pc or mac

S

sharkman_027

New Member
Here's the deal. I want to have a small computer that sits on my entertainment center thats hooked up to my tv. This will be a media machine only. I've been trying to decide between getting a Mac Mini or building a PC using a small desktop case. I would appreciate any thoughts, opinions, and/or suggestions.
 
Some sort of micro ITX. Those things are so small, it'd be perfect! Besides, some people make recorders out of them already ;)

I wouldn't reccomend a mac mini for many reasons. I have one, and it's a great little system, but you're very limited for such a project. It has no TV-Out, you have to get an additional addaptor. It has no PCI slots, no capture card, only 2 USB ports, and only the more expensive ones have DVD Burners. It uses a laptop HD(slower, shorter lifespan) and 80G max. Hard to upgrade......enough reasons?
 
34erd said:
How much is a mac mini?

Anyway heres a micro ATX system:

-BIOSTAR TForce 6100 $75.00
-AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ $322.00
-1 Gb Corsair Value $76.25
-Geforce 6800GT $239.00
-Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250 Gb $110.00
-Rosewill 500 W $54.99
-Coolermaster Centurion 541 $45.00
-Sony DW-Q30A BK $38.99
-NEC Floppy $7.49

Total: $958.72

I was just assuming you wanted a micro ATX system since you were looking at a mac mini. if you want full ATX just say so and I'll come up with something.
Click to expand...

Not Bad. Not Bad. But I was hoping to go this route.
-Thermaltake Tenor $99.99
 
A Mac Mini Tops out at about 900 bucks with a gig of RAM, DVD-+RW, and a 1.42 Ghz processor. But i'd wait untill Mac switches the Mac Minis to Intel. By then they should have completed FrontRow and changed their RAM to 667 Mhz DDR2. They say that the Mac mini will come with some sort of new Intel dual core processor, room for 2 gigs of RAM, and come standard with an ATi X1300 Pro with no price changes. You could wait for that or get a PC.

Oh, 34erd, that is a wonderful system you put together. But I've always loved Samsung's (Or Seagate I don't remember) Spinpoint drives. 2 160 gig Spinpoints in RAID 0 would be expensive, but It would be totaly silent. I just got to play with a 80 gig Spinpoint, and it was silent and quite fast.
 
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Well, It CAN support 2 gigs of RAM it doesen't come with it. I haven't heard of a budget PC that can't hold 2 gigs. They say the Mac Mini bases will actually be 650, 750, and 850$ bucks. the ladder 2 will have DVD+-RW Drives and the formar will have a combo drive. The cheaper 2 will have the X1300 and the 850 dollar will come with the X1300Pro. They all come standard with 512 megs of DDR533 memory, and they all can have 2 gigs. I have no idea what the processor will be.
 
OK ok... I was getting the graphics cards mixed up, thinking they were a bit more expensive ones. But it stills seems like quite a jump. The previous ones, as you might know, only used a 9200...

Still, bad move by Apple, IMO.
 
UGH... NO! This is not a freakin battle between AMD and Intel! Either brand was a bad choice. Intel is good because they are great for desktop applications and such, but Apple's long 'slogan' was how much better the PowerPC/G series processors were than your PC processors.
 
i think maybe apple should have looked at having their own architecture made... its a big financial step/risk but it wouldn't have harmed their image as much as this has the possibility to.

also, imagine the horror of all those apple mac fans out their squirming at the thought of using and intel processor after all the x86 bashing going on in the past.

but anyway.... an itx system would be your best bet because there's no price premium involved.
 
Well at least Mac is crafting some cooler Powerbooks. My dad has a Powerbook G4 1.67 Ghz, and it is rather dissapointing in games. It does have the Radeon 9800 with 128 megs, but its pretty bad still.
 
IMO they should have gotten Intel Laptops and AMD Desktops. The only reason they went to Intel was they had a MUCH more promising laptop processor future than PowerPC's Underclocked G4s.
 
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