Reader Replies: (later reports first)

2.16GHz T7400 Core 2 Duo Swap:

(added 1/13/2009)
"I got my C2D CPU today and just installed it into my second Intel-based Mini. It's a T7400 2.16GHz processor. After doing the first upgrade to my other Core Solo Mini, this was a breeze and machine was running is under 20 minutes.

My main "burn-in" test was downloading and installing Windows updates on XP Home in a virtual machine using Vbox. The DL and save for SP3 pushed my Samsung HD to about 75 degrees C and at one point the CPU A temperature diode registered 80 C. Each core showed about 70 C at its highest. These were registered using Temperature Monitor version 4.4. (freeware utility available at http://www.bresink.com/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html)

I added SMC fan control (from here), then set minimum RPM to 2500, which improved things roughly 10% across the board. So far so good.

This Mini was purchased as a used refurbished Core Solo 1.5 Ghz for just under $300. CPU was bought new online for $185 shipped. So final total of less than 500 bucks yielded a machine which I cannot buy from Apple, since they (currently) only offer a 2.0 GHz C2D as the fastest processor. Thanks again for the database, your commentary and stellar website. (he later wrote)
With regard to the Mac Mini upgrade, I'd say it's an 8 (on the 1-10 scale). It achieves one primary task of making the machine faster, but at $150 (the current average for good used guaranteed T7200 and T7400 CPUs) the system still lacks dedicated video memory. Also of great consideration is the additional heat (BTUs/hour) will shorten hard drive life span. Possibly Apple chose not to install processors faster than 2.0 GHz partly due to this factor.

A couple other details to mention about my rig: it's dual-boot Tiger and Leopard. I run Bresink's Temperature Monitor to check things but noticed since the CPU change on-screen monitor function (toggled by Command + 3) doesn't behave consistently. Sometimes trying to enable it results in no data appearing until I access Preferences and move a slider or affect some other parameter change to update the program. This is not a huge problem, just a minor glitch. I updated both OS installations with latest version and sensor drivers but this made no difference. I even trashed preference file in each OS, then relaunched program from a cold boot. The symptom persists.

Over the weekend I tried a PC game and also processed some sound using Audacity and Audio Hijack Pro. Additional performance from a faster dual-core CPU enhances the experience dramatically. This upgrade effort rewarded me with about 1/3 the processing time required as previously. Thanks again for all your efforts and information...
ALOHA, Chris"

2GHz T7200 Core 2 Duo Swap:

(added 11/11/2008)
"Hi Mike, I recently purchased a Core Solo Mac Mini with a 60gb HD and 1MB ram. I purchased the Core Solo on Ebay for a great price. I bought 2GB ram and a Seagate 250GB 5400 rpm HD from OWC. Found a 2 Ghz Intel T7200 core 2 duo on Ebay for $114 shipped.

This is the second Mini I have upgraded and the take-apart an replace process went well. Used web available instructions (MacBidouille) to get me through the steps involved. (Heres a reader's Mac Mini Intel CPU Upgrade Guide from spring 2006 also.) I left the Combo drive in the Mini since I have an external Superdrive compatible from OWC.

The Mini has been rock solid for over a week. Smc fan control shows operating temps in the 50s centigrade under normal use which for me is word processing, email and web surfing.

Total cost to me was $515 for a Mini that sells for about $699 at the Apple Store's refurb page. Overall, I rate the combination of these upgrades a 10. Thanks for a great Mac site.
-Ron"

Thanks Ron. The Mini (and iMac) Socketed CPUs are a real plus (hope they keep those in the future).

1.83GHz Core 2 Duo CPU Swap: (the nice thing about Intel CPUs is over time price drops a lot, especially on speeds that are not at the top end.)

(added 1/28/2008)
"Mike, I know that cpu upgrades are often more expensive than is justified by cost alone. That said, I replaced my 512mb Mac Mini 1.83ghz Core Duo with a 1.83ghz Core 2 Duo. I bought the Core Duo Mac Mini for $479 from the Apple refurbs page on Apple.com. I bought the Core 2 on Ebay for $125 shipping included and sold the Core Duo on Ebay for $60 for a net cost of about $65 minus Ebay fees. While I had the Mini disassembled, I also upgraded the ram to 2GB. The ram is from site sponsor OWC, a great Mac outlet on a great Mac info site, XLR8yourMac. At the time refurbs with DVDwriters and 1GB ram were selling for $599 on the Apple site if you could get one. My cost was $479+42+65 with the ram rebate of $6 after postage from OWC offsetting the Ebay charges. So with a total cost of $586, I did get under the cost of a refurb, and well under the(at that time) price of $799 for a comparable new Mini with only 1MB of ram.

Since specs and speed test results for these configurations of Mini are available elsewhere on the web, I have not tested and posted here. All in all, the experience of completely disassembling the Mini was invaluable as a confidence builder in future upgrade work that I may undertake.

