another Mac Mini Merom upgrade success, to Core 2 Duo 2.33ghz

[Choppaface]

got a T7600 off newegg, popped it in the mini last night. broke one of the CPU heatsink pegs but it looks like having the heatsink down with two pegs is working so far (*prays*). sortta crashed on first boot but everything seems to be working fine after a restart

xbench score: 188.66 (!!!!)

http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=197574&doc2=1


This is without the disk test though. I have a SATA cable hacked out of the mini's case running into a WD Raptor X; something seems to be wrong maybe with my setup because my disk scores aren't as good as they should be (e.g. uncached write) but that could also be because I have stuff running in the background perhaps

xbench score with hard drive test: 155.64

http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=197575&doc2=1


Wow, I can't believe that this thing is doing what the Mac Pro Xbench averages are (at least according to the website).

Any other benchmarks I should try?

[flavoraid]

nice job you going to upgrade the ram on it too?

Im waiting to find a 1.5ghz macmini solo refurb so this build is as cheap as possible id prolly stick to everything internal.. and I hope to find away around those broken pegs...

[ShootStraight]

Broken pegs can be replaced by a 1" #4 machine screw and an appropriate nut (& nylon washer for the underside).

I believe they are retailing cheaper than Apple refub ($529 w/ ship). I dont think Apple is going to stock the 1.5 anymore replacing it with the 1.66 CD as the base model. Snatch up the 1.5's that you can find...

-SS

[illmatik]

Sweet!!! Cant wait to upgrade mine!

[Choppaface]

2gb of RAM was the first upgrade I did to it, and it was WELL WORTH IT

ShootStraight, thanks for the pegs info, I'll get to fixing that then

[flavoraid]

overall would you say the macmini gives the best preformance for the price ?

and how pleased are you with the onboard video?

[Choppaface]

overall would you say the macmini gives the best preformance for the price ?

and how pleased are you with the onboard video?

I don't game hardly that much, I have a Shuttle for that, so I'm very happy with the onboard video. with the 1.5ghz core solo I could play 480p HDTV Quicktime trailers pretty solidly, with the merom I can play 1080p HTDV quicktime trailers without issue, using only ~half or so of my total CPU power. My shuttle can barely play 720p HDTV quicktime trailers becuase my GF6800GT doesnt support that stuff well (I haven't been able to get nvideo purevideo working either). I havent used photoshop that much on my mini but I haven't had any problems with it either.

If you are intending to upgrade the mini I would say it gives a good performance to price ratio... I'm super-pi'ing about as fast as a 2.6ghz mac pro and I have $650 mac mini + $700 merom chip + $200 2gb RAM + $250ish Raptor X = $1750 into the mini plus a lot of work putting the whole thing together. mac pros start at $2500, but you get a nice trouble free box and a relatively better graphics card plus other gizmos you might not use. (and you also get four xeon cores instead of two meroms in my case). The mini is perfect for my average use cases (that and I need something small) so it's a good value for me and a lot of fun to tinker with. It's certainly not like my system has saved me a lot of money though!

I just ran super pi on the mini and my Shuttle and I'm baffled how much things have changed:

mac mini 2.3ghz core 2 duo 2gb ram: 1 minute 12.4 sec

Shuttle SN95G5 w/ Athlon FX-53 (2.41ghz) and 1gb DDR400 (stock): 1 min 27.5 sec

I never would have thought the merom chips were on par with the FX-line

[flavoraid]

DOes the minis struggle at all due to the onboard video?

if i get a mini Im going to photoshop/video edit a bunch I know photoshop wont rely on a strong gpu :/

[ochw]

nice mate u got any bench mark scores

[ugp]

I have used my MacBook with Final Cut Pro and it seemed fine. MacBook and Mac Minis have the same onboard video. I haven't had any issues at all. Only thing I would say is I would want 2GB of RAM instead of 1GB.