Macworld: First Look: Benchmarks: Intel Mac mini scores a mixed bag

Macworld: First Look: Benchmarks: Intel Mac mini scores a mixed bag

These are interesting benchmarks. I think we can discount the Rosetta aspect on the Mac Mini platform since it's pretty much designed to run iLife apps which are all Universal. Anyone who wants to run Word or Photoshop will probably have another PC or Mac.

I think the benchmarks for the Solo vs G4 highlight how much room there is for tweaking in Apple's code. The Core Solo is not as quick as the Core Duo but it quite clearly should be a fair bit quicker than the G4. So far the benchmarks don't quite show that. I would expect to see Intel Macs getting quicker over the coming months as Apple tweak their code to get more performance from the x86 chips.

Bottom line... The G4 Mac Mini is still a sweet little box if you can get one on the cheap. Other than that there is no reason not to go for either of the Intel Minis. The Core Solo will do everything just fine. The Core Duo will suit users who plan to do a little more with their Mini such as large video encoding projects.