Guest terry Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 Why is it that for some Apple models, the hardware is cutting edge (Quad-core PowerMacs) but some of their bestselling items have hardware that positively sucks! [...] Most likely, if this rumor is true, it'll consist of a cool looking box with measely hardware I don't find that comment appropriate, actually I can't really follow your line of reasoning. We're talking about an entry-level product here, and in fact we don't even known exactly yet how it will look like and how it will perform (e.g., will it be equipped with a dual-core or only a single-core CPU, what are the clock speeds etc.). The nature of this product, the Mac Mini, is that it has to be relatively cheap and that there has to be a reason, performance-wise, to buy the more professional offerings from Apple. Anyway, regardless whether the final product will feature a 2.5" or 3.5" HD, single or dual-core CPU, and will be clocked at 1.5 or 2 and above GHz, in my opinion the hardware will in most respects be more than appropriate, considering the design goals. The design goals of the Mac Mini are in the first place a computer with minimum footprint, low noise levels and little power consumption, whereas pure computing and graphics performance are definitely of secondary importance. According to the ThinkSecret report, the upcoming Intel Mac Mini will be a computer which is designed to serve, among other things, as a media hub in the living room. The prime reason for me NOT to buy Windows Media PCs is that most of these systems are extremely power hungry and, most importantly, also annoyingly loud (*). The Mac Mini, however, definitely draws my attention, because, based on my experiences with the older model, I expect it not to have these shortcomings. (*) You may or may not have heard of the quite popular LinVDR project, a PVR project based on hardware MPEG2 decoders that brings old Pentium 1, 2 and 3 CPUs to new life in the living room just because of these reasons, that they're fast enough for the job, quiet and not too power-hungry (of course you would expect a Mac Mini to be more than a simple PVR, but even with relatively slow CPUs and HDDs they will be fast enough for the average home users as their second or third PC system). http://linvdr.org/projects/linvdr/index.en.php Please notice: Not everyone needs the latest, fastest CPUs. It all depends on what you plan on doing with your computer. I just bought a Siemens mini PC and equipped it with a 600 MHz Pentium 3 Coppermine (instead of a Pentium 4 or a 1400 MHz Pentium 3-S Tualatin), because I need to run it as a home server 24/7 and power consumption is key in this application. With 512MB, the system is even fast enough to use it as a Terminal Server and access Office apps remotely over WLAN from four clients. windows media center is far better at this point look at the reviews at winsupersite.com of apples media center vs windows media center. I thought we were talking about the hardware aspects in this thread... If you prefer Windows and one of the many media center apps for it, well, then... why not run Windows on the Intel Mac Mini? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/5092-first-intel-macs-to-be-media-centers/page/2/#findComment-32741 Share on other sites More sharing options...
domino Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 You know, I for one would love to have a discrete power horse. If you are worried about the noise, heat pipes have been around for quite some time now. I fact, I bought two shuttle barebones at USD$400 a piece because of the heat pipe (ICE Technology) and external 300w PSU. Seagate makes some really quiet fluid bearing SATA drives. So noise is not much of an issue these days. In fact, I can run my 60mm fan at 1600rpm at 3.5GHz watching a CSI marathon. The only thing left to underspeed is the chipset fan and change out the GPU fan to a passive sink. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/5092-first-intel-macs-to-be-media-centers/page/2/#findComment-32748 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest terry Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 You know, I for one would love to have a discrete power horse.Well, then I suspect you're not the target customer for a Mac Mini, but rather a PowerMac Viiv... If you are worried about the noise, heat pipes have been around for quite some time now. I fact, I bought two shuttle barebones at USD$400 a piece because of the heat pipe (ICE Technology) and external 300w PSU. Well, sure. But heat pipes do not cool, they only transport heat, of course. In order to cool things down (simple physics), you need a rather large surface that can dissipate the heat. Such a barebone, as nice as it is, is still considerably larger than a Mac Mini. I, for my part, prefer a computer with a CPU that does not even generate so much heat as, say, a Pentium 4 or Athlon. Not to mention that the heat that goes out is a waste of the power you put in. The less power a processor consumes, the less it heats up. Cooling it down with a heat pipe doesn't change anything about power consumption. For a PC that runs 24/7 or at least many hours a day while doing virtually nothing and just waiting for user response, I do not want a PC that consumes around 150W under full load and only a bit less when idle, I want one that draws signifantly less, as little as possibly while still mainting most of the functionality the average (not "power") user would expect from a modern PC. EDIT: And don't forget you're talking about a custom-built system here. In the price class of up to 1000 USD, I haven't seen a completely preconfigured media center PC on the shelves yet that is also quiet and power efficient (not even talking about ultra-quiet ones that use the aforementioned heat pipe technology for cooling). Seagate makes some really quiet fluid bearing SATA drives.I know, I have one spinning right under my desk. However, 2.5" notebook drives are still more quiet, but I agree that this comes close to nitpicking. When I was writing this, I was mainly thinking about the noise that is generated by CPU fans. In fact I would appreciate it if the upcoming Mac Mini had a 3.5" drive with nice capacities, provided that these drives do not get so hot as in the iMac G5. http://www.barefeats.com/heatsink.html The only thing left to underspeed is the chipset fan and change out the GPU fan to a passive sink. Actually it is a pity that nowadays many asian mainboard producers equip chipsets with active coolers even in cases where it isn't necessary, just to tempt "power user"-wannabe modders into thinking they have assembled a high end system (like saying, hey, what's a proper high-end system without a battery of fans?). Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/5092-first-intel-macs-to-be-media-centers/page/2/#findComment-32764 Share on other sites More sharing options...
