Mac mini to PC Hack 692
DiZASTiX writes "Kevin Rose, the ever so popular host of G4/TechTV's The Screen Savers, has managed to fit a PC inside the Mac mini. 'I've seen a ton of articles around the web lately comparing the Mac mini to the near full size desktop PC. What they fail to compare is the amount of computing power per square inch you get with the Mini. So, I decided to take it upon myself to create the fastest PC possible with the size constraints of the Mini's small form factor.' The article covers most everything he did and includes pictures."
Cramming a PC into a Shell not hacking. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nah! Let's try something better... (Score:3, Insightful)
Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
You should not only fit a CD-ROM, but actually a DVD-RW combo. In other words, you have failed to fit a PC in Mac Mini, so comparing its speed or price is quite pointless. I hate to say it as a PC user, but the result of this experiment is clear: Mac: 1, PC: 0.
You want me because of my .. referral? (Score:5, Insightful)
Give the man props for his work on his site, don't be a smarmy pissant and use the popularity of his work to increase your chances at winning a Mac mini. If it's so precious and you have to have it, sell your current machine, get a part time job, and actually make the $500 it takes to buy the thing.
I am curious as to how many blog sites have a commenting community with so much self-zeal. I feel sorry for the frequent site visitors, who must find it necessary to wash themselves vigorously with soap and scalding hot water.
Failed: Mac Mini to PC Hack (Score:5, Insightful)
All this proves is you can fit a lower-powered nano-ITX mobo in the same case as a Mac Mini, and power it up. But it's not the same, nor even complete...
It was a cool experiment, but not a sucessful one... Hat's off to the Mac design team for shoving that much stuff into such a small box.
Re:faster?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apparently they never heard of the Cappuccino P (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of Kevin's article (or at least, what I took away from it) was that it's damn hard to match the value of the mini when you consider it's size. Even with the Mocha PC [cappuccinopc.com] it starts at $495, and that is without RAM, a hard drive, CPU, or even a CD-Drive!.
I'm with you (Score:4, Insightful)
I would say that time would be better spent hawking things you really do not need on eBay in order to raise funds.
computing power per square inch (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise what area are they talking about? Footprint? In that case my 1.5 metre tower case would have more computing density than your desktop G4.
And a flood of "What's the point?" ensues (Score:5, Insightful)
- Wireless
- Bluetooth
- Optical drive
- Probable heating issues later
- SODIMM slots = more expensive RAM
- OS X, iLife, etc.
Also, Rose doesn't mention the cost of his parts, but I'd guess that, for the specs of the baseline mini even without the optical drive it would likely come to WELL over $500. That mobo in particular looks to be fairly pricey.
I'm not asking "What's the point?" but rather, saying "There is no point." This is just a geek's homebrew project, and a waste of a perfectly good Mac mini.
Re:Need a review (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want something to compare to the G4, how about a 1.5GHz Pentium M at the very least?
Re:Celeron != G4 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Call me cynical but where's the proof? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying that these guys haven't done what they said they've done but it would have been good to have some pictures of the back of the machine with the ports or perhaps some re-assembly shows so we could see just how tight the fit is.
Re:faster?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple, the VW Bug of computing. (Score:5, Insightful)
People who hate Windows, don't want to get caught up in the learning curve or zealotry of Linux, and have been waiting for an inexpensive Mac to become available.
Ever since I got my Powerbook, I've had several friends ask to look at it and use it, and said they'd really like to switch to OS X if only the hardware was affordable. Now it is.
Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the point, like most people on this forum, seemingly. Fact is, outside of the tiny minority of humans that constitute the "geeky" market segment, the vast majority of people who buy computers really honestly couldn't give a crap about either "raw horsepower" or "small form factor". They just want a computer that is NICE TO USE and is not overly expensive. Read that part in caps again ... PCs just do not fit the bill (certainly neither Windows nor Linux), Mac Mini does.
You can do whatever you like to a PC, make it fast, small, whatever, doesn't matter, because no matter what you do it will still be "just a PC". Until someone makes a decent, usable operating system for the PC platform, I'll stick with the Mac, because I'd actually like to be able to use a computer for more than a few hours straight without wanting to put a brick through the screen.
I'm sorry for you if you think that only a "Mac cultist" would think Mac's have a vastly better designed operating system that is also more aesthetically pleasing .. obviously you haven't even used a Mac. Windows sucks no matter how much "raw horsepower" you give it, and Linux is not ready for Joe Public.
What a stunning display of ignorance (Score:1, Insightful)
You're so far off the mark, its hard to know where to start.
Okay, lets start with this...
