On Nov 7, 2014, at 10:59 AM, Kevin Reeves <[email protected]> wrote:
> Here’s my beef about the new minis. > > 1. No more quad core. They are only offering duel core machines now. > 2. The newer chips aren’t much more powerful, they supposedly use less energy. > 3. Ram is no longer user installable. > Apple charges 200 bucks for a ram upgrade. 16 gb of good ram fluctuates > between 120 and 140. > 4. I may be incorrect in this one, but they have fully moved to the chip > architecture for the drives. > What I’m not sure of is if this is true about the entry level model. > My problem with this is the fact that 1 tb ssd’s are now around 400 bucks. > Apple wants much more for the 1 tb chip. > With the “Drive on a chip” method they’ve adopted, it’s much more expensive > to get your machine to any kind of specs for recording that is acceptable. > > In looking at the current specs, I’m extremely happy with my “Out of Date” > machine. > If I do the math, my machine, with some user installable upgrades, comes to > roughly 1500 bucks. > If I wanted a similar spec for the new machines, I’m looking at about 2 grand. > A friend of mine maxed out a new mac mini, and that was the final damage. > > My advice is to go get yourself a late 2012 model. > Quad core I7, get a certified apple dealer to install an SSD, or go with an > external thunderbolt bay. > Get the samsung EVO 1tb drive, which currently sits at 430 bucks on amazon, > Compare the price of having a company to install it, with the price of an > external bay. > As far as speeds go, obviously, you’ll shoot for the highest you can get. As > for me, I have the slower Quad I7, and Pro Tools works just fine on it. > I want to point out some things here. I too was disappointed that Apple didn't even offer a quad core upgrade. What they did do was double the thunderbolt bandwidth and on the SSD versions change from using SATA connected SSDs to PCIE SSDs. For those looking for using lots of plugs the lack of a few cores more might really be a problem. That is of course if you are using either a UAD or Avid outboard DSP. If you are using outboard DSP this new Mac mini might be exactly what you need. The Haswell dual core really should be enough for most everything else. Keep in mind that PCIE SSDs, not sold by Apple, are quite a bit more expensive than the SATA offerings. There are better performing after all. The memory buss has been upgraded as well. The dual core I7 in my 2010 mac book pro didn't seem to have to much trouble mixing a session of 30 tracks with an average of 4 plugs each. I don't think processor performance is that important. What it did have trouble with was playing back that many tracks and shuttling around. 7200 RPM disks are quite slow compared to any SSD. -FC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Pro Tools Accessibility" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
