the slightest bit interesting to me.

So, you saw the story on the front page, and thought "Oh, that's not the SLIGHTEST bit interesting to me. I think I'll open it." Or perhaps you suffer from an obsessive-compulsive disorder that forces you to read every single article on Slashdot regardless. Sorry to hear that mate, it must be torture.

Stop it. Just stop it

[Anonymous Coward]

"you would know bus speed has nothing to do its performance issues."

Baloney access to memory is always a critical speed component. It was in the first binary computer, and it will be in the last binary computer.

You can't get to memory too fast. The faster you read and write to main memory, the faster you can make your CPU go.

You can explain all you want, but its a law, like gravity... the speed of the computer is directly related to how quickly you can get to main memory.

Look again

[Anonymous Coward]

The solder was on the opposite side of the board. Its teeny tiny jumper. Read closer.

No, those are resistors, must de-solder

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article

These pins have internal pull-up resistors so the CPU clock in practice is set by leaving each pin either floating or grounded with zero Ohm resistor (call them jumpers if you wish).

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't live with integrated video, then the only Mac for you is the Powermac. I would even buy a G5 iMac for my bedroom if it didn't ship with a GeForce FX 5200 integrated into the motherboard. The Mini's Radeon 9200 is an even sorrier POS.

I have absolutely no IEE1394 devices, and that isn't going to change. If I happened to need one, I would buy an IEEE1394 PCI card, since it will give me more ports, and let me move it to a future computer without added cost and allow me to select what versions of the standard that I want to purchase, rather than letting Apple choose for me depending on what brand of Apple computer I happen to buy.

Since I run Linux anyway, I don't really care that if comes with Linspire; I would replace that anyway. And since LCDs cannot compare with CRTs for quality, I have no real use for DVI. There is nothing in iLife that I want to use, so that's of little interest to me.

As for the RAM and the optical drive, I would just buy more, and since it's a PC, I don't have to pay for overpriced memory in order for it to work in the machine. After those upgrades it's still cheaper, and it would be quite suitable for web browsing, e-mail, writing documents, and even playing various simple games.

It's not as shiny as buying a little crapbox that runs OS X, but that's only because OS X's novelty stems largely from its rarity in the market. The crapbox is only exciting because Apple is renowned for spectaculary overpriced hardware, rather than just moderately overpriced hardware.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[goMac2500]

Thats not Aqua. Thats a library that lets you compile programs using Apple's interface library for running under XFree86. It's not at all Apple's window manager. It's more comparable to WineLib.

RE: about the Apple warranties

[King_TJ]

I think there really is a HUGE difference in the "warranty experience" that isn't being taken into account when you compare a Dell or HP warranty to an Apple one.

Call Dell, Compaq/HP or Gateway under their standard warranty and see what happens. I'm willing to bet it goes something like this: Wait on hold for 45 minutes or so, only to talk with a foreigner speaking poor English (Pakistani or Indian, most often) who basically reads off a card to "troubleshoot" your problem. If you successfully endure this whole procedure, you MAY be lucky enough to get the rep. to order a replacement part shipped out to you. (To their credit, they're typically very good nowdays about getting these replacement parts to your door quickly, once ordered.) But a good percentage of the time, a mistake is made (again, maybe due to the language barriers in many cases?), and either the wrong part is shipped or your issue isn't resolved properly at all by the rep. you spoke with. Then, you're on to hours more of frustration, trying to escalate the call. Fun, fun....

Apple, by contrast, has always answered their phones with a live human within no more than about 5-6 minutes when I called in, and it was a true English speaking citizen each time too. Yeah - they ask some of the "dummy questions" that the competition asks, and not everybody gets satisfaction ... but the experience was much more pleasant, IMHO.

I realize that this type of setup is going to be more costly than outsourcing the whole thing - so I can understand the reason you have to pay extra for the Applecare 3-year warranty.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[suckmysav]

"$199 gets you a PC, with everything you need except a keyboard, mouse, and monitor."

Ultra-cheap PC's can be really, really crappy BTW, especially when you look at the PSU (and case). I don't have Mac's and have built many many PC's over the last twenty years and I can assure you I would never contemplate purchasing a super-cheap PC, so it is a bit unfair to compare the price of a PC based piece of crap to a Mac based PC which is probably built to a much higher quality standard.

It's like claiming a Trabant is a better option for car buyers than say a Toyota Corolla because they both have 4 wheels, four seats and a 1.6 litre engine.

Re:rotten apples

[Anonymous Coward]

They're ugly, their interface is annoying, their batteries are obnoxious, and they're expensive.

I love the Mac Mini! Just bought it today!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so it's WAY different than a Windoze box. That's an understatement... but it's definitely cool..

My only problem, it seems like none of my USB wireless devices are supported.... what the hell? I can't even get on the internet yet. I hope this isn't gonna be for all my USB stuff.. is my webcam going to work? Can I attach a DVD writer through USB instead of using a Superdrive? Can someone direct me to a good forum for people that have a lot of experience with Windows but not Mac and need help?

Re:I love the Mac Mini! Just bought it today!!

[kkrista]

Try the Apple support forums for the Mini -- the users who post there tend to be pretty helpful. On top of that you may also find some answers at Mac OS X Hints -- even if they can't help with this particular issue, you're bound to find some good info on other things there.

