[mythtv-users] Re: New Mac Mini

[John Thomas]

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 14:55:03 +1100, Hamish Moffatt <hamish at cloud.net.au> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2005 at 06:42:04PM -0500, Magnus Meinfretr wrote:
> > On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 16:28:30 -0500, Mike Frisch <mfrisch at isurfer.ca> wrote:
> >
> > > At 1.25GHz or 1.42GHz, my guess is that it does *not* have enough
> > > horsepower to decode HDTV.
> >
> > What you forget is this is a 1.25GHz PowerPC G4.  This is not a
> > Pentium 4 or an Athlon.  Don't fall into the mental trap of thinking
> > the GHz ratings even compare.
> 
> But don't believe your Mac-loving friends that an X GHz PPC is better
> than a 2X or 3X GHz P4. It isn't true, or at least depends on your
> application.
> 
> I did some benchmarking for a particular application earlier this year
> and found that a G3-class PPC (specifically an IBM 750FX, as used in
> some of the iBooks) was roughly equal to a Pentium III for a given
> MHz, or possibly slightly SLOWER. That was for integer networking work,
> which is clearly different to video processing.
> 
> > This is probably (conservatively) at least as fast as a 2GHz Pentium 4
> > for all intents and purposes.  Any code that makes good use of the
> > Altivec instructions could very well be beyond current x86 performance
> > potential.
> 
> But is Altivec better than MMX + SSE + SSE2 + 3DNow?
> 
> Hamish
> --
> Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish at debian.org> <hamish at cloud.net.au>
> 
> 
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> 
> 

When I first read about the Mac mini, I was not convinced that it was
something that I could use to benefit my MythTV system at home.  I've
read the thread and it has been discussed that the Mini is not the
most powerful system out there.  True, it is a sexy looking device,
but I can't find the justification for paying that much money for
something that looks cool and will have limited functionality for my
purposes.

I can see where a Mini-ITX Shuttle 64-bit system can blow this this
thing out of the water when it comes to purely hardware specs.  Plus
it's less than half the price.  Here's an example:
http://techbargains.pricegrabber.com/search_techspecs_full.php/masterid=3758934#description

So if we are stricly talking about MythTV frontends, then maybe the
Mac Mini is not the way to go.  Maybe people are justifying the +$500
pricetag purely for the ability to have a system that integrates
MythTV and the MacOS (including the cool software).  Is that the
consensus here?

I need some convincing. :-)