Mini : base model vs next one?

If you haven't already check out the 2011 mini benchmarks at http://www.macworld.com. There may also be benchmark data at http://xbench.com . That should give you some performance data to help your decision.

and occasional video (Fnal Cut Studio or Adobe CS 5.5).

I would get a Mac Pro. Very expandable, Very powerful.

Video work will be aided with the discrete graphics.

It also depends on how intense the video work is

going to be as well and whether the software leverages

GPU acceleration for its work or CPU for its work.

The audio will obviously be CPU intensive.

Something you may consider, is the Mini Server.

You would still need to get the RAM, but you get

quad core i7 with virtualization (equivelent of 8 cores

total) and a pair of 7200 RPM drives. It does, however,

have the HD3000 graphics. Just don't enable any of

the server functions.

Having all those cores may help with the audio stuff

if you use a lot of plugins as a "virtual rack". Personally,

I am using one as primarilly an engineering workstation

and on the side some photo editing, some light movie

work (just with iMovie, nothing fancy), and some audio

work restoring some LPs. I find it quite cabable at all

the tasks and typically much better performing that

my dual core, 2.7 GHz, i7 13" Macbook Pro.

I am pretty sure any pair of 1920x1080 displays would work.

You will need a Display Port to whatever adapter and either

direct connect HDMI or use the HDMI to DVI-D connector

that comes with it. Lion has some quirks with dual displays

depending on the apps being used, atleast that is what I hear.

With the HD3000, you will not be able to go to much higher

screen resolutions and have dual displays, i.e. can only

support 1 Apple Thunderbolt Display.

As for the adapters for the Thunderbolt port, pretty much any

Display Port adapter will work (Thunderbolt is backward compatible).

These are pretty inexpensive, however, don't get the cheapest ones

as they tend to be unreliable.

One thing to note, if you plug anything into the audio out port on

the Mini, it will disable all other audio outputs. Not sure why, just

the way it is.

As to your Bootcamp question, you should be able to install

on the second drive, although I can't verify that.

I bought the base model and souped it up to 8Gb and installed 2 SSD drives for like $800 taxes incld.

You can have 2 monitors, one from the HDMI to DVI-D cable incld and the other from the Apple mini display to DVi via the Thunderbolt port (I own 2 of these from my previous Macbook and Mini. The ATI card benefits for games and perhaps some 3D stuff, but if you are just doing video and photo work, the base HD3000 is more than enough.

4Gb on Lion is not fast on your Mac Mini. You need 8Gb seriously and if you are running 64bit specific applications. I paid like $30 for 8Gb in a local computer store when it went on sale. $39 should get you the same at Amazon.com.

Once a SSD drive is installed, the mini runs like a Macbook Air. All 2011 minis will take a 2nd hard drive, but you need to buy hardware for it, like screws, mounting gromets and a specialized Apple SATA drive cable from iFixit.

Btw, I use iMovie 11, Adobe CS 5.5 (Photoshop mainly), Nikon Capture NX 2.3.0 (64bit) and Aperture very effectively. The 2nd SSD is used as a scratch drive for iMovie 11 and Photoshop with effective blazing speeds.

Hope this helps.

lanstrad1 wrote:

Are you saying that both displays have to be same resolution?

What if one is 1650 x 1080 and the other is 1920 x 1080 ?

Just saying that the combination is probably the maximum that

can be handled by the HD3000 graphics. Anything less should be

fine.