Re:Look once more

[suckmysav]

" The solder was on the opposite side of the board. Its teeny tiny jumper. Read closer."

They are "zero ohm resistors", NOT fucking jumpers.

You need to "read closer" yourself.

What I wanna know is...

[atezun]

...does it run World of Warcraft at acceptable speeds?

Re:What I wanna know is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the specs and the GPU/VRAM, I'd hunt around for numbers for the iBook G4.

Re: about the Apple warranties

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple, by contrast, has always answered their phones with a live human within no more than about 5-6 minutes when I called in

What? You had to call support? Is the first time in history an Apple just did not work?

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[powerlinekid]

Built this for 500:

AMD 2800 xp
1 gig of pc2700 ram
60 gig harddrive
nvidia 5200
new case
new MB with integrated audio (5 channel) and lan
DVD+-RW

No monitor, keyboard or mouse. Machine runs pretty sweet... only issue is heat/noise and its not as sexy as the mini.

Re:rotten apples

[Anonymous Coward]

their ugly? uh, no actually they are not.(but hey, you can hide behind opinion all you want)

the interface is annoying? hardly... if anything is annoying it is FSH type interfaces present on many of the "competing" products.(but what ever.. you can be a crazy retard if you like)

their batteries are no more obnoxious than any other rechargeable battery. (but well they must be if some idiot made a movie about how he abused his battery and could not get a replacement for it)

expensive? 99 dollars is expensive for 512 MB Flash memory? HA... besides that they must not be expensive if the market is buying them... (tough shit that you are poor... you should be buying food and housing rather than luxury items anyway if you are that poor.)

Re: about the Apple warranties

[King_TJ]

Actually, the first time I called in, it was to straighten out an Applecare issue with a Powerbook. I bought a new 15" at a local CompUSA and purchased Applecare on it at the same time. After I took it home, I discovered the latch didn't close properly on it. Since I just got it, CompUSA was willing to exchange it immediately for another unit - rather than making me send it back to Apple for service.

That was great, but I was stuck owning a laptop with a different serial # than the one I had the extended warranty on ... and CompUSA couldn't change that themselves.

Overclocking.. and WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I've been considering picking up a mini for my college work, as I am rather broke, but I need to know- How well does it run World of warcraft? (I know this sounds like a stupid question) But, how would the overclocking alter that, if at all?

you mean

[commodoresloat]

3. There's no step 3. There's no step 3!!!

How Long before we see a [H] mini!

[paperclip2003]

2.4 ghz... yum....

Where is my soldering Iron and my dry ice!

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[ianscot]

Perhaps you Apple fan boys need to actually read before you flame... you gave me another reson not to get one, you guys are more snooty than us Linux boys.

Personally I didn't see the "flame" in that post at all, but yours got modded that way. And, looking back, I'm trying to figure out what was "snooty" about the response.

What he's saying is that Apple isn't targeting people who would otherwise be building their own machines for $150 using a set of old shoelaces to stitch the case together. And you're basically right; Apple doesn't see its profit coming from trying to compete with bare bones, build-it-at-home types whose satisfaction in patching Linux would outweigh any sense of satisfaction at the "it just works" thing. I mean no offense at all, I relate to those people -- but you don't sell a cheap minimalist system to them. Because they won't buy it.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[ziggit]

I have never used osX, but I would think that the logon banner would be /etc/issue (it is on my linux box)

good upgrade for 867 12 inch Albook

[Anonymous Coward]

replace the hard drive with a 7200 rpm drive. You'll notice a much bigger difference than if you overclocked it, if that was even possible.

YUV DVI vs RGB DVI

[thatguywhoiam]

Good post - but I thought I'd chime in with a comment:

The [Mac mini] DVI out plugs right into most modern HD televisons and projectors without the need for an adapter.

In my experience, this is often not the case. Even though high end telivisions have DVI jacks on them, they are using the YUV colourspace and not the RGB used for computer displays. I was annoyed to find this out, to say the least. Jacks are the same, but no-go. So the best video output you can do with the Mac mini is using the S-video dongle, which is not bad.

Another thing worth mentioning is that OS X does not need any extra software for this video display, and includes native controls for antialiasing levels and overscan on the fly. Makes a big difference for text on a television screen.

Re:YUV DVI vs RGB DVI

[Chuckalo]

In my experience, this is often not the case. Even though high end telivisions have DVI jacks on them, they are using the YUV colourspace and not the RGB used for computer displays. I was annoyed to find this out, to say the least. Jacks are the same, but no-go. So the best video output you can do with the Mac mini is using the S-video dongle, which is not bad.

Are you retarded? I think you just used the wrong DVI cable. I am using a mac mini connected by DVI to a 27" Syntax Olevia HD TV and the picture is far superior to S-video or VGA. Granted, I had to install SwitchRes to get the resolution to 1400x788, but two seconds on google solved that problem.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[neuroklinik]

OK. More information. If you login to a shell, the login banner is /etc/motd. If you want to add some text to the GUI in Mac OS X created by Loginwindow.app, then you need to add a couple of keys to /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist. Add, for example:

LoginwindowText
Official Use Only ...and you'll have a little login banner right in the GUI.

Re:Why I don't own an apple

[neuroklinik]

Shoot. Those XML tags got stripped by /.

Here's a site that documents the addition of graphical logon banners to Mac OS X.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20020 921074429845