Older dual G4. It can add cards for firewire 800 or whatever else comes along. RAM expansion space is more than a mini, and in OSX that means a lot.
Well, you can add a Firewire 800 card, yes, but not if you want your computer to go to sleep. No current Firewire 800 card supports deep sleep (deep sleep meaning the lower power mode in which all fans are off, etc, so it is completely silent) and it seems doubtful we'll ever see one. So, for my purposes, there is no viable Firewire 800 option for my Dual 533 - I don't want to hear the fans whooshing when I'm not using the computer (and no, I don't consider shutting down a good option!) I'd like to know if any of the current SATA cards (specifically ones with external ports) support deep sleep. Anyone know?
Having said that, the comment was made that the Mini has limited hard drive expandability, but it does have Firewire400 for external drives and for most purposes, including digital video, that interface is plenty fast.
In any case, I think it's a tough choice. Both the mini and a used dual processor G4 have their advantages and disadvantages. If you want quiet computing, then there's no question that the mini is the way to go - any G4 tower, especially a dual-processor G4 tower, is pretty loud. The mini is (admittedly only allegedly as I haven't been able to try one myself) very quiet and its performance specs really aren't that bad at all, except for the hard drive. If you replace the internal with a 5400 or 7200 RPM drive you'll have a very nice system indeed, but then your cost is going up. The G4 tower does have more expansion options including the option to install inexpensive bare hard drives internally, although you will probably need to buy an ATA or SATA PCI card to use larger capacity drives internally, so factor that into the cost. You'll probably also want to add a USB 2 card, so another upgrade cost. With a high speed dual processor upgrade they can be a lot faster than a mini for iMovie and other programs that use dual processors, but then such an upgrade card itself costs more than the alloted budget! I'm very happy with my Dual-533 as it is, though, including for digital video editing where it handles the task with aplomb. The mini (at least with a hard drive upgrade) would be faster, though.
Steve
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