Is it me or is Apples computers are being targeted more at gamers???!

[MatLane]

I just get the impression they are concentrating on gaming.




What are your thoughts?~


This is not bashing, just a thought

[Tallest Skil]

It's you. The iMac's cards are terrible and the Mac Pro is far beyond any gamer's budget.

[MattZani]

No Mac is aimed at Gaming. At All.

Funny you should say that Tallest, i was looking at building a Gaming PC for ~£600, but then i also want a Mac Pro, so was considering saving for the Mac Pro, i doubt i will, as then my MBP would be pretty much useless.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Pods are getting games, Macs? I dont think so. Anyone remember a game called Unreal Tournament 3? suppose to be out for mac in 07,then,08 now its 09.

[The Hammer]

I just get the impression they are concentrating on gaming.




What are your thoughts?~


This is not bashing, just a thoughtConsensus is it's you.;)

[cathyy]

Where do you get this impression from anyway?

[Tallest Skil]

Where do you get this impression from anyway?

The Radeon 4870 in the Mac Pro, probably. I'm looking forward to it. :D

[asphyxiafeeling]

It's you. The iMac's cards are terrible and the Mac Pro is far beyond any gamer's budget.

the iMac's cards are NOT terrible outside of the low end 9400M.

Price:Value wise the iMac is not worth it for a gamer, but the GT120 isn't that bad. it's a rebranded 8600M GT, right? that's enough to run COD4 at great framerates.

I don't understand where tech folks get the idea that in order for a computer to be even considered for gaming it needs something of the 9800/4870 caliber. for an enthusiast i'd say the 9600M GT is "nice". anything above that is "nicer" or "ok now your serious".

Bottom line: i wouldn't tell anyone to get an iMac for gaming, but that doesn't mean it can't game.

answering the OP:

I wouldn't say they've started gearing to gamers as much as they aren't giving them the cold shoulder completely anymore. i think Apple has realized how big that market is, and as such isn't ignoring them as much.

[cathyy]

Fact is, the 8600 GT is considered to be a very very weak card. It wasn't even a great card when it came out (3% better than the 7600 GT, the card it was supposed to replace), and now it's almost 2 years old already! Technology has advanced quite a bit since then and there are better cards to buy for gamers. The 9600M GT is similar to the 8600 GT so I doubt there's much to be said.

The low end cards the average gamer these days on a desktop would be the 9600 GSO/9600 GT (take note that the desktop 9600 GT is twice as powerful as the mobile 9600M GT), or ATI's 4650/4670. Nvidia's 8800/9800/GTX 260 or ATI's 4830/4850/4870 would be considered middle-range these days.

[Winni]

I just get the impression they are concentrating on gaming.t

It's you. If they were targeted at gaming, they'd come with better graphics hardware AND Windows pre-installed.

[Tallest Skil]

...they'd come with... ...Windows pre-installed.

Apple would go bankrupt, simply because that's an admission that the competitor is better.

No, if they cared about gaming, they'd come with "better" hardware and use some of their 30 billion to buy Transgaming, kill off Cider, and use their people to write games natively.

[Rodus]

The arent aimed at gamers. If you get the iMac with the 4850 or Mac Pro with the '70 then yes, they are good gaming machines but you can buy a better, dedicated gaming rig for far less.

[cathyy]

Apple would go bankrupt, simply because that's an admission that the competitor is better.

No, if they cared about gaming, they'd come with "better" hardware and use some of their 30 billion to buy Transgaming, kill off Cider, and use their people to write games natively.

I have to agree with him though. Gaming on a Mac is almost non-existent.

[Ol3s]

I think they'll start working on gaming if about 30%ish computer users will be on mac (and thats unlikely to happen in the next 50 years)

[Miharu]

Apple gets to gaming when they announce Valve is porting their games to Mac.

[Tallest Skil]

Apple gets to gaming when they announce Valve is porting their games to Mac.

Valve wanted $1,000,000 to do the porting and Apple said no.

Try again in five years, I guess.

[TSE]

Macs will never be aimed at gaming.

If you want a gaming, build your own PC for $700 that will blow any $3,000 Mac Pro in gaming out of the water.

[MistaBungle]

If they are targeting gamers, it is because they are trying to address the complaints that they've had for a long time.

But do I think they are? No they are not. But more graphics-capability is good for any reason.

[Dagless]

Meh, I've played TF2 for hundreds of hours on an overclocked x1600. I hate these terms that fly about "gaming computer" etc. I mean my Macbook runs UT3 very well! Last time I checked UT3 and TF2 were games :D

But no. They're not targetting gamers.

