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anonymous 13 February 2005

I know there are a few here that say no-way, plus I have a AMD64 and AMD XP for Giga, EWQLSO, Nuendo, etc, so am set as far as power is concerned, but late last night I was looking through a few mags and still, they (vendors) push the iBook and Powerbook for portable DAW with something like Pro_tools LE Mbox, so my question is, really, how bad would a mini mac be? Any one have a clue regarding the 166 FSB in terms of performance of the lacktherof?

I'm certainly not looking for a DAW out of it, just wanted to know what a 1GB memory upgrade and a HITACHI 7200 HD swap would do in terms of performace, especially since these specs out run the Powerbook costing much more.

Can someone please post the FSB of the following:
iBook
Powerbook
eMac
iMac

thanks, this seems to be the only limiting factor, plus of course the FW 800 spec in the power book.

thanks

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Comments

anonymous Sun, 02/13/2005 - 19:54

As an apple employee, i don't think i would suggest the mac mini as a daw. first of all the hard drive is a 4200rpm 2.5" laptop drive, the case is not really user accessable (therefore you pay alot for the apple ram). the fsb isn't that big of a deal. the ibooks and pbooks have the same fsb/architecture. i would say the new powerbooks would be a better solution.

anonymous Mon, 02/14/2005 - 00:52

gtrsoloist9 wrote: As an apple employee, i don't think i would suggest the mac mini as a daw. first of all the hard drive is a 4200rpm 2.5" laptop drive, the case is not really user accessable (therefore you pay alot for the apple ram). the fsb isn't that big of a deal. the ibooks and pbooks have the same fsb/architecture. i would say the new powerbooks would be a better solution.

Ok, so the powerbook and ibook have the same FSB? Is this true?

The HD can be swapped for a 7200 rph Hitachi, then again, what about Firewire drives, can't a mac also boot from an external device (FW) holding down command "C", with regard to RAM you can get 3rd party 1 GB for about $160. This puts the $499 at about $819 with internal 7200 rpm and 1 GB DDR. Which would in theory, out spec a ibook, or powerbook, less the 800 FW. I still think Apple should release it with a 800 FW, as well, hoping someday that AMD will make the chips and OSx is ported to X86, then Mac can sell hardware as well as millions of OSX's to people building their own machines. It would increase MAC user base by at least 25% in 2-3 years, but that is for another discussion.

anonymous Mon, 02/14/2005 - 01:18

In addition, the powerbook is a G4, there is no chance a G5 will be in a powerbook/ibook anytime soon. SO I see the mini as a cheaper alternative with 7200 HD and 1 GIG RAM, which is semi-portable (who doesn't have a keyboard and mouse where ever you go..and it would seem more powerful than a powerbook.

Now, I don't need portability and the other option for the price of a powerbook 12", I could get a G5 single 1.8, ($1499) which would give me firewire, 400/800, allow the use a Dakota card in the AMD64, lightpipe the giga outs to the ins on the MAC 1.8 and I could be in Logic ville or even Pro-Tools 002, and keep EWLQSO on AMD64 and VST plug-ins on the XP AMD all linked via FXteleport.

So, I'm really weighing my options - with mindset that a mini is powerful than a powerbook and allows one to get in to MAC again, for a very low price.

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