Best option for Gaming Mac?

[ToroidalZeus]

If you care about gaming I would recommend just building a hackintosh. I build a Mac Pro for a fraction of the cost and i'll be gaming at 1440p on max everything. Best of all when graphic cards get a little more powerful and 4k monitors drop in price I'll have the freedom to upgrade my setup.

List of my parts:http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6CN76h

 

[tillsbury]

If OP was going to self-build he'd presumably just stick with a Windows machine, as any serious iMac gaming will be in Bootcamp anyway.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

If OP was going to self-build he'd presumably just stick with a Windows machine, as any serious iMac gaming will be in Bootcamp anyway.

Yes of course dual boot for gaming. The FPS are usually better in windows because of the DX11 support v OpenGL under Mac.

 

[leman]

How much faster - especially for gaming in 1440p - do you think the i5 retina iMac with the AMD Radeon R9 M295X will be, compared to the previous i5 iMac with the GTX 780m (assume both have the same RAM and Fusion Drive)?

Probably around the same, might be few percents faster.

GTX 780m was released in May 2013. I'm really looking for a long-term investment. Not a temporary solution that will last me 1.5 years.

Then you should look at gaming desktops.

 

[Georgio]

For all the people who think that the new AMD gpu is as good as the new NVidia gpu for gaming here is some interesting reading:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/comput...80m-970m-laptop-gpus-980m-benchmarked-tested/

For those who want to cut to the chase of the differences in game terms here is a very telling graph:

Such a wasted opportunity.

 

[Gav Mack]

For all the people who think that the new AMD gpu is as good as the new NVidia gpu for gaming here is some interesting reading:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/comput...80m-970m-laptop-gpus-980m-benchmarked-tested/

For those who want to cut to the chase of the differences in game terms here is a very telling graph:

Image


Such a wasted opportunity.

OpenCL performance is a much closer contest, even with the GTX 980. The pricing and them not wanting to have to licence CUDA are the primary reasons they have switched to AMD post Mac Pro 6,1. OpenCL is for GPU acceleration in pro apps such as FCPX etc.

 

[theSeb]

I'm going to lose my Applecare warranty If I do it myself, no?

----------

I was reading an article about the 5K iMac and gaming and I'm starting to wonder if this is a good idea at all.

" Finally, gaming — and here’s where the reality is going to bite. You aren’t going to be doing any gaming on a 5K display at anything like high detail levels. You may not even pull it off at low detail levels, and for a very simple reason: The R9 M290 is a midrange GPU from 2012 boxing way, way out of its weight class on this one. Despite the term, 5K is not 25% more pixels than 4K — it’s almost two times as many pixels. "

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/19...a-last-gen-gpu

If you upgrade the ram yourself, you won't lose AppleCare.

 

[RyanJWilliams]

For all the people who think that the new AMD gpu is as good as the new NVidia gpu for gaming here is some interesting reading:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/comput...80m-970m-laptop-gpus-980m-benchmarked-tested/

For those who want to cut to the chase of the differences in game terms here is a very telling graph:

Image


Such a wasted opportunity.

Yes, like I said on the previous page (which the OP unwisely seems to have ignored), the stock GPU in any of the iMacs is not optimal for gaming at all.

The difference between the standard and upgraded GPU in the non-Retina iMacs is very substantial, and the same will be case with the Retina iMacs.

Don't let the fact that the difference between M290X and M295X doesn't sound very big mislead you. Not only does the latter have twice the RAM just like its non-Retina predecessor, everything I've read about the specs indicates that it's raw horsepower will be a considerable step up too.

Put simply, the GPU upgrade is essential for gaming. If there's just one component you upgrade, be sure it's that one.

 

[Georgio]

Yes, like I said on the previous page (which the OP unwisely seems to have ignored), the stock GPU in any of the iMacs is not optimal for gaming at all.

The difference between the standard and upgraded GPU in the non-Retina iMacs is very substantial, and the same will be case with the Retina iMacs.

Don't let the fact that the difference between M290X and M295X doesn't sound very big mislead you. Not only does the latter have twice the RAM just like its non-Retina predecessor, everything I've read about the specs indicates that it's raw horsepower will be a considerable step up too.

