Swap MBP for Mac Mini

So as you can see in my Sig , i have two machines , a mbp and a m17x r3 along with a 27" display. I love my OSX for day to day tasks , documents and little bit of photo editing but i use my R3 for gaming and when i need that extra grunt ....so my question is ...........can i replace my MBP for a mac mini ...since i dont do super heavy stuff on my mac but still would like to have a mac (might sound illogical , but for papers and photography i actually prefer the mac) ...so anyway .....would a mac mini suffice ..and if it would ..which one would you recommend 599 or 799 (i know about the rumours of mini 2012 , but i would prefer talking on the basis of what we have for now) ..so ill really appreciate if someone can give me two cents of info on that ....and with the money i save ..ill make my R3 a monster with a 2920 and 7970

Also portability not a huge concern for me ...i travel with my laptop just 2 days a week and that too i mostly drive around with it .....so i would love to hear your thoughts ...thanks !!!

 

If you don't use the MBP for any hard task. Sell it and buy the base Mini (plus a memory upgrade if you need it)

And with the M17x upgraded, you shouldn't have any problems with power

 

EDIT: nevermind, the post I'm replying to has been removed due to spelling errors! lol

 

Cool thanks...my only question is ...will I miss the discrete gpu

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

If you're not playing games on the Mac, no. Though if you wanted to, the high end Mini has a discreet Radeon 6630M.

 

Since ill have a beast of a 17x ...don't think gaming would be an issue ....but I definitely wanna learn fcp x ...sometime ...would that be an issue ??

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FCP doesn't take much GPU power, it relies on how fast can your CPU encode/render your video, same goes for iMovie

If you don't game on mac (which I think is pointless, since you're going to upgrade your M17x to a 2920XM/7970M) I don't think so

 

One last ...question ...I can also go the mbpr route ...or have the best of both with mac mini and a kick a** 17x

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no FCP-X does not use the GPU much at all for rendering or encoding unless you have a Quadro GPU ..... in a Mac Pro or hackintosh, on those platforms it can make a large difference.

 

You could also spend $10,000 on a Mac Pro along with a $5,000 RMBP. Isn't that the opposite direction you want to go? Besides, your M17X is still going to be better at gaming than an RMBP. The GPU in your M17X performs better at gaming than the GT650M in the RMBP.

If you just want to casually use OS X, buying a Mac Mini would be the way to go. I wouldn't buy one now since they are still using last generation hardware (Sandy Bridge) and an upgrade is likely just around the corner. Of course, Apple being Apple, nobody is going to know anything until Apple officially announces it. However, both the iMac and Mac Mini are a generation behind so Apple should be updating those soon-ish. I see absolutely no point in spending money on a Mac Mini now as the likelihood of a new model coming out by the end of the year is high.