How much of an improvement? 1st gen 1.42G ppc to newest 2.0 mini

Question

How much of an improvement? 1st gen 1.42G ppc to newest 2.0 mini

In September I plan to upgrade my 1st generation mini with a 2.0 Ghz mini, 4 Gig memory and 320g hd. My current mini is a 1.42 Ghz Power PC with 1 Gig memory and 80g hd. I hope for a real wow, over the speed increase of the new system and OS. Currently I do allot of raw photo editing with PS Elements 6. It is tolerable on my current system, but only just. My current mini will be relegated to a network role, possibly as a music server. The 80 gig hard drive is almost full now with music and photo files. So, will I be impressed or not?

Macmini 1.42, 80 Gig HD, 1 Gig ram, Mac OS X (10.5.8), Dell 20 in display, 240G usb drive for time machine back ups.

Posted on Aug 17, 2009 2:12 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Boece

Level 5

6,264 points

Aug 17, 2009 2:58 PM in response to William Smith11

I would expect to be very impressed.

Faster processor, plenty of RAM, plenty of elbow room on the hard drive, much better graphics: these are all things that will make the Mini faster.

The only flies in the ointment would be legacy PPC programs. Hopefully you don't need to run any of them. The PPC apps will invoke Rosetta emulation -- which may cause them to run at a similar speed as your older, slower Mini.

Reply

Answer 2

Aug 17, 2009 4:27 PM in response to William Smith11

Yeah,

Boece always seems to have great advice.

The exact move you are considering, I did a few months ago, and am very happy that I did. Of course, it's really subjective and relative, especially if you're pinching so-called pennies.

I did write a little impression of my transition from the PPC Mini to the 2009 Intel Mini (with an added point on a WiFi mod), and posted it on this forum, here, somewhere. You can read it here, too:

http://tiny.cc/p8bET

Basically, yes, it's a great time to make the move. Especially now with Snow Leopard giving a potential speed increase via 64-bit, and the fact that most new programs will be Intel "Only" rather than "Universal".

But, it's still nice to have some of the more expensive PPC programs (like Photoshop CS) running well on Intel Macs, via Rosetta. They're about the only programs that will give the spinning beach ball or watch icon, I think.

Please share with us all how it goes with your decision, whatever it is.

Peace to you,
C. Livingstone

Reply

Answer 3

Aug 17, 2009 5:47 PM in response to William Smith11

I only have one program that is not universal, it is Quicken 2005. I will find a replacement for that as my wife uses it regularly. I don't want to load Rosetta just for one program. I am sure there are good alternatives to Quicken. I am very pleased to hear that I should anticipate seeing an improvement. I am a big mini fan. Thanks for the input.

Reply

Answer 4

Sep 13, 2009 6:19 AM in response to William Smith11

Follow up. Got the new mini. Wow what a difference. The change over was very simple, just a couple re-downloads to get the intel versions. Most things including settings transferred automatically. Actually have both minis on network now. Wife is using the older for web browsing and writing. She can access her files from either.

Reply