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2009 Mac pro may be a kick-arse gaming machine

Maven1975 said:
It has been my experience with bad PC parts that you have to pay for shipping back and fourth to get the item serviced (If they even step up to service it)

Upgrading easily and losing cash in the process.

Hackintosh's is for people with WAY too much time on their hands.(Time = Money IMHO) It is indeed a PITA compared to OSX and Bootcamp.

As for the Lian Lis, $300+Ugly+Worse Design

I am the first to agree that Mac Pro's are expensive. However, I do believe you get what you pay for. In addition, I have yet to lose my shorts on a Mac.
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I don't know when your experience was, but now many reputable manufacturers such as EVGA and Corsair pay for shipping.

Upgrading and losing cash in the process? As if you don't lose any cash when you sell a Mac like you mentioned.

It only took me about 20 min to setup a hackintosh machine (excluding time for installtion).

Cases are a personal preference. There is no correct answer there.
 
Salavat23 said:
Yeah, but for slightly over $600, its possible to configure a solid gaming computer with a 4870.;)
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If all you want is a gaming PC, the mac pro makes no sense. Hell, even PC's based on the same intel chipset make no sense as a gaming rig due the the FB DIMMs lack of performance.
If you need a powerful OS X box and would like to game a bit as well, the mac pro makes perfect sense.
 
Chaos123x said:
Yeah I would just build my own computer for gaming.

Use Core i7 chips.

Run crappy Windows.

On second thought I will just use my Xbox 360 and Wii.
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What what what!!! PS3 all the way!!!!!!! :D:D:D

Flame war alert.....

On a side note, I could think of a way better way to spend the money and build a games PC as you have said that will be faster with games.
 
Just Saying

Lets just say though that you want the new Mac Pro for gaming. What setup would you do that would be most efficient and you wouldn't be wasting any of your money.
 
I guess what I meant was even if building a custom machine was better, and your heart was set on a Mac Pro, then what setup might you choose?
 
Single quad, 4870, add your own RAM. Add in a quick drive for windows if you feel the need. That's about as extensive as it gets.

Not sure how much faster the new RAM is in the benchmarks but I would personally look for an early 08 quad or octo and just add the 4870. I can't imagine performance in gaming being dramatically different with the new revision.
 
Ferrari904 said:
I guess what I meant was even if building a custom machine was better, and your heart was set on a Mac Pro, then what setup might you choose?
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Fastest processor and graphics card. Even single threaded apps take advantage of 2 processors, because then the thread can get 100% attention while the other processor does everything else in the background (max any 1 program gets on my single 1.8 is 86%). But when you have 8 cores, it's just a waste because even if the game is made to use 2 full CPUs, that leaves 6 to run the OS, when it would only take 1.

For a game that runs on only 1 core, the 4 core is perfect. 1 for the game, 1 for the system, other 2 turn off and the clock speed is increased making the game run even faster.

RAM doesn't matter at all after about 3GB. No game at this time will use more than that actively. You could have 32GB and it wont make anything faster whatsoever. 6GB would have you covered for the next 5 years. Hell 2GB is still fine and it wasn't even considered a lot back in 2004.

HDs don't matter either except for loading. 2 drives in a raid 0 would be as fast as you would need. Any more is over kill, and even 2 drives should only be done if you have extra $$$.

If you look at my sig, that is what I am going with. I honestly think 8 cores would be a complete waste for what I'll be doing. I don't need to run FC or Motion or any of that high level pro stuff.
 
I love my Mac Pro with single quad 2.8Ghz and 6GB RAM and a 8800GT (soon to be 4870) and it rocks for gaming hehe.

Last year the iMac was still utter crap for serious gaming. Ok, the MP with 8800GT under Mac OS still isn't super, but it beated the iMac.
The new iMac with a 4850 is the first step, for me, towards a more or less proper gaming system.

My reason for switching to Mac OS from Windows was because I wanted something else after 15 years.
Sadly it comes with lesser performance 3D gaming wise, but I can live with it.

I only really play World of Warcraft, so I am fine.
 
Asserting that the Mac Pro is a good gaming machine is like asserting that an M1 Abrams is a great vehicle for towing your Boston Whaler to the pond. Sure, it has the power to do it, but that's not what it was designed to do.

