[DackMaddy3000]

Hello All:

First time poster, long time lurker and a loyal XBMC user!

Like many others out there, I'm anxiously awaiting the rumored upcoming Mac Mini update. If said update ever comes to fruition, I plan to purchase one to connect to my 1080p LCD for exclusive use with XBMC . Assuming that update will equip the Mini with similar specs as the current Penryn Macbooks, I was wondering how those of you who have current Penryn machines with the X3100 GPU found its performance to be particularly with 1080p content.

As a point of comparison, I'm currently using XBMC on a 1.83 Core Duo Macbook w/2GB RAM (GMA950). Aside from occasional stutters and dropped frames on 1080p mkv files, the program is great!

So the $20,000 question is this:

Would 1080p mkv files run smoothly with the X3100 on a 2.4Ghz Penryn machine with 4GB RAM

OR

Would I be better off just getting a similarly equipped 2.4 GHz Penryn MBP with an NVIDIA card? Would that even be enough for smooth 1080p playback?

Any and all owner experiences would be appreciated!

Many thanks to everyone involved with XBMC on OS X!

DackMaddy3000

[iordonez]

for $20,000 you can get a better setup than a mac mini... Possibly a Mac Pro that's rack mounted into a large projection unit?

[iordonez]

All joking aside I think the current mac mini hardware will be fine for 1080p playback once some more tweaks are done in ffmpeg. Also a nice idea would be to find a MBP on eBay with a broken display, I have one that the display was busted so I removed it, was thinking it would make a pretty slick media center.