There is no such thing as CISC and RISC processors these days. Even the intel compatible chips are RISC based and they emulate the x86 instruction set.
What you're saying was true, oh around the time the mac had the PPC 603e CPU.
Second. AMD chips run much slower than Intel chips. Yet they're wicked fast. The AMD Opteron is simply king of the hill right now. They have all the architectural advantages of the G5 (even 64 bit), but they're 40% faster. So AMD is simply king.
And I have a new G5, but for basic stuff like running PAR's and uncompressing large files, my Dell 3.2ghz P4 simply runs rings around my iMac G5 1.8ghz.
There is a mhz (or ghz) myth, yes. But with all that said, state of art AMD chips simply are faster than anything the PPC line has right now. Check the benchmarks.
Re:Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
You: You seem to be missing the point...
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Second, it's ridiculous to compare production costs of a corporation with homebrew assemblies of non-commodity parts
When it was first announced and the first reaction was how cheap it was, the backlash consisted of a lot of "You can built a more powerful system yourself for $200" responses. (that all fell short in one way or another, I might add) Now that the shoe's on the other foot, it's "ridiculous".
--
Apple will buy bulk and get better prices even if you used the same freaking parts, were all of them available.
And then more than make up for it with their profit margins. Your point?
It's about the satisfaction of doing something with your own hands, the harder the better. Just because from your chair you don't see a point does not mean there's none.
Hard work done for the sake of hard work is the same as pushing a boulder up a hill. Sure, you might enjoy the exercise. Personally, I'd rather use the crane to move the boulder up and then get my exercise doing something that has more benefit in other areas at the same time.
Re:Coincidence? (Score:3, Insightful)
Mac Mini v2? (Score:3, Insightful)
:)
Re:You mean (Score:1, Insightful)
This was a lame hack. It would be like you got a new SCSI HardDrive with a 18GB disc and replaced the insiders with a 4GB disc and then being proud of that fact. Lame.
sounds right to me (Score:4, Insightful)
Who? Just about anyone wanting a new computer (Score:3, Insightful)
Since then the wait for a new order is still quite long, so many people do seem to be ordering them.
So who would buy a Mac MINI?
People wanting new computers and tried of PC's. People wanting new computers that already have bits (like monitors) but don't want to spend a lot. People with laptops that would like a backup computer. People who want a computer in the entertainment center.
There are a lot of people that can see a reason to buy a Mac mini. And it's cheap enough that a lot of people figure "why not?".
Re:I noticed those as well... (Score:3, Insightful)
eBay can't be making much money off these listings (since they don't get to extract a Final Value Fee) and they're in violation of the Gratis Internet terms of service. I really wish eBay would crack down on these listings which pollute its service.
Re:faster?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? I think there are scores of laptops out there that would spank it.
Not with the price tag of a Mac Mini though
Re:So.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not so sure... after the Mini was announced, I looked at a bunch of professionally designed small-sized PCs people referenced as Mac Mini alternatives (cappuccino whatever, that sort of thing), and they were all pretty sucky compared to the M.M.
Naturally they all looked pretty dorky -- you don't expect random Taiwan PC houses to compete with Apple on that front -- but they were also all rather lacking in features as well: all had slow CPUs (much slower than a 1.25GHz PPC), bad graphics, etc.
I'd say these sort of comparisons, though they generally seemed intended to demonstrate that the M.M. is "just pretty", usually end up doing just the opposite, and confirm how good the M.M. really is (and I'm no Apple apologist -- I've never owned a Mac, or even used one very often). It's not the fastest computer out there in absolute terms, but given its design constraints, it's a bang-up job.
Maybe it's possible to cram a similar feature-set using PC standards into similar-sized case, but it doesn't look anywhere near as trivial as many people seem to think. I think Apple has genuinely upped the ante -- hopefully competition from the M.M. will pressure other tiny-PC makers into improving their rather anemic existing products.
Bravo, Apple.
Funniest line in the article (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll bet that thing sounded like a wind tunnel when you turned it on.
Re:Celeron != G4 (Score:3, Insightful)
CISC always wins when executing the special complex instructions thanks to pipelining - which, by the way, is much more complicated than RISC pipelining. CISC boxes usually optimize the code to help this along. This is why CISC is winning: it has a lot of the features of a JIT compiler built-in.
Each trip would take 130 seconds, but it'd be able to do 1.5 of them at a time.
The only place that RISC wins is when the instructions must all be sequential, can't be improved upon more during runtime than during compile time, and require roughly the same amount of hardware to do for the entire operation.
Where would that be? Primarily in graphics. However, for your average multiuser system, CISC is a better idea.
