2.7GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7 vs 2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7

I definitely disagree with that. I have a 2010 mini connected to my TV via HDMI and the video performance is quite good. I also just replaced my 2007 iMac with a new mini and it performs better than the older iMac, which also performed well. I don't believe that differences in tech specs necessarily equate with perceptible differences, particularly in relation to the needs of an average user.

Well I agree with both of you, for me Apple forced me to buy a Mac Mini, to settle with all the software on hardware issues my June, 2011 decked out iMac I had. I owned several Mac Pros before but when they came out with the Quad Core i7 it was pretty easy to switch. Now right now with 3 boys in sports and little time the Mac Mini was a good fit, but I am mostly doing photoshop/Internet and some video. Of course I got the i7 Mac Mini decked out, but I do miss the speed of the Quad Core, now if Apple would get on the ball and fix these known issues with iMac and Lion I will buy another one. Mac Pros are great machines but for what I do, overkill!

Apple needs a Mac Mini i7 Quad Core with a much better graphics card, if the ever do that they will surely have a pocket rocket. My unit is currently running with 16 gigs of memory.

@ capaho

well ofcourse i can imagine that for your usage it's perfectly fine, but the threadstarter stated he/she wants to use his/her Mac for Video Editing, and you will need to a proper videocard for that.

I'm on a 2010 macbook pro which has a 330 GM N vidia card. the radeon hd 6630M in the 2011 mac mini has similar performance.

I'm using a 27 inch Cinema Display as my main display and I even get graphical glitches from time to time when I use exposé & mission control.

and those are just OS graphics. I can't play Half Life 2 on this setup. the graphicscard would be way to slow. not that I care because I am not a video editor or gamer, but I'm just saying.

so yeah if you wanna work with graphics, get an iMac or a Mac Pro.

otherwise your mac mini is just fine.

And if my iMac didn't die like many have in this thread I would most likely not be having this conversation. ;) I too am using 27" Lightning Bolt Display, but zero graphics issues so far and I am running 2 monitors.

that's good to know 🙂

Hmm, no edit button anymore in here? Well the Lightning Bolt display does help speed things up on my end when it comes with graphics.

Hessel89 wrote:

@ capaho

well ofcourse i can imagine that for your usage it's perfectly fine, but the threadstarter stated he/she wants to use his/her Mac for Video Editing, and you will need to a proper videocard for that.

so yeah if you wanna work with graphics, get an iMac or a Mac Pro.

otherwise your mac mini is just fine.

I don't dispute the need for more system power than is available in a mini if you are using system-intenisve professional tools that have system requirements that exceed the mini's, but that does not represent the average user. My new mini runs my software development tools faster than the old iMac did, so I have not seen any compromise in performance, quite the contrary. For most people, a mini will perform well.

capaho: The new Mini runs even faster if your using the Thunderbolt display, and I have the SSD Drive along with the 7200 RPM 750HD drive, so it boots up in less than 20 sec. But if I compare it to my iMac i7 Quad core, there was a huge difference in speed for me, but it's not comparing Apples to Apples as you say! 😉

My iMac June 2011 Build:

• 3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
• 16GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x8GB
• 2TB Serial ATA Drive + 256GB Solid State Drive
• AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5

My Mac Mini 2012 Jan Build:

• 2.7GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7
• 16GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x8GB
• 750GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm + 256GB Solid State Drive
• Apple MacBook Air SuperDrive
• Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch)

What greatly helps with the speed of the Mini is the Thunderbolt Display and you can use a Thunderbolt Hardrive which makes a huge difference in speed of the unit. Now I would gottem another iMac if it wasn't for fact that they are so glitchy right now and from Oct to Jan, my iMac was plauged with shut downs, freeze up and just slow performance, like driving a Lambordini in rush hour New York traffic. 😟

What make the iMac so much better in speed is the DDR5 memory on the video card and of course the Quad Core. The Mini in the server version with the iMac video card would be great if they could cram that much into a small video card. If they could stick more memory on the video card and or a better video card and use the i7 Quad Core, the Mini would/could be much more impressive.

I don't dispute the fact that a new iMac is faster than a new Mac mini but that doesn't mean that the Mac mini is slow. It's all relative. A Ferrari is faster than a Mustang but that doesn't mean that a Mustang is slow. My new Mac mini is faster than my old iMac, so I have a net gain in performance over what I had before regardless of how it compares to a new iMac.

I decided to buy a Mac mini rather than another iMac to replace my faultering old one because I already had a spare monitor, keyboard and trackpad and the price difference between an iMac and a mini is significant. I also have reason to believe that new iMacs are on the horizon, so I definitely did not want to buy one now only to watch it become an old one very soon. I would still be waiting on the next iMac release if my old iMac hadn't failed before I was ready to replace it.

I agree with you I was just comparing my two units, both newer and current models. I don't dispute the Mini being slow by any means, but my iMac when it was running correctly was at Mac Pro level for speed etc.. I am with you on the newer iMac, I just hope they get the issues they are having resloved before I consider buying another one.

I understand. In my case, I was intending to replace my old iMac with a new one from the next release cycle but it failed too soon and required a replacement. I couldn't justify the expense of paying for a soon-to-be-obsolete current generation iMac, so I bought the more economically priced mini instead. I've only been using it for a few days but I am pleased with its performance thus far. It can handle my development tools well enough and that's the most important issue for me.

Guess I'll chime in. I am one of those that purchased the

quad core i7 Mini Server and a Thunderbolt display, and

can say that I am quite pleased. The prime use is as

an engineering workstation (hardware/software/firmware)

and as such, it performs quite well. I can have a Win7

virtual machine running with development tools and or

diagnostic hardware and OSX tools at the same time and

have not had any issues.

When not used for work, do some personal photo work

with Photoshop and some simple video work and works

good enough for me. I can see where the graphics card

would be an issue if someone did some really heavy

duty stuff in Photoshop. But, that would be someone

doing pro work which shouldn't be messing with a mini

anyway.

I decided on this approach because if I retire the Mini as

a work machine, I can easily and conveniently stuff it on

a shelf somewhere and use it as a server. The early 2009

iMac it replaced is not that useful and sits as a backup

should something fail or maybe find a buyer for it.

Ps. The Thunderbolt display decision was also based

on the fact that I could use it as a dock for my MBP

if I desire.

i have the 2 ghz core i7 intell hd 512 graphics and 8 gig ram plus 2 7200 rpm hard drives and it replaced my mac pro intel 2.8 ghz and it is faster and i have no complaints it also scores a lot faster in benchmark software

woodmeister50: I bought the Mac Mini, i7 Dual Core with what I was told a better graphics card, that remains to be seen, the AMD Radeon 6630M uses only 256MB of memory but it is DDR5 where the Intel is DDR3, I was told the AMD would be the better choice of the 2 depending on what you are doing. The Mac Mini would be a more complete machine if they allowed for a more advanced video card with the i7 Quad Core. I too went with the Thunderbolt display because the ability to charge and use my MBP, the only issue I have having is occasionally a slight video glitch when dragging items around, which is most likely a software/hardware issue with the graphics card, which Apple has ignored fixing on the iMacs.

kga943: I use to have Mac Pros, nice and easy to upgrade and work on, I also miss my iMac i7 Quad Core that was maxed out, but video freezes and daily shutdowns made it non-repariable which is sad, because I miss the speed and the quality graphics card with 2gig of memory on board.