7 replies to this topic

[blackman89]

I was wondering what would run faster in your experience.

A 1.4ghz Mac mini
or a
2.8ghz p4 prescott both with 256mb ram

Thanks

[hack4ev3r]

mikeispoor, on Nov 19 2005, 01:05 PM, said:

I was wondering what would run faster in your experience.

A 1.4ghz Mac mini
or a
2.8ghz p4 prescott both with 256mb ram

Thanks

Definitely the Prescott from my experience 256 ram is not enough for OS-x tho i could be wrong
btw Prescott has SSE3 so you can hack your way to mac-Intel

[Metrogirl]

The P4 would be the faster platform IMHO for any serious application, but with either setup you'd have a bottleneck with that limited memory.  

If all you want to do is surf the web and send email, you probably wouldn't notice much difference.   The Mini would boot up faster and probably be more stable (less susceptible to malware too).  

If I was forced to make a choice between the systems for financial reasons I'd buy the P4 - it's much more upgradeable and versatile.   The Mini is beautiful but it's a nightmare to dismantle and very limited in upgrade options.   The PC can grow with your budget;  you can add better video, faster processor and so on.   Plus as hack4ev3r says, you can run a version of OSX on it if you want.

[blackman89]

But does osx x86 support all the apps that can be run on a usual mac osx machine.
For instance the widgets and stuff like garageband, itunes, iphoto etc....

That is my only concern with buying a pc over a mac

Thanks

[Metrogirl]

I'm sorry, I think I misunderstood you.   You're looking at running only OSX on the P4?

Patched developer versions of OSx86 will do most of what a real Mac will do, but expect some problems with a few applications and some hardware, at least in the short term.

I've been running 10.4.1 (the 'deadmoo' image) for a couple of months now and over time I've added the tweaks and fixes which pretty well make it work as well as my real Macs - I also have a G5 and a Powerbook.   OSx86 runs most of the Apple apps and widgets without problem and it makes a good job of the third-party apps I've installed.   It's perfectly useable as it is; if it was my only machine I'd be fairly happy with it.   It's been hard work by a lot of people to get it to this stage.

The thing is, you need to have a certain dedication and patience, and be prepared for frustration if you take this route.   Even with the newer all-in-one install DVDs out there you won't get it all running as well as a real Mac right away.   Now we have 10.4.3 which I can confirm installs just fine but I've found a bunch of problems so the tweaking and patching for all the hardware starts all over again.

If you really want to run OSX on PC hardware you either have to accept there's a lot of work and some frustration along the way - or you can wait until Apple release real x86 systems early next year and then start testing their compatibility with 3rd party hardware.

[blackman89]

I was going to put xp on the machine too.
I am into all the hard work to make this machine run because i can see its potential.
the only problem is the cost factor.
id rather buy the mac because it will be more stable.
but buying the p4 will enabe me to have more fun seting it up.

[Gdfath3r]

I found an interesting article: http://spl.haxial.ne...le-powermac-G5/ I hope is not disturbing.

[pc_guru]

mikeispoor, on Nov 19 2005, 05:32 PM, said:

But does osx x86 support all the apps that can be run on a usual mac osx machine.
For instance the widgets and stuff like garageband, itunes, iphoto etc....

That is my only concern with buying a pc over a mac

Thanks

Osx86 runs with 256 MB of ram, i have this amount and runs pretty good. Not all ppc app run in osx86, the majority, but not all. Although i haven't tested that yet, i'd bet than 2.8 Ghz P4 is faster than that 1.4 Ghz apple model.