[The Red Wolf]

An iMac with a 4850 and a 3.06 GHz processor and 8 GB ram would be a perfectly good rig. Yes, you could build one cheeper, but it's not as though it can't play games.

Apple released a single processor machine with a perfectly good card the 4870... Because it's no $749 all the people screaming for apple to make a non-work station desktop are still pissed off. For some reason everyone on this site won't be happy until there is a sub $1000 single processor, SLI/Crossfire, E-SATA, BlueRay rig. And even then they'll be all pissed off because it has 4 Firewire 3200 ports instead of 4 Firewire 800 ports. I'm annoyed to no end by the complaining.

If you want OS-X and you get either a 4850 or a 4870 in one configuration or another, yes you're paying a bit more than building one yourself, but it's still a Mac and there isn't a game it couldn't play.

If the MacPro had a GMA950 without PCI-E slots and was $7200.00 you'd have reason to complain and call it not capable of gaming... For now other than price, I truly think the excuses need to end.

[Beric]

Not in the least bit. If anything, Apple is more anti-gaming now than they ever have been.

[Jethryn Freyman]

Unfortunately, you need to spend at least $3000 (Australian $) to get a semi-decent graphics card (the 4850 in the iMac, which is actually a laptop card), or at least $5000 to get a Mac Pro with the 4870. The GT 120/130 chips are mid range cards of NVIDIA's previous generation of chips.

To get a decent graphics card in a Mac, you need to spend twice what you would on a Windows computer.

[aluminumapple]

if you Honestly think apple is targeted to Games you are either Really high or havent looked at any other computers.

you can build a desktop at half the cost of mac pro and be the best computer on earth.

[ravenvii]

The people here are such Mac-gaming-haters, you'd have no chance around here with comments like that.

[SnowLeopard2008]

if you Honestly think apple is targeted to Games you are either Really high or havent looked at any other computers.

you can build a desktop at half the cost of mac pro and be the best computer on earth.

Wrong. Best computer is never a "gaming rig". Games are considered low-end crap when you see what scientists do with computers. Even the best gaming rig would melt with really advanced simulations and computations. Macs aren't for gaming (waste of time imho, go read a book or play real games) but usually workstation class.

[cathyy]

Wrong. Best computer is never a "gaming rig". Games are considered low-end crap when you see what scientists do with computers. Even the best gaming rig would melt with really advanced simulations and computations. Macs aren't for gaming (waste of time imho, go read a book or play real games) but usually workstation class.

Yea, that totally explains why "gaming rigs" have more powerful hardware than Macs.

[DoctaMario]

It's unfortunate really. Apple could bring in even more to the fold if they'd quit being old farts about the whole deal.

Although emulators are doing particularly well these days on the Macs, particularly MAME OSX.

[bobriot]

Not for me to stick my oar in but I will anyway... Isnt the problem that OS X is not developed as a gaming OS rather than the hardware not being up to it????


I switched in 2006 and I only noticed my gaming get better under bootcamp.

Mind you had to install all sorts of drivers, core duo patches and what-nots to really see it shine....

[Dagless]

Yea, that totally explains why "gaming rigs" have more powerful hardware than Macs.
Ignore him/her, seems they got lost and stumbled onto a forum they're not really interested in :).
Time to go tell photographers forum their hobby is a waste :D.

[Jethryn Freyman]

Not for me to stick my oar in but I will anyway... Isnt the problem that OS X is not developed as a gaming OS rather than the hardware not being up to it????.

No, if the games were coded natively for OS X, they would perform just as well as on Windows.

[lewdvig]

I just get the impression they are concentrating on gaming.

Sadly, it is you. The better GPUs are more for Apple's General Purpose GPU plans in Snow Leopard. They will be using the GPUs for things like accelerating encoding, transcoding.

Many Mac devs are stuck in 1980's business models and don't see all the opportunity out there. A game like Stubbs could still be selling if they were to update the executable and put it on an online distribution service for $19.95.

If a two year old PC game can not be ported and sold for $30 (or less) they should not even bother.

[lewdvig]

No, if the games were coded natively for OS X, they would perform just as well as on Windows.

They would be close. Driver updates from NV and AMD on a monthly basis keep improving performance 2% here, 5% there. This is to support the huge add-in card market they have built.

Apple does their own drivers and update them less often. There is no incentive for them to keep improving performance.

[pooky]

Yea, that totally explains why "gaming rigs" have more powerful hardware than Macs.