For anyone contemplating a cpu upgrade on a Mini, I would suggest getting a set of 4 Philips nylon machine screws and nuts in size 4-40 by one inch long, in case the any of the four nylon fasteners which hold on the heat sink get damaged when you remove the heat sink.

With 2GB RAM and the Core 2 Duo processor, the Mini is responsive and fast enough for all my computing needs. This Mini is connected to a 65in. Toshiba HDTV rear projection tv with Eyetv2 and a now discontinued Miglia TV2 Mini HD as software and tuner. The video is terrific and with the Apple wireless KB and mouse, I can surf from the couch when I'm not recording or watching tv programs.

I've been reading the site and using your and the readers' hints and tips for many years now and couldn't be more satisfied. Thanks a lot for the good work, and thanks to OWC for being a customer friendly retailer.
-Ron L. "

2GHz Core2 Duo Upgrade:

(added 2/12/2007)
"I've just completed an upgrade on a Mac Mini from the original 1.66 GHz T2300 to a new Core 2 Duo 2.00 GHz T7200. Got it for $295. Would be a scary amount of money just for an upgrade, but I'm putting the old Core Duo into an MSI Axis 945 GM system for use as a MythTV frontend.

Significant speed increases on anything processor intensive, which really shows up well in the XBench CPU tests. Disk is still the real slowdown, as the Photoshop tests show. I watched my Menu Meters CPU utilization during the Photoshop tests and only saw it go over 50% in 2 or 3 of the steps and not for very long, so its not a great indicator of the improvements.

I haven't watched temps much yet, but the machine never had problems before and the thermal paste I used was much higher quality than the stuff on the old one. I do use a fan speed mod that keeps the base fan speed a little higher than the default, mainly to keep it from cycling up to high speed so often. The new processor should only generate 3 more Watts (34 vs 31).
Thanks for the great site and all the work you do. I read it religiously.
-Keith

The Photoshop benchmark from Retouch Artists:
Pre Upgrade : 3:46
Post Upgrade : 3:19

XBench 1.3 Before/After Upgrade: (Major category scores)
Results 78.29 / 88.36

System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.4.8 (8L2127)
Physical RAM 2048 MB
Model Macmini1,1
Drive Type ST98823AS
CPU Test 64.30 / 104.62
Thread Test 165.28 / 200.56
Memory Test 108.78 / 115.58
Quartz Graphics Test 110.33 / 140.09
OpenGL Graphics Test (spinning squares) 190.10 / 245.70
User Interface Test 280.37 / 269.25
Disk Test 24.56 / 24.33
Sequential 41.15 / 40.75
Random 17.50 / 17.34"

Xbench scores can vary run/run (especially disk scores).

This report is on a Core Duo swap - not a Core 2 Duo.

(added Jan. 16th, 2007)
"Machine: Mac Mini (Intel)
Original processor: Intel 1.5GHz Core Solo
Replacement processor: Intel 1.83GHz Core Duo (Model # T2400)
(other reports here are on Core 2 Duo swaps)
I picked up this processor inexpensively in OEM format. I bought it used, on ebay for just under $100USD. I was looking for the biggest bang for my buck, and $100 for a 1.83GHz Core Duo was the cheapest I could do.

It was a fairly easy install procedure, only requiring a little bit of thermal grease. Working inside a Mac Mini is much like working inside a laptop. Mac OS X picked up the change in processors immediately, with no intervention on my part.

It's been stable and solid for weeks now, running at about 50° Celsius, which is much lower than my similarly clocked MacBook Pro. Xbench scores went from a 75 to a 94 with just the processor change. (http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=201198&doc2=196335).
I would rate this an 8, because it was an easy install, and priced well, but it was not a "supported" upgrade. If I had screwed something up, I wouldn't have any official channels to get support from.
Thanks, Adam"

The prices for a (new in box) Core2 Duo 1.83GHz model is under $250 last I checked. (See notes below from Dec 18th posting/price checks on Core 2 Duo Mobile CPUs - Core Duos would be cheaper than Core 2's.)

