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OS Neutral Mac Pro or retina iMac for gaming?

Eightarmedpet

Eightarmedpet

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 23, 2013
215
247
London's famous London
Nunyabinez said:
Here is my experience from gaming on the iMac with Retina. I don't have a Mac Pro so can't tell you about that.

I have the upgraded CPU and Video Card and put in my own RAM. I made a small Boot Camp partition and have an external SSD in a USB 3 case that I keep my games on. You can't get more than 4K out of Windows, so 5K gaming doesn't really exist. However, at 4K you won't get 60fps out of any serious games. I run both my desktop and my games at 1440 and they look terrific.

My previous rig was a custom PC with a GTX 760 card. The iMac is faster than that but not hugely different, maybe 10% or 15%. As far as a gaming machine it is quite capable. At home I have Unigine Heaven benchmark if you want that. But usually I run games at very high and a few at ultra settings. Usually I just fiddle with settings until I get right around 60fps.

I have had no issues with it other than I worry a little about the strain I put on the video card. The fan definitely kicks in when gaming. Never had an issue, but I wonder if I am shortening the life.

If you have any specific questions from someone who is a serious gamer using an iMac, hit me back, either here or in a PM. From my perspective the iMac with Retina is the most awesome computer in the world and for any current games a more than adequate game rig, even at serious settings.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for this, I was getting quite frustrated but this is the exact info I was after. As mentioned previously I don't expect 5k gaming but 1440 on high or ultra would be a dream.

I may well pm you too, but I am currently on the road for a few months so won't be purchasing until I'm back home, if you play dayz, or do give it a try anytime soon, it would really make my day hearing about your experiences with it.

Thanks again.
 
antonis

antonis

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Jun 10, 2011
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Eightarmedpet said:
Thank you so much for this, I was getting quite frustrated but this is the exact info I was after. As mentioned previously I don't expect 5k gaming but 1440 on high or ultra would be a dream.

I may well pm you too, but I am currently on the road for a few months so won't be purchasing until I'm back home, if you play dayz, or do give it a try anytime soon, it would really make my day hearing about your experiences with it.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

The post you quoted was a real-life serious experience post about the r-iMac concerning games. So, I will add mine concerning the new Mac Pro with D700s in as similar way. I also have Windows 8.1 installed on an external SSD using thunderbolt. I use one additional external SSD (thunderbolt as well) for extra space. The first one is where Windows boot from, the 2nd is where the games are installed. Boot/loading times are lighting fast.

Coming to the main part; games. The D700s are quite capable cards for this as well. Don't listen to anyone telling you that "these are pro cards". There is no difference between a "pro" card and a "gaming" card concerning h/w. Also games do love the fact that each D700 comes with 6gb memory (something that only top-end gaming cards started to feature). How many PCs out there are they able to play "Shadow of Mordor" with the high-detail textures pack enabled? (6gb required on the card). Mac Pro with D700s : check. The main difference between a Pro card and a consumer one, is that the former will guarantee you certified drivers and support for specific pro applications (which also, practically, is useful only for a handful of professionals).

Having the dual cards, Windows offers you the ability to use them in crossfire. Under crossfire, there is absolutely no game that won't be able to perform in ultra/high settings using this machine. This is where the Mac Pro really shines, gaming-wise. There are some games (I've only met one so far) that do have problems under crossfire (not only on Mac Pro, but in any machine featuring crossfire). But even this is not a problem, as you can turn crossfire off with a click.

I've played a lot of AAA titles on ultra settings with this machine (and still do), while also sometimes recording my gameplay for youtube uploading. This is done on the Apple Thunderbolt Display on its native resolution (2560x1440).

In general, I appreciate this machine every day either when I'm doing serious work, gaming or just editing gaming videos for upload, because of the speed it offers me, the total lack of noise and its thermal behavior that is superior even compared to a full-tower PC.
 
UniDoubleU

UniDoubleU

macrumors regular
Aug 14, 2014
160
1
Thailand
The OP is comparing base model Mac Pro with iMac 5K so I'm discussing that.

Personally I have the iMac 5K with R9 m295x, on the professional side I'm mainly working with photo heavy documents and semi-pro photography so pretty light for the machine's capabilities. It opens up my 1 TB Aperture library and work with it really smoothly. I'm sure Adobe Suite also works real well on it.