Depends on what hardware. Most games are heavily dependent on the GPU and (less so) on single-core performance. Scientific computing needs total CPU performance; performance per core is less important. An 8-core 1GHz processor is almost as good as a 4-core 2Ghz chip for simulations. The same is not at all true for gaming. For simulations, the GPU doesn't do a damn thing. In other words, for scientific work, the Mac Pro, with it's large number of cores and high RAM ceiling, will indeed outperform many computers that would blow the Mac Pro out of the water when playing games.

And of course, quite a lot of scientific software is better optimized running under OS X or Linux than it is under windows

[cathyy]

Depends on what hardware. Most games are heavily dependent on the GPU and (less so) on single-core performance. Scientific computing needs total CPU performance; performance per core is less important. An 8-core 1GHz processor is almost as good as a 4-core 2Ghz chip for simulations. The same is not at all true for gaming. For simulations, the GPU doesn't do a damn thing. In other words, for scientific work, the Mac Pro, with it's large number of cores and high RAM ceiling, will indeed outperform many computers that would blow the Mac Pro out of the water when playing games.

And of course, quite a lot of scientific software is better optimized running under OS X or Linux than it is under windows

Well I have to say the Mac Pro can be configured an insane amount of cores while the typical high-end gaming rig has no need for 8-cores and usually just stick with 4 cores. However the post I quoted simply mentioned 'Macs', which would include the iMac as well. We all know that the typical gaming rig would beat the iMac.

No, if the games were coded natively for OS X, they would perform just as well as on Windows.

Coded...natively? Does that include Warcraft 3 and COD4? Because the Windows version performs far better than the Mac version.

[JoeG4]

If you want a gaming, build your own PC for $700 that will blow any $3,000 Mac Pro in gaming out of the water.

While I know that a home built rig is the most cost effective way to go, this comment is ridiculous. Show me the parts list!

$2500 is a 4 core nehalem Mac pro (shipped and taxed), and $500 a very nice video card (or two).

Starting at $500 for the video cards, you'd need to be able to squeeze a Core i7 920 (which is still not going to compare so nicely to the xeon in the mac pro), a motherboard that supports the i7 and the video card(s), a beefy power supply, and a case that isn't made of cardboard into that $200 extra.

For $1500-2000, yes, I'd say it was possible.

[Jack Flash]

Apple definitely isn't targeting gamers.

That said, the GT130M and 4850 in the new iMac's will play games nicely.

[Jethryn Freyman]

Blizzard have done a great job with the Warcraft games, but Apple's drivers are still lagging behind, often quite badly. I've heard that Apple themselves code drivers for the NVIDIA chips, and ATI write their own for OS X. Can anyone confirm this?

The GT130 in the iMac is a 9600M GT, same as in the Macbook Pro. I'd expect it to be less underclocked, though. The Mobility Radeon 4850 is a good card, and the 4870 in the Mac Pro is excellent.

Xeon CPUs are the very best, but aren't cost effective, the extra performance they give is very expensive. Apple lack a mid range quad core solution. Most users won't notice the different between a 3GHz Core 2 Quad and a 3GHz Xeon, jsut like they won't notice the different between standard RAM and the ECC RAM in the Pro.

[Jack Flash]

Blizzard have done a great job with the Warcraft games, but Apple's drivers are still lagging behind, often quite badly. I've heard that Apple themselves code drivers for the NVIDIA chips, and ATI write their on for OS X. Can anyone confirm this?

That's true. Somewhat disturbing as Apple is leaning heavily towards nVidia these days...

[lewdvig]

While I know that a home built rig is the most cost effective way to go, this comment is ridiculous. Show me the parts list!

$2500 is a 4 core nehalem Mac pro (shipped and taxed), and $500 a very nice video card (or two).

Starting at $500 for the video cards, you'd need to be able to squeeze a Core i7 920 (which is still not going to compare so nicely to the xeon in the mac pro), a motherboard that supports the i7 and the video card(s), a beefy power supply, and a case that isn't made of cardboard into that $200 extra.

For $1500-2000, yes, I'd say it was possible.

The AMD 4870 is $160 shipped.
Phenom II X3 CPU with unlockable fourth core and cache, $140
Biostar Mobo that enables the unlock $90
4 GB Ram $60
500 GB HDD $60
Antec Sonata III $80 (includes PSU)
Superdrive $20
Logitech KB and Mouse $30
OEM Windoze $80

$720 but I must be missing something

That will beat the base MP config and run a MP + 4870 close in games.

Its a hacked together frankenbeast that I would never use, but it does support the dude's post about what you can build for about $700.

[lewdvig]

Apple definitely isn't targeting gamers.

That said, the GT130M and 4850 in the new iMac's will play games nicely.

