Mac or Pc? HELP

I'm soon getting a new computer everyone in the family is suggesting I should get a mac mini because it is very powerful for its size, but I was wondering if I could build a pc which is more powerful for about £500 (does not include price of screen)

Ps: I dont want Amd and most likely an i5 intel. And need 8gb ram. Total cost should not exceed £500-£525

Any suggestions?

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Reply 1

jacobfun

Original post by AROY09

Have you owned a mac before?
I changed to macs a few years ago and I have no regrets at all! Everything just works. However, on a Mac mini, I believe that just the RAM is upgradeable.
Bare in mind an apple keyboard and Magic Mouse will set you back another £100.

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Reply 2

username612415

Original post by AROY09

The Mac Mini is essentially the internals of a laptop in a tiny box, and while it seems powerful for it's size at first glance it's generally not particularly powerful on the scale of modern desktops- £500 could get you a windows machine, prebuilt or self built, that could quite happily handle modern games at decent settings which the Mini would not stand a chance of playing at anything but low.

Depending on what you want to do, the Mac Mini could be a decent shout. It's tiny and priced well in line with other ultra-compact PCs with laptop guts with enough grunt to do day-to-day tasks without a problem, and it's a good entry point into OS X if that appeals to you. If you want to do any more demanding stuff like gaming on new titles, look into Windows options because you will get way more bang for your buck, and if size is a major factor look into mini ITX based systems or self builds for extreme space saving- Lian Lee produce some ridiculously tiny cases you could look into using.

Reply 3

AROY09

Original post by jacobfun

Yeh my bro has a mac and he loves it. He put 8gb ram in it and is running windows instead on it

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Reply 4

AROY09

Original post by jacobfun

Plus apple keyboard and mouse are not needed. You can use any mouse or keyboard

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Reply 5

AROY09

I wouldnt need the computer for gaming as I already have a console buy when I can get more power for my money. Would it be better to make a custom pc and with what specs as said previously. But thanks for the reply

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Reply 6

Loshie

i5 4670k, Generic £40 motherboard, generic £30 case, wd blue for £40 1tb, gskill ram £60. Corsair cx430psu for £30. Pretty much all you need and will be more powerful than all mac laptops and mac minis. Add a GPU later on for gaming. This totals £330 add a R9280 for £170 and get a great gaming pc for £500.

Reply 7

username612415

Original post by AROY09

What will you be using it for?

Reply 8

AROY09

Mostly everyday use but I watch a lot of films (when i mean a lot, i mean a lot) and sometimes play games like Wow or other mmorpg games occasionally. And the computer will most likely to be on from about 9 in the morning to about 11 at night. Obviously putting it on sleep mode sometimes.

Reply 9

username612415

Original post by AROY09

Depends what MMOs you want to play. The ivybridge i5 in the Minis should get medium settings out if WoW, on newer games like TESO you'd be lucky to escape low. If you're going to want decent settings out of newer titles then I'd look into getting something with a decent GPU.

Thanks!

No way man. The Mac mini is outdated. Apple haven't bothered to update in years.

Reply 12

J.D_Wilson

You get so much more bang for your buck with a Windows PC especially if you're building it yourself. In my opinion you're mostly paying more money because of the exclusivity you get with Mac. Since its tricky to run OS X on a Windows machine but easy to run Windows on a Mac it would be wise to get a Mac, if you're in need of the most common operating systems; Windows OS X and Linux.

Since you won't be gaming too much then a decent CPU is more important than a high end GPU. Just don't go bottlenecking your machine by getting an amazing GPU with a rubbish CPU.

Mac's win on security and seem to keep there performance for longer without having to carry out any maintenance.

In a Mac Mini you can only upgrade the RAM and HDD. Windows you can upgrade everything.

Long live Windows. Macs are very good tho.

Reply 13

Jammy Duel

Unless you really want to change to mac I would say stick with a windows (/linux) machine. You haven't listed anything that Macs are better at (not surprisingly if you were looking at a mini) so I see no point in restricting yourself. You should very easily be able to outperform it and have the freedom to upgrade later as necessary.