(added Dec. 18th, 2006)
"Hi Mike, i wanted to let you know i swapped my 1.5Ghz Mini's CPU with a T5600 (1.83GHz) Core 2 Duo and was still much cheaper than buying a 1,83 original mini. I paid 400 euro for the mini + 180 for the core 2 duo (1.83GHz) cpu so was 580 rather then 799 from apple store. ok, mine doesn't have superdrive (40 euro from ebay) and a smaller hd, but i think 20 gigs more hard drive space aren't worth 200 euros (especially now you can get 350GB usb drives for 150 euro).
-Diego "

Nice savings. Typically the higher speed CPUs have a big price difference and you can save a lot of $$$ by buying one of the lower speed models (and over time as faster speeds are intro'd, prices drop). I checked some prices online recently for mobile Core2 Duos that shows this. (Prices can vary, this is just a snapshot from last week as an example of the differences at a vendor)

Core2 Duo (socket M) (early Dec. 06 pricing)
• 1.83GHz - appx $242
• 2.0GHz - appx $296
• 2.16GHz - appx $420
• 2.33GHz - appx $650

(added Oct. 24, 2006)
" This should say it all. :)

Got the CPU from NewEgg. Around $670. I didn't run any performance tests, but it is definitely snappier. Boot time in about 24 seconds, which is about the fastest I have seen in any of my Macs. I also installed a 160 GB drive (I was already maxed out in the memory department).
This mini originally had the 1.83 Ghz Core Duo (Late 2006 model Mini).
-Kim B. "

(added 10/3/2006)
"I upgraded my Mac Mini to a Merom T7200 2.0GHz 4MB L2 Core 2 Duo (that's a lot to type) today and posted some early benchmarks and experiences. Regular applications are slightly faster, but I haven't done anything hardcore such as encoding HDTV to h.264 or any video editing yet.
Fan noise is definitely a bigger issue now than it was before, but I don't know how much is due to cramming in a 20% faster CPU with more transistors and how much is due to the 10.4.8 OS upgrade.

The article with some preliminary benchmarks is available at this page with a solicitation for other tests to try.
Thanks! Art. "

(added Sept. 19th, 2006)
" Hello Mike, I just wanted to tell you that I transplanted a T7400 Core 2 Duo into my "new" (late 2006) Mini 1.66GHz/Combo Drive/2GB today, using Arctic Silver Ceramique as thermal paste.
The Mini recognizes the new CPU correctly as a Core 2 Duo 2.17 GHz.

The system has been absolutely stable so far (couple of hours). This is one fast devil now.
Even graphics are sped up - NoLimits (rollercoaster simulator) tracks still look odd (no vertex shading with GM950 GPU), but I noticed approx. 50 percent higher minimum frame rates (max fps are 95-100 as before). The system seems much more responsive overall, too. Just for fun , I also put a Pioneer DVR-K06 "super multi" in the mini. The drive is officially supported by Apple, and was immediately recognised by the mac.
(I asked him what price he paid, as in the past the cost of the CPU was about as much as the Mini)
Here in Denmark, I paid 462.29 (Euros), including 25 % Danish VAT. Assuming 1 Euro equals roughly US$ 1.20, and leaving out VAT, that would be 444 US dollars, 555 with VAT added. I know, this is economically insensible to put a killer CPU into a basis machine, and I'm not overly wealthy. But it's fun.
Best, Sebastian "

(added June 12th, 2006)
"Core 2 Duo (Merom) Mac Mini CPU
Benchmarks in Windows XP Pro from SiSoft Sandra 2007 and OS X from Xbench 1.2 (not the greatest benchmark...) have been posted here:
(photo gallery including take-apart pix)
http://homepage.mac.com/macaholicg5/PhotoAlbum12.html
-macaholic "

(Copy from the June 8th, 2006 news page)
Tony C. sent a link (translated) to a forum post on 2.16GHz Core Duo CPU swap in a Mini. Includes some benchmark comparisons to G5 towers.
At first I thought this was just another T2600 (2.16GHz) swap, but some comments in the post mention a Merom T7400 (aka Core2, 4MB L2), I didn't think they were shipping yet (until August?) and down the translated page it mentions a "T2600" and the Apple System Profiler screenshot shows 2MB L2 cache, but in some of the text down the page (benchmark section) it says "Mac Mini/Merom 2.16GHz" (original Core Duo 2.16GHz is T2600).
I asked if any readers fluent in Chinese could clarify this from the untranslated page, and a couple replied the article did mention using a Merom CPU.

" i'm a native speaker of chinese. This Web site shows the new Merom in mac mini, it says the CPU is too new to be recognized by the latest osx 10.4.6, so it shows Genuine Intel CPU, and what follows is the comparison with G5 Duo 2.5Ghz 250GB HD and 6.5GB Ram/ G5 duo 1.8Ghz with 160GB HD and 4GB ram. By the way Mac mini/Merom Core 2 Duo2.16G/5400rpm 80G HD/2GB Ram.
Hope this helps....
-'Elvis' "

As mentioned in previous posts, these CPUs currently cost about as much as a Mac Mini, but prices should drop over time.

Intel-Based Mac Mini CPU Swap Guide: (from the May 5th, 2006 news page)
Tommy sent a note he's posted a Mac Mini Intel CPU Upgrade Guide with step-by-step photos. (Linked page in English, but top of page has link to a copy in Italian.) There's also a later posted start/finish Mac Mini (Intel) CPU Upgrade Guide.