As for gaming, I game in Windows 8.1 and usually play in 1440p. Currently there's no game that I cannot run in 1440p yet. The settings depending on how demanding or optimised the game is ranging from Medium-Ultra. OP, you could tell us more about the kind of games you play.

On the Mac Pro side, many posters give info of the Mac Pro with D700s, the OP is comparing looking to compare the iMac with Mac Pro D300s. On desktop-level, the D700's Mac Pro is around R9 280x's level for each card, iMac 5K's R9 290x's is probably R9 270x and R9 m295x is around R9 285 level. As for D300 I'm sure it's a lot lower than that. You can look at the benchmark from Barefeats comparing iMac 5K with Mac Pro.

http://barefeats.com/imac5k7.html
 
Eightarmedpet

Eightarmedpet

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 23, 2013
215
247
London's famous London
These last few posts have been exactly what I was after, thank you so much guys. I'm still quite torn decision wise but getting the impression neither would be a mistake.

The only game I really play is DayZ which in its current state is poorly optimised so it's performance should only improve over time.

The D700's sound incredible but as mentioned my budget won't stretch to them so I'd be looking at the base model with d300's.

Thanks again for sharing those lengthy real world experiences, benchmarks mean nothing to me (not technically minded) so 1440 and ultra are the things I needed to hear!

Also getting slight tempted by an old Mac Pro with a 780 card or something chucked in. Will have to do some serious maths.
 
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UniDoubleU

UniDoubleU

macrumors regular
Aug 14, 2014
160
1
Thailand
Eightarmedpet said:
These last few posts have been exactly what I was after, thank you so much guys. I'm still quite torn decision wise but getting the impression neither would be a mistake.

The only game I really play is DayZ which in its current state is poorly optimised so it's performance should only improve over time.

The D700's sound incredible but as mentioned my budget won't stretch to them so I'd be looking at the base model with d300's.

Thanks again for sharing those lengthy real world experiences, benchmarks mean nothing to me (not technically minded) so 1440 and ultra are the things I needed to hear!

Also getting slight tempted by an old Mac Pro with a 780 card or something chucked in. Will have to do some serious maths.
Click to expand...

A Mac Pro 5.1 with upgraded CPU and flashed GTX 980 would run probably circles around both mentioned options right now. Still not a 4K card. But a computer from 2010 (or older) is not getting any newer. While you maybe able to easily upgrade the GPU, the slot is still PCIE 2.0 and may not support future cards fully. HDD bays are at SATA-2 and doesn't run modern SSDs at full speed. The XEON CPU is also pretty old, consumer equivalent is the first generation i7, ancient in computer age. Day-Z as other multiplayer games requires more CPU power than other games anyhow the Mac Pro 5.1 may run into CPU-bottleneck soon with newer games from Xbox 1 and PS4 generation.

Last year I've done my maths too. The only conclusion is the newer Mac. I don't quite fancy a 20 kg paperweight.
 
Eightarmedpet

Eightarmedpet

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 23, 2013
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London's famous London
More great input and advice. Thanks all.

I'm thinking the upgraded imac is going to be the best option for my needs, plus after a few years with laptops and externals I'm quite into the idea of having everything so neat in one package and one screen.

Thanks again for all those who shared real world experiences.

I do secretly wish I could stretch to a maxed out Pro, but alas...
 
S

ScotsLad

macrumors newbie
Jan 28, 2015
2
0
The MacPro has been out for over a year now and is likely due for an upgrade at some point (vaguely) soon. The retina iMac is pretty new.

If the new MacPro is out when you're ready to buy then it may be worth considering, but if not I'd say the retina iMac is likely a better gaming machine. Just opinion though, no solid evidence.
 
antonis

antonis

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Jun 10, 2011
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The OP said that he'd use Windows for gaming, though, so dual GPUs would come into play. Something that is not possible in OS X.
 
M

Mattstrete

macrumors regular
Nov 14, 2011
107
91
I can add my experience - I have a nMP 6-core with dual D500s and it runs everything in Windows 8.1 (via bootcamp) pretty well. It does not even get that hot with overclocking via MSI Afterburner. As someone already pointed out, the latest AMD Omega driver can be installed pretty easily.

For example - it runs Dragon Age Inquisition at 1440p on very high / ultra settings pretty flawlessly. Same for Metro Redux and Shadow of Mordor.

Dragon Age is even pretty smooth at 4K on high settings.
 
