I meant c.2006 iMac, of course. James
On Jan 22, 2013, at 11:05 PM, James Stroud wrote: > Get a quad-core. If you have iTunes going, some website running javascript > without your knowing it, and you have a computational job running, then > you've used up your dual core and things get sluggish. It happens to me all > the time on my c. 1996 iMac, which is still (barely) good enough for me. > > On Mac v. Linux where calculations come secondary to office-type > calculations, you have to weigh your level of vendor lock-in. Do you run > Libreoffice or Microsoft Office? Inkscape or Illustrator? Gimp or Photoshop? > Etc. If you are locked-in to commercial products and haven't migrated to open > source, then you may want to think twice about a Linux box. Macs are very > seamless for an office environment, but I don't know if they are appropriate > for heavy-duty calculations given that you'll trade horsepower for the Mac > experience. > > James > > > > On Jan 22, 2013, at 10:59 AM, Cara Vaughan wrote: > >> Dear CCP4BB >> >> I'm thinking about buying a Mac Mini and was looking for advice from people >> who have used these for crystallography. >> >> We don't need the computer to do serious number-crunching as we have >> back-end servers that can do this for us, so it is primarily for running >> coot for model building, etc. and low intensity crystallography jobs. >> >> I've seen from the archive that some people do use the Mac Mini for >> crystallography and I've got two questions: >> 1. Do I need the Quad core or is a Dual core processor enough? >> 2. Is the intergrated Intel HD graphics card OK for crystallography >> requirements? >> >> All the best, >> Cara. >> >> >> Cara Vaughan >> Lecturer in Structural Biology >> Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology >> Birkbeck College and UCL >> London UK >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------- >> This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. >
