A Mac and a PC

[panzer06]

People arent thinking of the future. A MBP may have a good video card by todays standards but it wont be so great in a year when you find youself having to lower detail levels to medium. And in 2 years? It will be virtually useless. If you want to keep playing games youll have to buy another MBP every 2 years. Its not that hard to buy a $250-300 video card every 2 years to keep up, but spending around $2000? To hell with that idea. Ram, processors, motherboards, hdd's, soundcards all last much longer than a video card, youd be throwing your money away if you kept buying a whole new computer just because the video card needs replacing. Its extremely important for gamers to have an upgradable computer because it saves thousands of dollars in the long run, I dont know what the hell Apple's problem is by not giving us that option.

I am amazed that this issue keeps coming up (GPU options). The overwhelming majority of PCs are sold with onboard or inferior graphics cards because the overwhelming majority of computer buyers don’t know or care about high performance gaming.

Now before anyone says “but PC owners have the option to buy better cards” lets put this in perspective. Again, many, many PC laptops have inferior GPU implementations and most have few or no BTO options. You either buy different model or in many cases a different brand. The same is true for many PC desktop systems. The gaming community is large, however, as a percentage of total PC & Mac sales it is very small.

I know many of us pay premium pricing for some of our Macs and that such expenditures would garner more choices if spent on a PC (desktop or laptop), however, as it is in the PC world, Macs sold to gamers who want the best are a small percentage of overall sales. Perhaps this percentage would increase if there were additional high-performance GPU and storage (let’s not forget Apple’s lack of 200GB 7200rpm and 250GB 5400rpm hard drives) options. Is this a market Apple sees as sufficiently large enough to warrant making adjustments to their hardware platforms to accommodate higher heat or power requirements or even just carrying extra component stock?

As it has been thus far and most likely shall be for the foreseeable future, Macs will offer great aesthetics, reasonable performance and superior reliability at a premium price. So long as a segment of the computer buying marketplace feels this is a compelling combination, Apple will continue to grow among the “middle masses” that require easy to use computers that are “powerful enough”.

High-performance computer gaming remains the purview of high-performance PCs. You can build or buy a PC that will max out all or most game settings for under $1200 (and mostly upgradeable for $200-$300 a year). For many of us who enjoy games, this is an acceptable alternative that will continue to be viable for years to come.

There is no point in continuing to debate and feel frustrated at Apple’s seemingly disinterested stance with regard to high-performance GPU options. The product sets stand on their own, providing real value to the vast majority of users while challenging the bland corporate mentality of their PC rivals.

Cheers,

 

[apinchofhope]

The product sets stand on their own, providing real value to the vast majority of users while challenging the bland corporate mentality of their PC rivals.

This is why I bought a Mac. I am the type of person who wouldn't buy an ugly computer, even if it were super-cheap or super-overpowered, or both. I need something that is aesthetically pleasing as well as functional. Now, I would hardly call my MBP merely functional, but I know it's not a hardcore gaming machine. For the casual gamer (I play WoW and the Sims2), it's really the perfect machine because even though I only run my games at default settings, games on the MBP run SO much smoother than my old HP pavillion did. Also, I appreciate that my Mac doesn't sound like it's trying to take flight whenever I turn on a full-screen game, and I can leave it running, but asleep, on my desk at night and it doesn't keep me awake with the fan noise.

I know this is pretty much totally off-topic, but I think that a lot of people switch to Macs not only because they're completely sick of their systems crashing (or fled from the horrors that is Vista), but because they have captured the full essence of what computers can be. They can be powerful and stylish, impressive and easy-to-use. There isn't a need for clunky machinery.

Even my dad, a notorious Mac-hater, said that PC brands could take a page out of Apple's book and make sleeker looking systems.

 

[techlover828]

so you're planing on using the monitor for both machines? Also, I would get different speakers than built in ones.