SuperMatt

SuperMatt

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As many people have mentioned, running Windows games in Boot Camp on a Mac Pro allows the dual graphics cards to go into crossfire mode. This makes a system with D500 or D700 cards better than the iMac Retina I think. We should get barefeats to do a Boot Camp gaming showdown between the two!
 
Eightarmedpet

Eightarmedpet

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Original poster
Dec 23, 2013
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Mattstrete said:
I can add my experience - I have a nMP 6-core with dual D500s and it runs everything in Windows 8.1 (via bootcamp) pretty well. It does not even get that hot with overclocking via MSI Afterburner. As someone already pointed out, the latest AMD Omega driver can be installed pretty easily.

For example - it runs Dragon Age Inquisition at 1440p on very high / ultra settings pretty flawlessly. Same for Metro Redux and Shadow of Mordor.

Dragon Age is even pretty smooth at 4K on high settings.
Click to expand...

Cheers guys, the over heating issues on the iMacs have me worried. Might try and pick up a second hand pro with 500's when they revise the current model.
 
0879397

0879397

Cancelled
Mar 14, 2015
43
6
Xeon for gaming? FirePro for gaming? Why? I can't imagine the new Mac Pro for gaming - really bad idea. For 3,000$ you can get a much better machine with significantly better performance.

Also, the new Retina iMac can barely take the load to power the entire screen - also bad idea for gaming. I have a 27" iMac (2012) fully spec'd and it is doing okay in gaming.
 
Eightarmedpet

Eightarmedpet

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 23, 2013
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London's famous London
dor said:
Xeon for gaming? FirePro for gaming? Why? I can't imagine the new Mac Pro for gaming - really bad idea. For 3,000$ you can get a much better machine with significantly better performance.

Also, the new Retina iMac can barely take the load to power the entire screen - also bad idea for gaming. I have a 27" iMac (2012) fully spec'd and it is doing okay in gaming.
Click to expand...

Try going back and reading the original post rather than just bursting in guns blazing, hotshot.
 
M

Mattstrete

macrumors regular
Nov 14, 2011
107
91
Well, I tried something out for the first time yesterday. It seems that no-one has had the balls to overclock the nMP.

Well, I took mine up to 950 mhz (core) and 1400 mhz (memory). (For reference, core clock is set at 725 mhz stock). This is on Windows 8.1 with the AMD Omega drivers, using MSI Afterburner with unofficial overclocking mode enabled ("without" Powerplay) and ULPS disabled.

It didn't even break a sweat. Guess those "server grade" cards and the monster heat sink really do what they are meant to do. Maximum GPU temps after a couple of hours of gaming was 70 degrees celsius!!! And this was on a hot summer's day! Clocks never dropped once, no throttling, no artifacts, no crashes. The fan didn't even ramp up that high but I set it to 1900 rpm just in case. Everything ran completely smooth at capped 60 FPS at 1440p. Diablo 3 in crossfire mode with Vsync enabled (AFR-friendly) runs at 4K at 60FPS capped (via Dxstory).
 
Eightarmedpet

Eightarmedpet

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Original poster
Dec 23, 2013
215
247
London's famous London
Mattstrete said:
Well, I tried something out for the first time yesterday. It seems that no-one has had the balls to overclock the nMP.

Well, I took mine up to 950 mhz (core) and 1400 mhz (memory). (For reference, core clock is set at 725 mhz stock). This is on Windows 8.1 with the AMD Omega drivers, using MSI Afterburner with unofficial overclocking mode enabled ("without" Powerplay) and ULPS disabled.

It didn't even break a sweat. Guess those "server grade" cards and the monster heat sink really do what they are meant to do. Maximum GPU temps after a couple of hours of gaming was 70 degrees celsius!!! And this was on a hot summer's day! Clocks never dropped once, no throttling, no artifacts, no crashes. The fan didn't even ramp up that high but I set it to 1900 rpm just in case. Everything ran completely smooth at capped 60 FPS at 1440p. Diablo 3 in crossfire mode with Vsync enabled (AFR-friendly) runs at 4K at 60FPS capped (via Dxstory).
Click to expand...

Holy crap, that's amazing to hear. I'm still pretty clueless at all this but I get the gist of what you've done. Would you say a base nMP with D300's would be worth getting or are the more powerful cards miles more powerful (but over budget).
Thanks for the real world experience input too.
 
