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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."
$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.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
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.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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.
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
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
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.
That was classic intercourse!
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'...
You must think in Russian.
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
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
I also found that this picture makes a great desktop wallpaper...
Kudos to the guy photographing this stuff.. He took some pretty good shots!
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
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.
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.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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!