Put simply, the GPU upgrade is essential for gaming. If there's just one component you upgrade, be sure it's that one.

Yep exactly what I did for my last iMac purchase and went with the 680M gpu.

 

[Andune]

Don't let the fact that the difference between M290X and M295X doesn't sound very big mislead you.

Yeah, the name doesn't do justice to the M295X, if the leaked specs are true they're two completely different cards

 

[Mac32]

If I've understood this correctly, though, if you play in 1440p, it will scale to precisely 4x (2x2) the pixels - which is the resolution that the 2013 iMac ran natively - that means pixels shouldn't be distorted, only twice (4x actually) larger than you'd see them on the 5K screen natively. However, that would make them the same quality as the 2013 iMac at native 1440p resolution.

So the question is whether - in 1440p - the retina iMac is faster than the 2013 iMac. If it is, then it should be the gaming iMac of choice. If not, then one would either go with the 2013 model or wait for a 2015 one.

I suppose I'll wait for Barefeats or someone else to run the tests and comparisons...

I also used to think this, but AFAIK the image will become blurry - and the image quality will be inferior to the native resolution. This is however after reading various posts here on this forum, I don't have a retina macbook or iMac myself. Can anyone with a retina display confirm this? Thanks.
Apart for the IQ issue, the AMD card is a huge letdown compared to the gaming performance possible with 980M.

 

[koyoot]

Radeon R9 M290X is an old Pitcairn GPU. Radeon R9 M295X is based on new GPU - Tonga. Thats why it will be way more powerful and efficient.

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/8832926 This is a benchmark of(everything points to this GPU...) R9 M295X. Its 20% better(graphics score of 15200 vs 12500) than GTX980M and its about on par with desktop GTX970.

If this turns out to be true than we have hell of a GPU in iMac.

 

[Vladislav]

Radeon R9 M290X is an old Pitcairn GPU. Radeon R9 M295X is based on new GPU - Tonga. Thats why it will be way more powerful and efficient.

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/8832926 This is a benchmark of(everything points to this GPU...) R9 M295X. Its 20% better(graphics score of 15200 vs 12500) than GTX980M and its about on par with desktop GTX970.

If this turns out to be true than we have hell of a GPU in iMac.

Faster then 980m?? you must be kidding, anyone else can confirm this?

 

[koyoot]

Faster then 980m?? you must be kidding, anyone else can confirm this?

Look at the Graphics score, and compare with scores from GTX980M, and GTX970(desktop).

Only physics is bottlenecking the R9 Radeon, here.

 

[Winter Charm]

If I've understood this correctly, though, if you play in 1440p, it will scale to precisely 4x (2x2) the pixels - which is the resolution that the 2013 iMac ran natively - that means pixels shouldn't be distorted, only twice (4x actually) larger than you'd see them on the 5K screen natively. However, that would make them the same quality as the 2013 iMac at native 1440p resolution.

So the question is whether - in 1440p - the retina iMac is faster than the 2013 iMac. If it is, then it should be the gaming iMac of choice. If not, then one would either go with the 2013 model or wait for a 2015 one.

I suppose I'll wait for Barefeats or someone else to run the tests and comparisons...

The R9 M290X is actually a bit slower than the GTX 780m at lower resolutions, but it scales better to higher resolutions.

However, that R9 M295X is a totally new card, and is an absolute BEAST. Early looks at the specifications indicate that it may be faster than the 970m or 980m cards that nvidia just released.

 

[steve62388]

For all the people who think that the new AMD gpu is as good as the new NVidia gpu for gaming here is some interesting reading:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/comput...80m-970m-laptop-gpus-980m-benchmarked-tested/

For those who want to cut to the chase of the differences in game terms here is a very telling graph:

Image


Such a wasted opportunity.

This more thorough benchmarking does not show the same delta compared to the 880M:-
http://www.computershopper.com/feature/performance-preview-nvidia-geforce-gtx-980m

 

[awer25]

If you care about gaming I would recommend just building a hackintosh. I build a Mac Pro for a fraction of the cost and i'll be gaming at 1440p on max everything. Best of all when graphic cards get a little more powerful and 4k monitors drop in price I'll have the freedom to upgrade my setup.