Especially the 4850. I would pass on the 130m - even though it performs OK its an old architecture (dating back to the 8600) with dubious reliability.

I wish the 4850 was available in all the models as a BTO option. I would upgrade my 20" Al.

[lewdvig]

Blizzard have done a great job with the Warcraft games, but Apple's drivers are still lagging behind, often quite badly. I've heard that Apple themselves code drivers for the NVIDIA chips, and ATI write their own for OS X. Can anyone confirm this?

The GT130 in the iMac is a 9600M GT, same as in the Macbook Pro. I'd expect it to be less underclocked, though. The Mobility Radeon 4850 is a good card, and the 4870 in the Mac Pro is excellent.

Xeon CPUs are the very best, but aren't cost effective, the extra performance they give is very expensive. Apple lack a mid range quad core solution. Most users won't notice the different between a 3GHz Core 2 Quad and a 3GHz Xeon, jsut like they won't notice the different between standard RAM and the ECC RAM in the Pro.

The new Intel Mobile Quad that is appearing in $1500 gaming notebooks like the Gateway FX series would be ideal.

Gateway does a 17 FX with 250m and Quad Core for $1500. Why can't Apple put similar parts in a top of the line iMac costing hundreds more?

The FX series is awesome. I reviewed one for NBR and it played everything I tested at max settings (except Crysis) never dropping below 24 fps.

[GonzoRob]

Valve wanted $1,000,000 to do the porting and Apple said no.

Try again in five years, I guess.

Wow, that’s pretty shocking.

Honestly, as a game developer, asking for $1,000,000 isn't much at all. In fact, that's cheap.

I know some of the Value team, from what I’ve met of them, they're seem to be really nice guys, honest and insanely talented -so I don’t think it’d be either a rip-off or bad value for money.

What a shame. I guess the reason Apple said no was because there would be no initial £ from sales for them…

[willcodejavafor]

I just get the impression they are concentrating on gaming.

What are your thoughts?~


This is not bashing, just a thought

As a gamer I would agree with you. With the 2008 iMac I'd say things turned in favor of gamers. Obviously like a lot of people will point out that it didnt have the best graphics card, but in my opinion it was good enough for playing games :)

The 2009 iMac has made that even more true.

[moslayne]

An iMac with a 4850 and a 3.06 GHz processor and 8 GB ram would be a perfectly good rig. Yes, you could build one cheeper, but it's not as though it can't play games.

Apple released a single processor machine with a perfectly good card the 4870... Because it's no $749 all the people screaming for apple to make a non-work station desktop are still pissed off. For some reason everyone on this site won't be happy until there is a sub $1000 single processor, SLI/Crossfire, E-SATA, BlueRay rig. And even then they'll be all pissed off because it has 4 Firewire 3200 ports instead of 4 Firewire 800 ports. I'm annoyed to no end by the complaining.

If you want OS-X and you get either a 4850 or a 4870 in one configuration or another, yes you're paying a bit more than building one yourself, but it's still a Mac and there isn't a game it couldn't play.

If the MacPro had a GMA950 without PCI-E slots and was $7200.00 you'd have reason to complain and call it not capable of gaming... For now other than price, I truly think the excuses need to end.

Thank you.

Well put. I'm so sick of this complaining too. This site is full of the most unsatisfied people that have ever existed.

Every apple machine can play games right now. I booted up COD4 on the cheapest alum macbook, and it ran GREAT. COD4 is a game right? Yes, and one of the best!

Just because I can't play COD4 on my 30" display at max rez with 16x anti aliasing and full details doesn't mean I can't have fun playing the game.

Stop whining people. It's getting really old. ;)

[Consultant]

OSX Snow Leopard suppose to take advantage of the graphics card, so having decent graphics card won't hurt.

There are pro apps that benefit from better graphics card, not only for gaming. ;)

[cathyy]

Thank you.

Well put. I'm so sick of this complaining too. This site is full of the most unsatisfied people that have ever existed.

Every apple machine can play games right now. I booted up COD4 on the cheapest alum macbook, and it ran GREAT. COD4 is a game right? Yes, and one of the best!

Just because I can't play COD4 on my 30" display at max rez with 16x anti aliasing and full details doesn't mean I can't have fun playing the game.

Stop whining people. It's getting really old. ;)

Meh. My 4 year old desktop with an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ processor and an ATI Radeon x600 plays COD4 fine. Even a cheap netbook with the Ion platform runs it decently too.
http://www.notebooks.com/2009/01/12/nvidia-ion-demo-call-of-duty-4-coming-to-netbooks-ces-2009/

Fact is, practically every computer that doesn't have a cheap Intel integrated card can play games.