Macworld Benchmarks New Mac Minis

admin · Site Admin Joined: 21 Jan 2005 Posts: 2048 Location: U.S.A

Macworld Benchmarks New Mac Minis
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Posted by: Kenan

Macworld has posted benchmarks of the new Mac minis introduced last week. They ran the new 2.53GHz and 2.26GHz models through a series of 17 different tests, comparing them to each other, and with a 2.0GHz Mac mini from early this year. Macworld said the results of these tests showed the new Mac minis to be "impressively" faster. They also threw a 1.83GHz Mac mini from 2007 into the testing mix. The new 2.53GHz Mac mini was shown to be up to 36 percent faster than this model.

With its considerably faster 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 4GB of RAM, it's no surprise that the new $799 Mac mini was noticeably faster in our tests. When looking at the time it took to run through all 17 of our timed tests, the new $799 model was 10 percent faster than the $599 2.26GHz Mac mini. Once we configured the 2.26GHz Mac mini with 4GB of RAM instead of the stock 2GB, we saw that performance benefit of the 2.56GHz Mac mini shrink to about 7.4 percent. The 2.53GHz Mac mini was about 9 percent faster in our Photoshop CS4 tests suite than the standard configuration 2.26GHz Mac mini, though adding that additional 2GB of RAM to the $599 model closed the performance gap to around 6 percent. The $799 model was 11 percent faster in our Cinebench test and 28 percent faster in our iPhoto import test, though, again, a significant part of that performance difference was eliminated when we added the memory to the $599 system.

The crew over at Macworld also said to check back next week for a full review of the new Mac minis. They'll also be unveiling their new Speedmark 6 test suite at the same time, so we'll keep you posted.

http://www.123macmini.com/news/story/1366.html

castaway · Senior Member Joined: 21 May 2005 Posts: 461 Location: UK

I have been thoroughly impressed with the 2.53 GHz Mac mini. It's very snappy!

Fox · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 5:48 am Post subject:

That's impressive but not surprising, give the processor speed. I have the "ancient" 1.83 mhz mini it was compared with. With the 4 ghz RAM (3 available) and the 7200 rpm drive I added, it's plenty fast already. Add the same to the new mini and you'll have one impressive Mac!
_________________
Mini 1: 2.3 ghz Core i5; 8 gb RAM, Corsair 240gb SSD, 500 gb Seagate XT
Mini 2: 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, 8 gb RAM, 500 gb Seagate
Also a Cube, 13" MacBook Air, 20" 2.66 ghz iMac & 11.6" Acer 1810TZ running Ubuntu, Mint & openSuse

Weee · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 2:43 pm Post subject:

I wish they had included a Core Duo Mac mini in the testing. I'm about ready to move up to something from a 1.66GHz.

Bandit Bill · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 4:43 pm Post subject:

Funny, I can go back to the reviews of the G4 mini and it was considered "snappy". Every time a mini gets reviewed it's snappy and the old model becomes a dog. Too bad perception isn't a controlled variable.

What really matters to me are benefits. How much time are people spending using software and actually developing things. If you are a Photoshop user, do you take courses? If you do a lot of typing, do you work to increase your typing speed? Wouldn't these things actually make more of an impact to the amount you can create with a system? If you're just surfing the net, does it really matter if you have the latest/greatest?

Just a thought. I'm not disin' performance increases, they're great. I'm encouraging users to increase their skills as well. Most user skills are the true bottleneck in any system. This has been the case for many, many, years. It will still be the case with the next mini revision.

BTW, I'm not trying to take the fun out of buying a new system. I'm trying to keep the fun in, enjoying what you already have Smile

. Not all of us can afford a new system every year, even if it is a mini Wink

devo · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 4:47 pm Post subject:

How soon they forget about the G4s, Core Duos and Core Solos. Well, actually, it didn't take Intel and Apple long to forget about the Core Solos either. Wink

Comparison with a Core Duo would have been nice though.

devo · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 5:02 pm Post subject:

bolfings · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:22 pm Post subject:

It'll probably be a long time until you get a new one, then -

devo · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 11:45 pm Post subject:

Bandit Bill · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 12:20 am Post subject:

Ray Finkle · Senior Member Joined: 04 Aug 2008 Posts: 454

I got the early 09' model with the 2.0 gig processor, and 2 gigs of RAM I had it custom to order with a 250 hardrive. That hardrive I notice was the sweet spot for me on my old pc's. Anyways I thought about it pretty hard to move this quickly on ebay and get the updated model. I also thought well maybe just put 4 gigs of RAM in my current one and save a lot of hassle. It will feel snappier without spending much money. Actually its fine how it is I wish iphoto would open faster and few other things, but other than certain apps taking there time to open I am very very very happy with 2 gigs of RAM. Even for video editing it's not bad which is weird because I thought with iphoto and itunes taking its good old time that would be horrible. It isn't though. I may wait till the next update. The money I save may make me feel better in the long run rather than a slight speed bump right now.

Dinshaw · Member Joined: 15 Mar 2007 Posts: 135 Location: OR

They are nice and snappy. I upgraded to the new 2.53GHz C2D model from the 1.66GHz CD. Here are my scores.

Xbench
1.66GHz: 93.02
2:53GHz: 118.43

Geekbench
1.66GHz: 2207
2.53GHz: 3581

JohnnyBoy · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 4:50 am Post subject:

Fox · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 7:37 am Post subject:

MacDSmith2 · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:51 am Post subject:


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