Which Intel CPUs are drop-in compatible with Mac Mini?

[anonymouse1]

Do the newer Santa Rosa-compatible CPUs (T7300, T7500) just drop in to the Mac Mini, and automatically adjust to the slower bus speed? They're actually cheaper on eBay than their older cousins (T7200, for instance).

Thanks!

[Biff Lugnut]

I don't believe they're slower bus-speed compatible.

[Jimmypoo]

All socket 775s are, but what speed and cooling will result?

Of course, dropping in a 2.8GHz quad that only ran at 2.0 or whatever, would be cooler
than at clock (but in a PC could be clocked at 3.8GHz!) -- and that's what we really want.

[AllGold]

I'm pretty sure only the Socket M, 667 FSB parts will work.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

LGA775 processors are the wrong type for a mini.

What AllGold said is correct. These are the ones that should work.http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=50001157+40000343+1051723319&name=Socket+M

You can use 800 MHz FSB processors but they are locked at a specific multiplier and will run 16% slower than the listed speed. A Core 2 Duo T7800 is listed as 2.6 GHz but will run 2.16 GHz, slower than T7600 that would run at 2.33 GHz. That is part of the reason that the T7600 is $630 and the T7800 is supposed to list about $530 (no stores show stock of the T7800 yet).

It will likely be the case for the next six months or so, that buying a 20" iMac will cost almost the same price as buying a mini and upgrading with an equivalent processor. It might be worth it if you got a mini really cheap.

[Jimmypoo]

Wow - never looked, but just assumed that Mini was using socket 775 units.

I wonder what the iMac is using? I'm not going to look - but feel free to tell me!

In truth, I don't think it will ever be worth the $$$ unless you can overclock it, and if we
had that formula NOW, we could overclock what is already in there by 500MHz.

[Jimmypoo]

I lied... and I looked.

Nice summary here -- more models that will boggle the brain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_2_Duo

[Filliam H. Muffman]

[quote Jimmypoo]In truth, I don't think it will ever be worth the $$$ unless you can overclock it, and if we
had that formula NOW, we could overclock what is already in there by 500MHz.
The only way to overclock a computer running OS X, is to install it on a Hackintosh.