Mac Pro with 8800 GT vs PS3

[kabunaru]

How would a standard 8-core Harpertown Mac Pro with 8800GT graphics card and booted into windows compare against a PS3 in games? Which would you choose for gaming?

[Chone]

The Mac Pro will be better in EVERY and ANY case (technically speaking) where they can be compared fairly (same games) plus you get mouse and keyboard support for shooters and the excellent Xbox 360 pad for other games.

The Mac Pro will have much better graphics, performance and resolution and superior versions of most multi-platform games but then you'll also have to consider some games which just won't come out on Windows such as Metal gear Solid 4, Devil May Cry 4, Uncharted, Ninja Gaiden, etc, etc.

Personally I'd go with the Mac Pro, but that's just me.

[Danksi]

A Mac Pro Vs PS3 for just gaming?

I'm not a hard-core gamer, but given the option of booting a MacPro ($2K+) into Windows VS. a dedicated gaming machine like the PS3 ($400?) - I'd just go with a PS3 personally.

... but if you're going to do more than Gaming, sure, as a MacPro owner - go for it... but don't expect to keep up with Games, in terms of future Graphics card support (8800 case in point with our 1st Gen MacPro).

[sikkinixx]

this is an odd topic...


multi-thousand dollar, top-tier computer vs. console... I wonder which one will win in the performance department? :rolleyes:

Which one you pick depends on what games you want. The Mac in Windows can play most major games on the 360 (no Halo/Mass Effect....yet) plus a slew of awesome PC games (world in conflict, crysis (soooo sexy) ) but it's 5 times the cost as a PS3 which does plenty well as a console.

Personally, I would buy a PC for about $1300 that will play most games at max settings (Crysis aside... although my $1300 plays in DX9, 1440x900 at max settings @ 35 fps) and a PS3 and then a Macbook for apple goodness...

[JackAxe]

The MacPro is for production and everything else. Technically you get what you pay for, there is no comparison, the PS3 wasn't designed to compete in that area, it's just a game console set in stone.

I would get both, but the PS3 is on a variable list.

<]=)

[MacRumorUser]

Personally i'd get the PS3

At least in 1 years time it wont be out of date and incapable of playing the newest games unless I dropped settings down to medium or low :rolleyes:

PC gaming is great... Keeping up with pc gaming is not!

Give me a console over pc any day of the week for gaming.

And I have a mac pro.. ;) and a couple of ps3's, 360, wii etc... As Jack says 'Get Both'.

[Chone]

Personally i'd get the PS3

At least in 1 years time it wont be out of date and incapable of playing the newest games unless I dropped settings down to medium or low :rolleyes:

PC gaming is great... Keeping up with pc gaming is not!

Give me a console over pc any day of the week for gaming.

And I have a mac pro.. ;) and a couple of ps3's, 360, wii etc... As Jack says 'Get Both'.

Haha so witty, while I agree keeping up with PC Gaming is expensive, you don't really have to, because you don't really have to play games at maximum settings and when the Mac Pro 8800GT has to tone down the graphics to medium... most likely it will still look better than PS3 games, take Crysis for instance, the game needs to be run at medium/high settings at 1280x1024 to get decent rates yet it looks better than anything else out there.

But ultimately I agree, a gaming computer is no perfect replacement for a console.

[e²Studios]

Since we are comparing things that have nothing to do with each other. Which one should I buy, A Gulfstream G550 (http://www.gulfstream.com/g550/) or a Ferrari F430 (http://www.ferrariusa.com/index.php?page=productioncars)??

Ed

[Brianstorm91]

No Football Manager on a PS3 :(

[GFLPraxis]

Since we are comparing things that have nothing to do with each other. Which one should I buy, A Gulfstream G550 (http://www.gulfstream.com/g550/) or a Ferrari F430 (http://www.ferrariusa.com/index.php?page=productioncars)??

Ed
Hmm, I'd say to get both and lend me one :D That goes to the OP as well.

[killmoms]

Since we are comparing things that have nothing to do with each other. Which one should I buy, A Gulfstream G550 (http://www.gulfstream.com/g550/) or a Ferrari F430 (http://www.ferrariusa.com/index.php?page=productioncars)??

Ed

Quoted for intense, blinding truth.

Of course, I'd take the 360 sooner than the PS3 for console gaming anyway, since it actually has games worth playing at the moment. Right now the PS3 is (for me) little more than "the best Blu-ray player on the market." Which means I might buy it at some point, but not yet.

I'm waiting for one of Fumito Ueda's games to come out for it. ;)

[2nyRiggz]

I would go for a royale with cheese over bacon deluxe........opps wrong thread:D
Since i'm here I would like to take the time to thank craft for making yummy cheese singles(If you can't tell that I'm eating lunch now)


but seriously.....theres nothing to compare get yourself the mac for computing needs and the PS3 for gaming.



Bless

[iAthena]

That would be one heck of a price difference between the two systems, that's for sure. The PS3 would cost about as much as the 8800GT card.

