I'm looking at a new desktop pc.
Ideally want to do the usual bits, but want to edit some 1080p videos from my Gopro.
Has anyone got one? What do you reckon? I'm looking at the standard £399 model.
Thanks
The £399 model looks very under-powered with only 1.4ghz cpu and 4 gig ram. I would probably look up the range or at alternatives.
I have an older model and like it (but a 4 core i7 @ 2ghz)
Thanks for the input.
Would there be another one you would look at?
Possibly a different Windows PC?
I am a fan of apples, but they really cannot claim they are good value for money. The £570 one is the min I would consider in the Mini range (you can get this for 512 if you can get educational discount from someone)
As for alternatives - do you really want a desktop or a laptop?
I woudl have a browse around ebuyer.
http://www.ebuyer.com/662331-zoostorm-desktop-pc-7260-0040
I think the reviews in PCPro and The Register all say that the 4 Gb one is a bit underpowered, and the 2014 version has the RAM soldered in so no opportunity to cheaply boost that. Next one up with the extra RAM, probably your best option if committed to Apple software. Gazillion Windows machines to choose from otherwise.
I too have an i7 Mac Mini at home, I wouldn't buy one with 4Gb and hope to run Mavericks on it.
taking into account the resale value of it 2nd hand in 3 years time (if current 2nd hand mini's are anything to go by) then I think they're value for money claims are justified (just for different reasons than they're probably stating)
Jigsaw have previous gen at £370: http://www.jigsaw24.com/apple-mac-mini-dual-core-i5-2.5ghz-4gb-500gb/mac-desktop-deals/-/fcp-product/12170
£100 of RAM will bump it up to 16GB. They'll happily take an extra 2.5" drive too (MrsG's one has a SSD as well as a 1TB hard disk), although you need to get hold of the special cable for it.
OP - hope you don't mind I will send you an email regarding:
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I have a 2009 Mini, great little machine. It was the base model at the time (2gb ram and 140 hdd now upgraded to 8 and 750).
OP the base model gets a panning on the Mac forums (macrumors is the one I follow). The ram is now soldered so you want to spec 8gb, favourite seems to be the middle model processor wise or many talking of buying second hand quad core if they want the processing power. I would imagine my machine has less horsepower than a 2014 base and it's ok for basic web browsing, email, dvd rip and format conversion and using as a media centre/phone/tablet base machine. With the latest usb3 you can add drives externally and they will run as fast as those internally so whilst not as neatyou need not pay for up speccing those at purchase
Big Eared your machine is a dual core i5 yes ?
Yes, it's an i5-3210m which is two physical cores with hyper-threading, 2.5GHz base clock and 3.1 GHz turbo. I sold my i7 model for more than I paid for it (the RAM in that little monster got upgraded to 16GB). The 2012 minis are great little machines.
Converting your GoPro footage to ProRes before editing will take a lot of stress off of your processor., so you'll get more from a 'slower' processor and also be able to edit much faster.
Had one from 2004/5, only sold it about a couple years ago - not for massive amount mind you, but still had some resale value after 7/8 years, which ain't bad.
@BEB yes the quad core I'd have been interested in, I thought it was a dual based on asking price ! I held off upgrading my 2009 machine in 2013 waiting to see what the refresh was but they went backwards really. Hoping for something decent to show up in 2015.