Re:Need a review (Score:2, Insightful)
It's put me off buying a mini (though I'll gladly take one if anyone has a spare!).
Re:Celeron != G4 (Score:5, Insightful)
This argument, while certainly valid from a point of view, is similar to saying that the price per horsepower is the only important criteria for buying a car. Fred Flintstone has you beat there, pal.
In computing terms, your brain has a better price per volume/speed than any computer, so why buy a computer?
I've yet to see a benchmark that proves that price per (volume/battery) justifies buying an iPod. iPods are more expensive than most portable music players. iPods also dominate the market because there are virtues other than cost per song stored on the device, and iPod customers sing their praises. iPods certainly weren't the first, they aren't the cheapest, nor are they the smallest, batteries aren't their strongest suit either... They are popular because they are easy to use, have stellar sound quality, and cost only a little more than the competition.
People who buy a Mac aren't buying it because it's the fastest ship in the fleet; they buy it because it's more luxurious than a Wintel box, or because it's able to do things that a PC currently doesn't do well, if at all. They choose macs because they are still more intuitive and easy than a Wintel box.
The majority of users I know of who complain about Macs are really only complaining about two things: Games, and 'upgradeability'. If it doesn't play their newest AMOR (Amusing Misuse of Resources -- apologies to the KDE team), the computer therefore 'sucks'. Then they complain about 'upgradeability.' That's an interesting argument, seeing that I can't 'upgrade' my PC without replacing the at least the Motherboard, CPU, and RAM. Yet PC's are more upgradeable? If I want a longer 'upgrade path' than sticking with AGP gives me, I'd have to also get an entirely new case and power supply for PCI-Express. Somehow this strikes me as little different than having to buy a whole new computer.
I don't own a Mac; but I've actually used them for real work(gasp). Once you get past the fact it isn't a Wintendo Entertainment System, Macs really are excellent machines, and I'll be glad to shell out the cash for a Mac the next time I 'Upgrade' my computer.
Yeah, but its the typical Mac-fanboi argument (Score:2, Insightful)
Mac fanatics will always say "There is a myth of megahertz" when challenged on the relative speed of PC's versus Macs. Which sounds like a fine argument, but when you point out something that is real and verifiable (i.e. Photoshop on a PC is faster than Photoshop on a Mac), then they fall back on the "Well, speed isn't everything, we just want to get stuff down, and Windows sucks".
Pick your argument.
I personally tell most clueless users that "Consumer Reports recommends a Mac, and here's a copy of the article".
That's enough.
If someone says to me "Well, PC's are better, cheaper, faster", I say "You're right. Go buy a PC".
Honestly, as soon as some geek fanboi says "...the megahertz myth...", I already put them in the "f*cking clueless" box where you pay no more attention to that person.
Re:You Are Confused (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Decoder die size (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps with the original Pentiums, but it's much smaller than that now.
There's also disadvantages to RISC; binaries tend to be bigger (x86 has variable sized instructions) and that uses up some of the larger cache that RISC chips tend to have. Also, the really highly performing RISC chips spend a LOT of die space on scheduling instructions (G5 is a good example of this).
Evidence is strong that x86 chips are competitive in terms of power consumption and performance. For example, the strongest mobile processor is currently the Pentium M, which uses less power than G4s and performs almost as well as desktop processors. Opterons are comparable to G5s for server tasks. POWER scales to much bigger machines, but machines that big are quite rare.
Except for a very few areas, one should choose a platform based on other criteria (you like MacOS better, you need to use Windows specific software, etc).
Re:Is the mini really that cheap? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Celeron != G4 (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is that, you ask? Because RISC instructions are inherently more pipelineable. The only place -CISC- wins is if all the instructions must be sequential. RISC can do far more instruction reordering such as prefetching a chunk of data significantly farther ahead of its use because that fetch instruction is a separate, schedulable entity. Thus, to give CISC equivalent performance, it was necessary to split CISC instructions into roughly RISC-equivalent components. This is done in pretty much every modern CISC chip out there.
As for CISC compilers optimizing the code better, that's probably true. Now imagine what would happen if the code you were running on a RISC box were as well optimized.... Suddenly the RISC machine isn't just keeping up with the CISC. It is leaving it in the dust. Try IBM's POWER/PowerPC compilers some time.... :-)
And all that extra hardware for cracking pretty much every CISC instruction into multiple instructions? Extra heat, extra die space that could be used for cache, extra CPU cycles to do the cracking, extra power consumption....
Basically the only way CISC wins is if you stack the deck.
