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My ole' Apple G5 of 6 years finally bit the dust yesterday afternoon.
After having a short three to four hour memorial service of data backup and moving the machine and components downstairs to the basement,
I found my self buying what I always wanted to get, just for the heck of it. A Mac Mini.

I got the little bugga yesterday around 5pm. Packed with a 2.0Ghz C2D (3MB cache, 1066FSB), 2GB of DDR3-1066 ram, 320GB hdd and the nVidia 9400M gpu, it packs quite a noticeable punch for its little shell.
For those keeping up with Apple's release schedule, this Mini is only a few weeks old. And from what I have seen so far, quite worth it.
Just for kicks, I'll post back here tonight with the Doom 3 FPS...see how this guy can play.

I hope this guy can last as long as my old G5 did, (6 years if you missed it) but from the 'tech' side of things, I'm not seeing it. Maybe 3-4 years?

Anyway, this will give me time to save for the next gen Mac Pro...another year or two away.

Just though I would let you all know.
I'm typing this from the new guy!

I'm letting my PC take a break.

~CC5

First, please accept my condolences for the loss of "ole' Apple G5 ". Secondly, I hope you get many, many years of faithful service with your new Mini. Just keep coming to The Back Porch and the good folks here will help you keep Mini running like new for years to come (that is, no porn downloads... )

Have fun Click

Lookin forward to seeing some performance numbers

This should probably be posted in the Apple forum, Congrats on the purchase, though.

Well that was fast...lol
Yeah, forgot about the apple section! lol, but this is just a friendly update.

Ok, running Doom 3, patched to 1.3.1, here are the graphics settings and frame rates.
Running in 1280x1024, I just clicked the settings from Low to Ultra, then I ran the time demo (timedemo demo1) four times...

Low setting:
1- 34.4
2-42.9
3-43.0
4-43.0

Medium setting:
1-28.8
2-30.3
3-30.4
4-30.4

High setting:
1-27.6
2-29.6
3-29.7
4-29.7

Ultra setting:
1-25.9
2-28.2
3-28.4
4-28.4

And with every possible option and setting turned on:
1-8.2
2-10.3
3-10.4
4-10.4

MORE BENCHES:

-Disk Speed Bench X read the HDD at 66MB/s.

CINEBENCH 10:
-GPU: 3287
-CPU (single thread): 2231
-CPU (dual thread): 4358

All in all, I have watched this little mac grow from a G4 proc all the way to what it is now, what an upgrade!
Saddens me though that the processor is now soldered onto the mobo. Ah well.

Thats all.
~CC5

Ouch. That may kill me getting a mini. I knew it wasn't a gaming power house but, Doom 3 is 5 years old, and it can barely handle it at medium settings on a low resolution? Eeerch.

paulWTAMU wrote:

Ouch. That may kill me getting a mini. I knew it wasn't a gaming power house but, Doom 3 is 5 years old, and it can barely handle it at medium settings on a low resolution? Eeerch.

Relax. Anything past 30 fps is perfectly playable, you big baby.

paulWTAMU wrote:

Ouch. That may kill me getting a mini. I knew it wasn't a gaming power house but, Doom 3 is 5 years old, and it can barely handle it at medium settings on a low resolution? Eeerch.

I imagine the frame rates are a little better under Windows, somehow. Mac ports suck.

Congrats on your mac mini

PaulWTAMU
What kind of games are you looking at playing with the mac mini? Then some of us can suggest whether or not it'll be fast enough for your gaming needs.

And off to the Apple Sanctuary we go.

I may get back into WoW at some point, and I play RTS games on occasion. I don't game as much on the PC as I used to; getting that 360 a while back sorta converted 90% of my playing to consoles A 50" TV >>>> a 22" monitor, even a good monitor. My wife also plays some games, mostly the Elder Scrolls and Sims series.
I prefer to game at my monitors native resolution, and the real problem isn't with the average FPS, it's with the minimum. If he *averaged* 30, there were probably times it dropped significantly. I don't mind playing at medium/low settings, but I do like fluid frame rates at my native res (1650X1080).

Oh yes, it did dip. And on occasion the rates went really, really high.
And the mini should do WoW with a steady frame rate, no problem.

paulWTAMU wrote:

I may get back into WoW at some point, and I play RTS games on occasion. I don't game as much on the PC as I used to; getting that 360 a while back sorta converted 90% of my playing to consoles A 50" TV >>>> a 22" monitor, even a good monitor. My wife also plays some games, mostly the Elder Scrolls and Sims series.
I prefer to game at my monitors native resolution, and the real problem isn't with the average FPS, it's with the minimum. If he *averaged* 30, there were probably times it dropped significantly. I don't mind playing at medium/low settings, but I do like fluid frame rates at my native res (1650X1080).

ummm.... Interesting Res.. you mean 1680x1050 right.

Honestly though the mini should handle SC2, Diablo 3 and WoW just fine.

Today just isn't my day for numbers.
Oh well, I have to wait for May anyway--too damn broke right now, but by then I *should* have all my medical debt paid off, which will help a lot on $$$. An extra 300/month will be so damn nice to have. Of course, maybe I'll get lucky and apple will realize how chintzy one gig of ram is in 2009 and refresh it...yeah right.