domino Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 For a PC that runs 24/7 or at least many hours a day while doing virtually nothing and just waiting for user response, I do not want a PC that consumes around 150W under full load and only a bit less when idle, I want one that draws signifantly less, as little as possibly while still mainting most of the functionality the average (not "power") user would expect from a modern PC. There are ways around that problem as well. If for some reason Apple doen't use a mobile chip, you can always underclosk the CPU. Most mother board manufacturers these days create utilities that can overclock and underclock the cpu, change the CPU and AGP voltage. I would hope that some proper planning would lean towards some kind of "manual speed step" in the preference pane. You will not be able to change the multiplier on Intel processors without heavy modding to the the pins, but you can change the front buss speed setting to something more desirable. That would actually be more desirable for "my target market". In fact I would appreciate it if the upcoming Mac Mini had a 3.5" drive with nice capacities, provided that these drives do not get so hot as in the iMac G5. I don't think Apple would have a hard time doing so, especially with all the cash they dump on asthetics. We have gone as far as using a smoke machine to test the air circulation Elan Vital tower cases. And you thought you were nit picking. Actually it is a pity that nowadays many asian mainboard producers equip chipsets with active coolers even in cases where it isn't necessary, just to tempt "power user"-wannabe modders into thinking they have assembled a high end system (like saying, hey, what's a proper high-end system without a battery of fans?). They make motherboards in places other than Asia? I have to agree with you on that. Seams like these "overclockers" think that to have the best computer, it has to sound like you're at the airport. In regards to the chipset type fans, people can always run them at 7v rather than 12v (7v mod). That should take care of the high pitch sound. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/5092-first-intel-macs-to-be-media-centers/page/2/#findComment-32773 Share on other sites More sharing options...
firehearth Posted December 1, 2005 Share Posted December 1, 2005 sounds really cool, I liked a lot the design of the mini since I saw it, with a good dvd burner (or a dvd burner that also burns the name of the disc on the white face) would be moooore cool. Add TIVo and music multimedia with a good homeheater with Ipod and you get a megamultimedia thingy..... THe media center better than the front row, wll I have tried almost every media center managers (from software to OS's) and believe me that front row is the easiest thing I have seen. Im using osx86 on my Compaq Evo N800v and the only thing htat is holding me to make a full jump to OSX is wireless...but this si nor the place nor the time to speak about that Apple rules in many things..... so if you want windos and apple..... start your search over internet to make a hybrid computer Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/5092-first-intel-macs-to-be-media-centers/page/2/#findComment-33035 Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyrana Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 (edited) A bit more info (on content distribution and stuff anyway): http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0511contentdist.html Edited December 2, 2005 by cyrana Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/5092-first-intel-macs-to-be-media-centers/page/2/#findComment-33523 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swad Posted December 2, 2005 Author Share Posted December 2, 2005 Yeah, I saw that article today - I don't know what to think about it. All my purchased movies on Apple's hard drive somewhere? I dunno... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/5092-first-intel-macs-to-be-media-centers/page/2/#findComment-33532 Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyrana Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 (edited) Yeah, I am unsure too. We'll know before too long I suppose. I hope it's not on .mac which you have extra for and isn't super reliable. Oh, and if anyone sees a CNN article from today, wtf, its really out of date. lol. Edited December 2, 2005 by cyrana Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/5092-first-intel-macs-to-be-media-centers/page/2/#findComment-33536 Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtraa Posted December 3, 2005 Share Posted December 3, 2005 Wow, at least it would really make sense... thinking of the new possibilities regarding dualboot this would be the perfect switch-machine. I mean, it is cute, small, cheap, runs both, and fits into your living room like bang&olufsen So much more people would be the targetgroup, as if they would 'only' sell another computer. Plus, notice the little ipod touch that comes with it. Hell, this would be perfect marketing. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/5092-first-intel-macs-to-be-media-centers/page/2/#findComment-33586 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest terry Posted December 3, 2005 Share Posted December 3, 2005 A bit more info (on content distribution and stuff anyway):http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0511contentdist.html An entertaining read, cyrana, especially when considering that these kinds of ideas stood right at the beginning of all speculation about Apple's x86 shift... http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,67749,00.html Quite fascinating to see in how many respects Kahney seems to have been right. Well, we'll see... ;-) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/5092-first-intel-macs-to-be-media-centers/page/2/#findComment-33610 Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnniecarcinogen Posted December 21, 2005 Share Posted December 21, 2005 (edited) I posted this in the 'laughs' section but perhaps it belongs here? ~~ recent patent applications all applied for within the last week or 2: USPatent Application: 0050273790 --interesting, for a 'networked media station' that works with ipods and itunes. USPatent Application 0050278377 patent application 0050278422 virtual file storage Patent Application 0050270734 "Display housing for computing device" Edited December 21, 2005 by johnniecarcinogen Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/5092-first-intel-macs-to-be-media-centers/page/2/#findComment-37886 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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