[e²Studios]

The PS3 would cost about as much as the 8800GT card.

The 8800GT 640mb OC card I just bought yesterday was $279 ;)

[MacRumorUser]

The 8800GT 640mb OC card I just bought yesterday was $279 ;)

But can you use it in your mac ? :p

[e²Studios]

But can you use it in your mac ? :p

I thought with the newer intel macs it didn't matter anymore?

[MacRumorUser]

Oh.... wish it would work in my mac pro - though I barely use the X1900XT really as my main applications are painter, illustrator and photoshop so can't really justify yet another graphics card upgrade.

[DiamondMac]

I played games on both and would pick the PS3 quite easily

But, to each his own.

I find that I use my PS3 much more for gaming than I do my MBP

[dukebound85]

crazy im thing of a similar situation.

1) build a computer off newegg with a quadcore chip with the 8600gts 512mb card for $820

or

2) buy a ps3 for $500

which do you lean to? i know halo 2 is on pc now whihch is cool. is college football? and possibly gt4? if so thats all id need

oh and a mlb game

i just figure wit the pc ill get a killer system that can do more than just games whereas a ps3 cant really be doubled up as a computer imo, regardless of it being able to run linux

what are your thoughts?

[spyker3292]

but seriously.....theres nothing to compare get yourself the mac for computing needs and the PS3 for gaming.


Yup. If you want a computer.. well get one! If you want a gaming machine go with the PS3. Things are looking great for it this year too!

[EvryDayImShufln]

The Mac Pro will be better in EVERY and ANY case (technically speaking) where they can be compared fairly (same games) plus you get mouse and keyboard support for shooters and the excellent Xbox 360 pad for other games.

The Mac Pro will have much better graphics, performance and resolution and superior versions of most multi-platform games but then you'll also have to consider some games which just won't come out on Windows such as Metal gear Solid 4, Devil May Cry 4, Uncharted, Ninja Gaiden, etc, etc.

Personally I'd go with the Mac Pro, but that's just me.

...then again the mac pro will be about 10 times more expensive, and will be outdated faster than the PS3. At least with a console, you know it'll still be playing games in 3-4 years time.

[student_trap]

im really interested in this too. for me, I have bought a MP (8x2.8, 8800, 8gigs of ram) for cs3, but think it would be fun to see what sort of gaming graphics i could get out of this thing (when of course it arrives!)!

Moreover, my mate bought uncharted for ps3 yesterday and it is absolutely beautiful! could i expect those sorts of graphics (or better:confused:) at a decent frame-rate from my mac pro, and if so, on which games?

[Chone]

...then again the mac pro will be about 10 times more expensive, and will be outdated faster than the PS3. At least with a console, you know it'll still be playing games in 3-4 years time.

No argument on the price but longetivity is another issue, sure it won't play games at max settings in 3-4 years time but it will still play games... and at regular settings as well too. Again, you don't need max graphics to play a game.

[Mike Teezie]

I thought with the newer intel macs it didn't matter anymore?

It matters. The card you bought will have to be flashed with Mac EFI to run under OS X or Windows. Personally, I would sell your card and get the 8800GT Upgrade kit from Apple.

Back to the original topic, it's nice to have both. :)

[kabunaru]

How would a 3.2GHz Cell Processor compare against a 3.2GHz Harpertown Xeon?

[JackAxe]

The Xeon hands down for pretty much everything. Any task that that a Cell would excel at over the Xeon, would still be better suited for the system's GPU, which in most cases would decimate a Cell.

<]=)

[student_trap]

but surely talking about figures themselves is useless, as in the real world, the mac pro is not optimised for games, while the cell is etc

can anyone tell me then, if the mac pro could pump out graphics equal to or better than uncharted on the ps3, and if so, which games would demonstrate this?

[Chone]

but surely talking about figures themselves is useless, as in the real world, the mac pro is not optimised for games, while the cell is etc

can anyone tell me then, if the mac pro could pump out graphics equal to or better than uncharted on the ps3, and if so, which games would demonstrate this?

That's a pretty dumb statement (your first one), if anything, developers are more used to working in x86 (Mac Pro) and PPC (Xbox360, Wii) architectures than this complicated Cell mess... the cell is not particular optimized for games either, it's just a processor with a different, modular, architecture. Also remember nowadays GPUs are lagging behind processors and games are mostly GPU-bound, and the RSX in the PS3 doesn't even begin to compare to what a PC could have.

The only argument here is that the PS3 does have potential for physics processing but even that argument fails considering the PC has multi-core processors, dedicated physics hardware and ever-advancing progress on the GPU-accelerated physics market.

Look no further than Crysis, end of story. Crysis makes the Unreal Engine 3 and Uncharted look last gen.

Consoles are great, no argument there, but they will NEVER ever beat PCs on the technical side of things, it's just unconceivable, PCs are constantly evolving, consoles are the same for 4-5 years and even at launch they are limited.