Re:Naaah. (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got to be kidding. IBM just sold its PC hardware division. Dell doesn't make motherboards, they just put things together - and there aren't ANY shipping motherboards that fit into a Mac mini case...the only one found in this article was a pre-release unit, and even with that one, there was no room for a CD-ROM drive of any type.
I'm sure there will eventually be an equivalent PC this size, but the fact is that it's impossible with any existing technology, and Apple has a huge head start. It will be at least a year before PCs catch up in this particular niche market, and Apple will continue to innovate...
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think the differences lie only in looks, then you are revealing a rather stark lack of knowledge about OS X and, well, operating system design in general .. sounds more like you're just repeating a mantra that you heard from others, which makes you no less "biased" than me. The fact is, OS X really is a better designed operating system, it really is "good engineering" as opposed to Windows which really is sloppy so-called "good enough" engineering. Just like Ferrari really is a better engineered car, and nicer to drive than, say, a Ford. Or would you call someone a "zealot" for wanting to drive a Ferrari over a Ford, or claim someone "biased" for stating that Ferrari is better engineering? I mean after all, a car's a car right? They're all "nice enough", they all have four tyres and a steering wheel, a Ferrari only "looks a bit better", right? Riiight .. you keep telling yourself that, but believe me, standing there obviously advocating mediocrity doesn't make you look smart. I don't know why you apply a different standard here. Or perhaps you really believe that it's OK for mankind to aim for mediocrity in computer design, but of that's the case you probably shouldn't have anything to do with either computer design or the advocacy of specific systems.
You are probably right though that Windows is "good enough" for most people (if you ignore all the virus/spyware/security problems), but that's all it is, "good enough". It's certainly not "nice". It puzzles me how people like you can stand there and actively defend mediocrity. (Is it that you feel you have to defend your own personal choices? I mean, you presumably use Windows, so saying "Windows is a poor choice" implies *you* made a poor choice, perhaps you are rationalising your choice?) I don't get it ... "You should buy Windows, even though it looks worse, and you'll need to install anti-virus which slow down your PC, and you'll be cleaning spyware every other week, etc. etc., this is the right choice!"
Still, you are probably right that most of the things that annoy me about Windows stem from me being an 'advanced user', and are in features that most "Joe Public" users don't use (for example Windows SMB networking, which is *genuinely* bad from any kind of engineering perspective). But most users don't use it, and even fewer use it all the time.
Anyway, if you're going to be comparing platforms, I suggest you at least make sure to have some genuine knowledge of the platforms you're comparing next time. Claiming that the difference between XP and OS X is mainly looks makes it pitifully obvious that you don't.
Re:Celeron != G4 (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't game. I use my dual AMD MP 2800 Linux PC for audio work (PlanetCCRMA), Maya, Shake, image editing via the GIMP, Web surfing, and Emailing. I built this computer myself. I've had problems. I could have gone out and gotten a Mac and probably had an easy ride. But I decided to stick with my PC.
Why? You know the old saying Knowledge is Power. It's true. I know my computer. I know what's in it, how the pieces go together, what it can and can't do. If I were to go with a Mac to me at least I would be handing my computing experience to some company. (Not that I don't to a degree already by buying the parts, but I can still choose what to use and what not to use.) There is something to be said for being independent. I know that if there is a problem I can work it out myself rather than take it in for a repair or restart it and make the problem hide temporarilly. (Note I am refering to, say, Dell PCs running Windoze as well.) What I have works, and I am happy with it. Maybe a faster box would be nice, but I have poored my own soul (well, part of it) into this box, and to me nothing else can replace it.
I walked in to CompUSA a few weeks ago looking for a new keyboard. I had to walk past the Apple section to do this. While I happened to look at one of the 30 inch displays, a salesperson came over and started giving his memorized speach about the Macs and how they were so advanced that you could drag and drop files with them. I politely listened, but wasn't really impressed. I'm not saying they're bad boxes, but they're just not for me.
Re:So.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank God all other consumer products in our society are designed for the best possible efficiency and functionality, completely absent considerations of form or style
At least Apple, minus a few Flower Power iMacs, makes classy stuff. Your vaunted PC makers are the ones grafting 10 pound pieces of neon plastic to their boxes and calling it style.
Look Again 'Tard (Score:1, Insightful)
*The barebone system does not include CPU, memory, hard disk and CD drive, It includes the casing, motherboard, CPU heatsink and blower, AC/DC Power supply, driver disk and manual.
When you price out the cheapest complete system they offer (processor,RAM,CD-ROM, HD, No OS) the price becomes $778.
If you want to make it weakly comparable to the $499 Mac Mini (40GB HD, Combo Drive, but we'll still hold off on the OS, in case you want to run Linux on it), The price goes up to $873.