Get a Core i7 920, overclock it to 4.2ghz with stock cooling, add 8gbs of ram, and 4870X2, and you have a machine for about half the price of a low end mac pro that absolutely CRUSHES it for gaming.
 
m1stake said:
His point is you lose money when upgrading, period.
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+1 this is very true. I've built too many systems to count over the last 15 years and the resales value quickly drops. Whereas I see Mac Mini's that are 3-4 years old selling for $300-400 of their original $499 or $599 prices. However, that is likely to change now with the new Mac Mini's finally out.

Then again, to be able to build a super-fast Nehalem hackintosh (assuming you overclock to 3.2g or higher) for under $1K that would spank the base Mac Pro at $2.5K, I'll take the resale hit and pocket the $1500.

And in 18months it may be just as easy to upgrade to newer 6-core westmere processor.
 
mason.kramer said:
Asserting that the Mac Pro is a good gaming machine is like asserting that an M1 Abrams is a great vehicle for towing your Boston Whaler to the pond. Sure, it has the power to do it, but that's not what it was designed to do.

Get a Core i7 920, overclock it to 4.2ghz with stock cooling, add 8gbs of ram, and 4870X2, and you have a machine for about half the price of a low end mac pro that absolutely CRUSHES it for gaming.
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But it doesn't run Mac OS, does it?
And all these people saying to run a different machine with windows, whatever.
Honestly, if you don't like it, don't respond. You're also probably someone who gives a negative to every single post on the frontpage.
 
tezro said:
But it doesn't run Mac OS, does it?
And all these people saying to run a different machine with windows, whatever.
Honestly, if you don't like it, don't respond. You're also probably someone who gives a negative to every single post on the frontpage.
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It's people like me, who are genuine appreciators of Apple products, but still able to call a duck a duck, that keep Apple honest. And, honestly, this refresh is crap. So just accept that I'm going to call it like I see it, because I care.
 
"2009 Mac pro may be a kick-arse gaming machine"

I guess the thread title has to be qualified with:

"...relatively speaking, if you somehow feel the need to tie one hand behind your back with OS X and have blown your entire budget on an OS X desktop you can actually put things into yourself, as limited as that might be in practice."

I'm waiting on the Lian Li X2000 - which I don't think is very ugly - case for my dual-GTX295, i7 build. However the new case from Thermaltake had me very intrigued - I don't actually have a ship date for the X, so might buy a cheap case like the Cosmos S to stuff everything into for the time being and see how that pans out. My first self-build in about three years... I'll have to see how far my 'tidy computer' OCD goes ;)

However it goes though, one thing is in little doubt - it'll blow the new Pro clean out of the water, for not much more in terms of money. And even if that was all you could afford, as a home machine it'll likely do everything else that you might come across normally probably nearly as well too.
 
shokunin said:
Then again, to be able to build a super-fast Nehalem hackintosh (assuming you overclock to 3.2g or higher) for under $1K that would spank the base Mac Pro at $2.5K, I'll take the resale hit and pocket the $1500.
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That's the way I see it ATM. Even with the resale hit, you still come out ahead.

A poster in another thread managed to put a system together, albeit with a few recycled parts, for under $800USD. OC'ed an i7 920 to 3.6GHz.
 
Sesshi said:
However the new case from Thermaltake had me very intrigued
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Link please. The new Mac Pro is worth 70% of it's asking price, and I'm torn between a 2008 brand new Mac Pro for less than $2000 or a new build entirely. Either way it's going to be faster than my G4 :p
 
Sesshi said:
I'm waiting on the Lian Li X2000...
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I like Lian Li as well, and picked up a PC-V2010 a few months ago. Well made, internal layout is nice, plenty of room, and actually looks decent.
Sesshi said:
My first self-build in about three years... I'll have to see how far my 'tidy computer' OCD goes ;)
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:eek: You mean I'm not the only one with that affliction? :eek:

Now to resist the urge to whip out the soldering iron and customize the wire lengths... ;) :p
 
nanofrog said:
:eek: You mean I'm not the only one with that affliction? :eek:

Now to resist the urge to whip out the soldering iron and customize the wire lengths... ;) :p
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I think everyone does that. :p

I remember finishing my current build, and I was about to boot it up and it hit me: I HAVE TO MAKE THIS PERFECT. :eek:

Anyway I made a decision, I'm going with a really cheap 08 model which I can probably break even next year after Christmas and give myself a brand new build as a gift when the 300 series, 5000 series, and Intel's larabee show up along with the i7 shrink.
 
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