[Gabe Logan]

Damn so much to get and not enough cash.This has been on my list for so long.

 

[granodemostasa]

this would be interesting, burning my music collection (lossless) onto it, organizing using itunes, using the digital out to an external dac= could be the source of a great rig.

 

[bangraman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by granodemostasa this would be interesting, burning my music collection (lossless) onto it, organizing using itunes, using the digital out to an external dac= could be the source of a great rig.

Connect it to a NAS tucked away somewhere and you're pretty much done for a music-centric PC.

 

[lan]

I just got my mac mini but I got a great deal and I see these are more expensive so i don't feel like I'm missing out. I use photoshop so for the moment, the core duos aren't really that much faster for me.

 

[richpjr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by granodemostasa this would be interesting, burning my music collection (lossless) onto it, organizing using itunes, using the digital out to an external dac= could be the source of a great rig.

Since they come with a max hard drive size of 120 gig, it won't hold a very large lossless collection unless you add an external drive.

 

[davei]

Jeez, I'm a Mac guy (have 4 of them) and even I can't get excited about these new Minis. I was actually looking for a media center type computer last week, and dropped $800 on a Windows MCE 2005 based machine (P4 based w/300GB and dual tuners) since I just KNEW there would be nothing for me today. Sigh!

 

[proglife]

Quote:

Originally Posted by richpjr Since they come with a max hard drive size of 120 gig, it won't hold a very large lossless collection unless you add an external drive.

I'd think you could order the Mac Mini, as much HD space as you need and a good DAC and still be in for the same price as a lower high end CD player.

Front Row would be much more interesting than my Rotel player. I want one

 

[mshan]

From reading various forums, I get the impressions that Apple may be targeting these new Mac Minis as "client"s for streaming audio/video files from a separate "server" computer.

Guess the good thing about the integrated graphics and new cpus (and notebook hard drives) is that these things should, hopefully, be very, very quiet.

 

[proglife]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mshan From reading various forums, I get the impressions that Apple may be targeting these new Mac Minis as "client"s for streaming audio/video files from a separate "server" computer.

I just thought that same thing in the bathroom today

If you include digital out, making Dolby Digital/DTS much easier for the end user. It makes sense. Maybe they'll sell a subscription service and you could rent a mini hard drive add on that would act as a Tivo sort of thing.

 

[richpjr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by proglife I'd think you could order the Mac Mini, as much HD space as you need and a good DAC and still be in for the same price as a lower high end CD player. Front Row would be much more interesting than my Rotel player. I want one

Yes you could. In fact, I did just that with the old model MacMini and a USB DAC.

 

[Tim D]

The dedicated video card in my laptop is a generation better than the one in the original mac mini and it doesn't do anything except burn 10-15 degree's hotter than the CPU and supply mediocre 3d performance if I wanted to play 3d games on it...which I haven't yet. Course I got it anyways over integrated well just because. That said the integrated intels keep getting better and better and at the very least they are stricter on energy and power than ATI and Nvidia. I think the lastest GMA 950 is the first one that makes the choice between a mediocre dedicated vs a good integrated that much easier. The previous Mac Mini's were a little faster than an iBook I test drove, which makes it a little faster than pretty slow. I'd definitely expect better video performance out of the new unit. Dedicated video/memory biases come from as far as the ol days of SDRAM vs VRAM on 2d accelerators etc...funny since now those cards wheter the fastest VRAM or not are still horrible by today's standards.

On the otherhand the new Mini's are just pricy enough for me to wait as I still have a laptop (which although not nearly as quiet, will have to do). Maybe if the rebates near 75-100 at amazon

. I do admit the software and OS is a big bonus. Course wait long enough and Intel will finally be done with their power efficient desktop chips and Vista will be out, etc. But the Mini does hold a spot for now til then (which is still more or less a year out IMO). Probably priced just a tad too high for the average buyer. The average buyer will probably opt for the much less elegant solution in both hardware and software with a honking power and fan using P4 with XP Media 05 sludged together with other bloated media players and other pre-installed software (on paper it'll look much better tho

).

BTW if I didn't know better the fan vent on this version actually looks less wide than the previous. Also hopefully the DVI-VGA output isn't undervolted like the previous either. Actually now more than ever before when I think about it the iMac is IMO a better buy than the Mini (yep just double-checked and the iMac even has a mini-DVI output). Not to mention I do know amazon has 125 buck rebates on it...so for a little more you do get keyboard, mouse, display, more power, and *much* more 2d/3d video performance, etc. So only if you don't want an extra 17" or 20" in your room would the Mac Mini make much sense...which IMO is very niche (very few people I know would complain about dual-screen setups). In the PowerPC line with its pricing and performance the Mini was worth considering vs the hot and noisy G5 iMac, but now I think the new Mini doesn't do much but sit in the shadow of the iMac. You could think of the current Intel iMac as a quiet media player with a very very large built in LCD display.

 

[dcguy73]

Um, I bought a new Mini to serve as an audio server. It connects directly to my Squeezebox. Works great. I have the Squeezebox for my headphone rig, and if I want to listen on the stereo, I switch to Airtunes and the Airport Express and listen that way. Nice.

But total overkill. I got a dual core processor for this? Silly. I may take it back and get a refurbished G4 version for $400 less.