M

Mattstrete

macrumors regular
Nov 14, 2011
107
91
Eightarmedpet said:
Holy crap, that's amazing to hear. I'm still pretty clueless at all this but I get the gist of what you've done. Would you say a base nMP with D300's would be worth getting or are the more powerful cards miles more powerful (but over budget).
Thanks for the real world experience input too.
Click to expand...

I'm not actually sure how much slower the D300s are, especially in Crossfire mode. I suspect that they are not really that much slower, certainly not that much slower to warrant the price difference between the two machines. Someone with the "base" nMP is going to have to step up to the plate and overclock it to see how it handles it.
 
koyoot

koyoot

macrumors 603
Jun 5, 2012
5,939
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Eightarmedpet said:
Holy crap, that's amazing to hear. I'm still pretty clueless at all this but I get the gist of what you've done. Would you say a base nMP with D300's would be worth getting or are the more powerful cards miles more powerful (but over budget).
Thanks for the real world experience input too.
Click to expand...

I don't know what is your budget, but I can assume that you can afford base Mac Pro only.

In that case best idea would be waiting to WWDC. Im wondering how much more powerful GPUs in next Mac Pro will be.

For me there is obvious choice for gaming, as I wanted to play in 4K in WoW, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, and in future, Overwatch.

I go with Mac Pro.
 
M

Mattstrete

macrumors regular
Nov 14, 2011
107
91
An update to my earlier overclocking report: last night I took my nMP GPUs up to 975 core, 1450 memory clocks. Still stable, temps after hours of Diablo3 were only 60 degrees C. Temps did go a bit higher in Bioshock Infinite (at 950 mhz core); they hovered in the high 80s. In my view that's still phenomenal.
 
definitive

definitive

macrumors 68020
Aug 4, 2008
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for gaming, you're probably better off with an actual windows desktop, or a hackintosh (see barefeats' latest benchmarks comparison chart).

imac is an all-in-one system, and you'll end up shortening its life by constantly putting it under heavy load. mac pro is an expensive workstation. not worth spending all that money if you want to use it for gaming.
 
ErikGrim

ErikGrim

macrumors 603
Jun 20, 2003
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Brisbane, Australia
If you are into strategy you’ll be happy to know that 5K gaming is definitely a possibility. Both Civ V and XCOM run at full clip in 5K res. So does Civ Beyond Earth, but the UI is too small to even consider. Shocking that a brand new game doesn’t come with retina UI scaling in 2015.
 
JamiLynee

JamiLynee

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Jul 8, 2014
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The PNW
I had a MBA and it would glitch hard playing Minecraft (yep, I'm one of those nerds) so I upgraded to a MBP and haven't had a single lag issue
 
A

araey

macrumors newbie
Oct 12, 2011
20
0
Toronto, Ontario.
Not sure if your still looking at what to buy but I have a nMP D700s quad core with 1TB flash and 32GB RAM running 2 TB Displays.

My personally experience this thing is a pure beast when you game in windows via bootcamp and the game is optimized for cross fire.

No issues with drivers so far. And all games have been on ultra with 60-100 FPS constant.

Games played:

ESO - Ultra - 1440p - 90 fps
WildStar - Ultra - 1440p - 110 fps
World of Warcraft - Ultra - 1440p - 120 fps
GTA V - Had to turn this down from Ultra to High - 40-60 fps - 1440p
GTA Online - Ultra - 60 fps - 1440p
Skyrim - Ultra - 100 fps - 1440p (Running a lot of mods)
Fallout 3 - Ultra - 100 fps - 1440p (Running a lot of mods)
Sims 4 - Ultra - Not sure on fps but never i would guesstimate it never dropped under 60 as i never saw it stutter - 1440p

Pros:
This machine is amazing for creative work and its great for games
Runs silent and never overheats - their ventilation system is awesome

Cons:
Currently GPU's are not upgradable so overtime will diminish obviously as new games come out - i.e. I don't think this rig will run the Witcher 3 on Ultra - more likely at High with stable 60 would be my guess.

TB Ports - Seems to be faulty or maybe a software issue - always having issues connecting my TB Display both in OS X and W8.1 and they keep switching main screens on me.

This could just be me though as i haven't heard anyone else having this problem and i did look to see.

Apart from the above i have no more cons for this rig - i absolutely love it. Great if you can afford D700's and you need a beast for your professional work.

Also recommend getting 4 or 6 core - from what i have read they will run games more efficiently.

Hope this helps!
 
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