Buying a Mac mini

[MmmSkyscraper]

Not much more to it really, I'm gonna add the little Mac to my collection and wondered what kind of performance to expect? I'd get the 1.4Ghz with 1GB (the memory's not coming from Apple though, LOL).

I tried looking up the FPU performance versus anything recent on the Intel/AMD front but not much joy.

TIA.

 

[ProviaFan]

I'd get a Mac mini if I weren't saving money for something else - and then I'd mod it into my "winmd" system along with a two port KVM.

It seems that the G4 processors were much better than AM/tel at something, though I'm not sure what. If it was RC5 (my best guess), then who cares? Concerning SETI, I found a quote thanks to google:

It is true that the G4 is faster than the Pentium III on many tasks. For example, if you run the SETI@home screensaver (which uses lots of floating-point calculations to perform signal processing operations on radio telescope data), a G4 running at 500 megahertz (MHz) will produce a result set in about half the time of a Pentium III running at 700 MHz. This is a remarkable difference in processing capability.

Not sure how much that helps you, though.

 

[mrwizer]

MmmSkyscraper, I was looking at doing the same thing. Although my project is FaD right now, which means I am screwed with it. Unless I want to run Linux, but then I feel that it defeats the purpose of why I am looking the Mac. I also wonder how this compares to a G5, say the 1.8GHz? Not taking into consideration the 64 capabilities of course. Does the G5 blow the G4 out of the water with IPC?

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: ProviaFan

It is true that the G4 is faster than the Pentium III on many tasks. For example, if you run the SETI@home screensaver (which uses lots of floating-point calculations to perform signal processing operations on radio telescope data), a G4 running at 500 megahertz (MHz) will produce a result set in about half the time of a Pentium III running at 700 MHz. This is a remarkable difference in processing capability.

Not sure how much that helps you, though.

Thanks for finding that info. If I can find out how long a P3 700MHz took then I could try halving that and then dividing that by 3 for some kind of speed comparison. I guess that makes sense, maths was never my forté. At least I've got an Intel to G4 comparison...

I did try asking my mate who is a Mac guru but he was a bit unsure himself

 

[Wolfsraider]

a friend has a 1 gig p-3 and iirc he gets 3 wu a day

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: mrwizer
I also wonder how this compares to a G5, say the 1.8GHz? Not taking into consideration the 64 capabilities of course. Does the G5 blow the G4 out of the water with IPC?

I wish I could tell you, this'll be the first Mac I've owned. Used a few at my old work but never been impressed til I saw the mini and the Tiger demo on the Expo stream. Spent the last few days reading articles and forums trying to get up to speed.

Just managed to find this which compares dual G5's against dual Xeon, Athlon, Opteron and a P4 HT. This comapres a G4 1.42 (I presume the same as in the mini) against a G5 2Ghz which is close to what you were asking about... I guess this'd give us a better idea of what's going on than my amazing maths idea!

What's IPC?

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Wolfsraider
a friend has a 1 gig p-3 and iirc he gets 3 wu a day

That sounds decent. My p4@1.4 does maybe 4.33 but that is with the linux version.

As for that comparison of the g4 to the p3, keep in mind that that was with the screensaver so the percentage might not apply to the commandline version.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: Wolfsraider
a friend has a 1 gig p-3 and iirc he gets 3 wu a day

I just did the calculation and got a surprising result. If I assume that the 700MHz is approximately a third less powerful than the 1Ghz, then it's generating 2 WU's a day. The G4 500MHz would produce 4 in the same time... If you triple that, you get 12 a day for the 1.42Ghz (not exact I know but none of this is ). So that'd mean the mini would be pumping out a WU every 2 hours which'd be the same as my A64 3200 (no overclock). Does that sound right?

Edit: I wasn't allowing for that % difference between the CLI and screensaver that kamper mentioned.

 

[kamper]

I'd be quite surprised if you got 12 a day from a box like that but if you do... that'd be fantastic

If that was the case you'd be getting a half decent WU/$ ratio and they're so small, you could just build a big stack of them. A crack-rack you could put in your living room

 

[n0cmonkey]

The G5 blows the G4 out of the water.
The G4 was great for OGR.
I think it would be worth running, but not amazing. If you really want some info, let me know. I've got a 1ghz G4 powerbook, and I'd be willing to give it a shot for a day or two.

I'm planning on buying one or two, if I don't decide to get a zaurus first.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I think it would be worth running, but not amazing. If you really want some info, let me know. I've got a 1ghz G4 powerbook, and I'd be willing to give it a shot for a day or two.

Thanks, that'd be great especially as I have to wait a week longer than those in the US to get my grubby mitts on the new shiny toy

Btw, are BOINC WU's the same as Classic WU's?

 

[JWMiddleton]

Hey MmmSkyscraper!

I have a PIII-500 that does 2.3 WU/day and a PIII-1Ghz that does 3.5 WU/day. The 700 MHz model is running at 100 MHz FSB, so it should be around 2.7 WU/day.

I am not sure how linear the results will be with the new iMac as I don't know how fast the memory interface is. I recently changed memory on one of my cruncher (Ath 2500+) and my output dropped from over 9 WU/day to 7.7 WU/day. I assume this means that the replacement memory is not running in Dual Channel mode.

 

[Rattledagger]

It's many types of BOINC-wu, from short Pirates-wu not really doing anything to the fairly long CPDN-wu.


In SETI@home on the other hand, the current wu is basically the same but with a different header.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
The G5 blows the G4 out of the water.
The G4 was great for RC5.
I think it would be worth running, but not amazing. If you really want some info, let me know. I've got a 1ghz G4 powerbook, and I'd be willing to give it a shot for a day or two.

I'm planning on buying one or two, if I don't decide to get a zaurus first.

Fixed.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Update: the mini rig is ordered!

Apple are estimating 3-4 weeks. Let's hope it's quicker than that... I'll post the results when it does.