List of my parts:http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6CN76h

I agree (if OP knows what he is doing). I built a hackintosh based on a Z97 motherboard, i7-4970K CPU and 780 Ti GPU. It's rock solid running OSX for work, and plays any game at max quality at 1440p. It's the only way to truly get the best of both worlds.

 

[theSeb]

If you care about gaming I would recommend just building a hackintosh. I build a Mac Pro for a fraction of the cost and i'll be gaming at 1440p on max everything. Best of all when graphic cards get a little more powerful and 4k monitors drop in price I'll have the freedom to upgrade my setup.

List of my parts:http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6CN76h

I don't think a hackintosh is appropriate for people that need advice on how to configure their computer from a web page when presented with 8 choices.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

I agree (if OP knows what he is doing). I built a hackintosh based on a Z97 motherboard, i7-4970K CPU and 780 Ti GPU. It's rock solid running OSX for work, and plays any game at max quality at 1440p. It's the only way to truly get the best of both worlds.

That is a really good build and I almost went with the exact same setup.

I've personally owned the PowerBook 540c and G4 titanium, PowerMac G3 beige, PowerMac G4 blue & white, PowerMac G5, intel iMac, Macbook Pro 15", Macbook Pro retina 15" and I don't regret making a hackintosh one bit--plus I used a PowerMac G5 case for it--because you just can't get good performance with Apple's margins.

 

[Confusius]

that R9 M295X is a totally new card, and is an absolute BEAST. Early looks at the specifications indicate that it may be faster than the 970m or 980m cards that nvidia just released.

Splendid. Now we'll just need to find out whether the 5K display scales well to 1440p and if it does, I'll be ready to buy my first iMac of this decade.

 

[Zellio]

Yes, like other's say... Playing in 5k is unrealistic, it will produce crappy framerates. And if you play in 1440p the image will be blurry. I'm sure the 5k display is fantastic, but if you want to game regularly I recommend the ordinary iMac version.

I'm pretty sure the games he mentioned should run at 5k (Maybe lower settings on diablo and starcraft). They aren't exactly demanding games.

 

[iSayuSay]

You guys are giving me 2 completely different build. The guy at the Apple Live chat gave me a similar build to yours Confusius.

Hardware

3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x8GB
1TB Fusion Drive
AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4GB GDDR5

Holy F .. Don't ever fall into Apple RAM upgrade. If you had the money, get 3TB Fusion Drive upgrade and stick with 8GB standard. Put the extra 2 x 4GB RAM by yourself to boost it to 16GB, which only cost you around $80.

To be honest though, M295X might not last well for 5 years. I'd say 2 years from now and you'll need to water down graphic settings in some game. It's still a mobile graphic feeding 5K display. For basic tasks and UI it will be fine though.

 

[iSayuSay]

For all the people who think that the new AMD gpu is as good as the new NVidia gpu for gaming here is some interesting reading:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/comput...80m-970m-laptop-gpus-980m-benchmarked-tested/

For those who want to cut to the chase of the differences in game terms here is a very telling graph:

Image


Such a wasted opportunity.

Wow 980M is such a great card. Poor decided to stick with Radeon and pass along a great chance with nVidia. I really had a bad experience with failing Radeon chip in a Mac. Yep nVidia has its scars with 2008 Macbook and iMac graphic but current Mac with Geforce is extremely reliable.

 

[steve62388]

For all the people who think that the new AMD gpu is as good as the new NVidia gpu for gaming here is some interesting reading:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/comput...80m-970m-laptop-gpus-980m-benchmarked-tested/

For those who want to cut to the chase of the differences in game terms here is a very telling graph:

Image


Such a wasted opportunity.

You picked out the one benchmark that paints the M290X in a particularly bad light, the others don't show anywhere near that difference (maybe it was a driver issue?). For the sake of balance you should have really made it clear that was the case, you were being a bit disingenuous.

For example:-

 

[Tanax]

You picked out the one benchmark that paints the M290X in a particularly bad light, the others don't show anywhere near that difference (maybe it was a driver issue?). For the sake of balance you should have really made it clear that was the case, you were being a bit disingenuous.

For example:-

Image

Also, that is 290x and not the 295x so the 295x should be even better!