I can't equalize the processor speeds (Mac at 1.25GHz, Mocha at 2.0GHz) or the memory (Mac's is 333MHz, Mocha's is 266MHz), but neither of the Mocha PC's I've priced out will "spank" the $499 Mac Mini, and both cost considerably (over 50%) more.
Notice that this is still ceding you an awful lot for the sake of argument. The Mini comes fully loaded with a nice OS and great applications (in my opinion) for free. I'm also ignoring arguments about G4 vs. Celeron architectures, even though I believe that the G4 is better (Note also the faster RAM on the Mini.)
That's what I've been wondering too (Score:3, Insightful)
But a 1 GHz _Via_ CPU? Gimme a break. Those things are a dog, performance wise. They're not just lower MHz, they're also lower IPC (instructions per cycle) even than a P4 Prescott.
The fact that they only have 64K L2 cache doesn't really help there either. And Via's being still stuck on a 133 MHz SDR bus also doesn't help.
Also it seems that the article just illustrates what's wrong with all these "I can build a better PC" attempts. E.g., in this case they couldn't also fit a CD drive too in that case, so you have to use an external USB one.
Which is just missing the whole bloody point. So at the end of it, when you count the PC Mini _and_ the external CD drive, you have twice the desk space needed and nearly twice the volume.
<sarcasm>Yeah, buddy. Way to go...<sarcasm>
Re:Celeron != G4 (Score:2, Insightful)
I just bought a Mac mini, which was delivered 2 days ago. The reason I bought it wasn't because it was more luxurious, or because it's more intuitive, although I do enjoy those two aspects as additional perks. The reason I bought the Mac mini was because, despite it not being the fastest machine on the planet, it didn't take up much desk realestate and because it does everything I need it to do. I've been using my TiBook G4 (640Mhz or so) for nearly 4 years now, and it has become my main machine (with an external monitor and keyboard). It has been that way ever since my G3 wasn't cutting it anymore. I really couldn't justify an upgrade to a real desktop machine because #1 they cost too much #2 my TiBook did everything I wanted it to (including video editing!) perfectly well, which meant I had no real incentive to upgrade at all. However, there are issues with using a laptop as your main machine, which are specific to laptops and have little to do with the specs.
So along comes the Mac mini. Is it fast enough? Yep. Does it have enough memory? Yep, after the 512Mb upgrade. Does it have enough ports? Well... hmmm, I could use more, but it's the same as my TiBook, to which I have a USB and FireWire hub attached, so it'll do. Do I need to buy anything else (hidden costs!) to get it to work? Nope! I can swap it out with my TiBook! Is it cheap? Hell yeah! Can I easily transfer the data on my TiBook to the new machine? Holy shit, this was the first time I tried it, but all I can say is Holy Shit that wasy easy! Via FireWire in target mode, the Mac mini took care of it all! Truly amazing! (It took less than 1 hour since the moment it arrived to the moment it was in fully functional operation mode with all my data.)
So all in all, the Mac mini met all my requirements, and then fulfilled some I didn't even know I had! (Much in the same way that the original iPod was everything I wanted in an mp3 player, and then some!) That may very well have been the most boom for the buck I've ever gotten out of a computer purchase.
In a sense, however, the Mac mini worries me. Will it eat away at sales of higher end machines? I have a hunch it will. A lot of people I know that have tower style Macs purchased them because they want the freedom to a monitor better than the iMac/eMac, and that was it. They didn't need a 1.8Ghz single-CPU G5, let alone a dual-2Ghz. For most people, even people doing audio/video funkyness as a hobby, the Mac mini is perfectly viable. Yeah, you'll need an external HDD for that, but that's really not much of an issue. (For a lot of people, it won't be an issue because 80Gb is more than enough for them.)
The only people that would want a G5 tower are those that have very specific high-computation needs (high-end video/audio editing, scientific calculations) or they have some odd requirement for either FireWire800, FiberChannel, Gigabit Ethernet (tell me, who REQUIRES Gb Eth at home?) or some special PCI card. (Anything that's NOT special comes in a USB/FireWire package these days.)
So, it was both the cheapest and most effective upgrade I ever did. And before anyone says that an Espresso or Cappucino, or even a Dell tower is comparable in price, let me spell it out: it isn't. It doesn't come with iMovie, iPhoto, or iDVD, all pieces of software that I use, which would cost money if I were to get an equivalent on a Windows box. And even then they wouldn't work as well. I also don't need to suffer with installing FreeBSD/Linux on the box, because the pre-installed OS X already has the *NIX functionality I require, and the prettiness of a nice GUI. These are additional perks, yes, but time is money. Especially since I use