I don't really know why people are getting so involved talking about Apple. I thought that this thread was about getting a good PC. Apple makes good PCs, but they don't necessarily use the best components, and in any case, to get the best performance you would have to use Windows, not OSX, so it seems rather a moot point.
I do think that the Mac Mini is a good machine, for what it is, but certainly not suitable as a main DAW machine, IMO.
DG