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<TITLE>Re: MiniMac or G4 Upgrade</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Verdana"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>With a Mini, what you will get is a Mac which surfs the internet five times as fast, but runs Photoshop at half the speed.<BR>
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The Mini is super for someone who lives in iLife/iWork, but won’t cut it with demanding professional programs.<BR>
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Users of professional programs are in a bind for the next year, as we wait for genuinely intel-studly applications to appear. Remember that applications under Rosetta require about three times the RAM as on a PPC Mac, and you will see that even maxed out, a Mini won’t cut it for industrial use. Remember, too, that maxing out the RAM will cost you a lot.<BR>
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If you want more than you already have, on a budget, bottom-feeder G5s are selling regularly on eBay for under $800.<BR>
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I would not recommend using firewire/USB drives for other than occasional use; they are not suitable for running several hours a day, and because of the interface are far slower than internal drives. <BR>
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On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 20:27:55 -0500, Richard Northouse <<FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><U>rnorthouse@wi.rr.com</U></FONT>> wrote:<BR>
</SPAN></FONT><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Monaco"><TT> <BR>
> I have a Quicksilver (G4, OSX.Tiger, 3 drives -- <BR>
> 80g, 180g and 120g, 1gig ram,<BR>
> Superdrive, 17" apple display, 733mHz clock). I have<BR>
> been thinking about getting a processor upgrade to maybe<BR>
> 1.6-1.8 gHz. But today a friend was telling me about<BR>
> his mini-mac duo. It has a 80 g drive, 512 meg of ram, a<BR>
> Superdrive, with a 1.83 gHz clock. The list price is<BR>
> $599 (or maybe 699 - I might have forgot).<BR>
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> But this little baby is about the price of the processor<BR>
> upgrade - plus I get the ability to run Windoz. I can<BR>
> probably put my second and third drives on a firewire<BR>
> box. I can also up the memory to a gig or two. My Apple<BR>
> display and keyboard will plug into the new box.<BR>
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> I do a lot of Microsoft Office (word, excel,<BR>
> powerpoint), some Photoshop, and internet stuff.<BR>
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> So what is the best deal -- upgrade or minimac?</TT></FONT></SPAN>
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