[CS-FSLUG] [Mac-Min] Intel Announces Radical New Chip Design - Your Next Mac Will Scream- MacLife

[Timothy Butler]

Nathan: if I get time, tomorrow I will run the benchmarks I promised  
last week so we can see how your Core Solo compares to an older PPC  
Mac Mini, which I find runs quite nicely.

	I'm cc'ing this to CS-FSLUG since it's sort of a mixture of replies.

	FWIW, a friend of mine with a MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz (but not Core  
2 Duo) ran CineBench for me. You said you got 206 from Rendering, he  
got 303. But, of course, he has a second cpu, which for rendering  
gave a 1.86x speedup to 564.

	For shading, C4D reported 348 to your 206, OpenGL SW was 1141 to  
your 888 and HW was 1031 vs. 940.


	No benchmark is a perfectly good indicator, and it will really be  
more useful if I run it on my Mac Mini, but to give you just a very  
rough idea, there is a substantial performance boost from a Core Duo  
vs. a Core Solo, and if you buy a Core 2 Duo system, you'll see even  
more benefits over either of the older chips.

	You may want to reconsider your prohibition against an iMac. As I  
recall, Intel iMacs have dual-headed support, so your normal monitor  
could add to your desktop while you also enjoyed another very nice,  
built in screen. If you don't want a laptop, and you don't want to  
spend a bunch of money on a Mac Pro, that's the best system out  
there. It has a nice mix between performance and cost, I think.

	But, the Mac minis really aren't bad. Let's see how the benchmark  
comes out for mine, tomorrow.

	-Tim

On Jan 27, 2007, at 2:06 PM, Nathan T. wrote:

> I don't know that I'll be buying another Mac. The OS is great and  
> the hardware looks nice, but after my experience with my Core Solo  
> mini compared to my two PCs with weaker processors, I'm not sure  
> that another Mac at a price range I can afford can do the tasks I  
> take for granted. The other thing that's putting me off is hearing  
> about the difficulty dealing with their tech support when you don't  
> have Apple Care, and that there's no Apple Store within driving  
> range of here. Of course I'm not here to complain about Apple, I'm  
> bringing this up because as someone who's new to Macs I was hoping  
> for some feedback on this which will help me make up my mind.
>
>
> On 27-Jan-07, at 10:59 AM, Jan Williams wrote:
>
>> Aren't you glad you use a Mac?
>>
>>> http://www.maclife.com/article/ 
>>> intel_announces_radical_new_chip_design_your_next_mac_will_be_a_scre 
>>> amer
>>>
>