View Single Post
PB PM
Sneaky Punk
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Vancouver, BC
Send a message via Skype™ to PB PM 
2015-12-06, 19:57

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chinney View Post
By that measure PB, it has been a long time since Apple's computer offerings met your needs. As you say, the days of an affordable Mac towers like the entry-level G4 are long behind us. Heck, for many years Apple did not even offer anything like what came to be released as the Mini. In some ways Apple offers more choice now than it used to do.

Speaking of the Mini, it is true that it has not received much attention lately from Apple. But would not a (mostly) all tricked-out version: 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz), 16 GB RAM, 2 TB Fusion Drive, meet your needs? You could get that for well under $2000 Canadian. I realize that it has integrated graphics, but, as discussed on another thread, the Intel Iris that it offers actually gets good benchmark results.

Or wait a bit until Apple updates the Mini. Should not be too long.
To some degree have felt a lack of good system from Apple for a long time. I have been used to compromise since moving away from the G4 tower, even if I did not like it. I needed notebooks for school anyway, but after I finished college 7 years ago the usefulness of a notebook disappeared (particularly after getting an iPad). The Mac Mini is fine for streaming and web activity, which is what I have one for. Until it cannot support OS updates I see no reason to get a new one. Still the Mac Mini does not solve the problems I have, because its still a low powered machine with limited expandability. That and they are a little limited for any heavy lifting, since they are only dual core processors, packed into a poorly cooled case. I wouldn't want to do heavy lifting on it daily for fear of cooking the poor thing and listening to that little fan all day would drive me around the bend, like they did on notebooks.

Having the power of a quad-core system for video editing/rendering and heavy image editing is nice, particularly when you see all four cores going at 100%! That is one of the main reasons I went for a 27" iMac back in the spring of 2011. Hopefully the upgrade to an SSD, which I'm getting done this week, will give it a few more years of usable life.

Quote:
Hackintoshing has gotten a lot easier since Clover became thing. Still no Skylake support yet, but it's not like it's a huge leap past Broadwell.
I'd tried the Hackintosh route for a while, and that was messy to say the least. Looks like things have improved on that front somewhat. I may give it a try again, but that could be an expensive mistake if it doesn't work well, since the machine needs to be a daily driver. I wouldn't want to do it unless I could use up to date hardware and upgrade as needed over time.
  quote