Hopefully everyone will be able to provide some insight on this idea to build a Mac Gaming system.
I have a 2011 MacMini Server - my first mac purchase ever - which I am enjoying very much as a media server for my house. Given my positive experience with OSX Lion so far, I am interested in playing around with getting a machine to use as my main PC. I currently have an fairly new Alienware Laptop that I use for gaming (World of Warcraft) and general business applications.
Given that I'm still paying off the MacMini Server I can't afford to go buy a new second Mac all at once, but I have plenty of systems building experience and am not afraid of experimenting. I was thinking of a getting an older Mac Pro off Ebay, and seeing what I can upgrade. I also don't mind taking time looking for parts to get everything together.
What I am hoping someone could provide some insight into is what I should look for in terms of models of Mac Pro's, that I would be able to upgrade to a good Video card in eventually.
From my limited research and thread reading, it seems like there is a break in 2008 with regard to models that can be upgraded to current higher level video cards. I'd be interested in if it would be possible to use earlier Intel Proc models and still drop in a pretty fast current card (6870, or even faster?), or should I steer towards something else.
Finally, if anyone could post their gaming experiences using older mac pro's that they have upgraded, I would appreciate the insight in terms of frame rates, etc. For whatever you're doing, are you playing it in bootcamp or in OSX?
I'm not quite brave enough to want to go the hackintosh route either; otherwise I'd just build a straight up gaming windows PC.
Thanks in advance!
I have a 2011 MacMini Server - my first mac purchase ever - which I am enjoying very much as a media server for my house. Given my positive experience with OSX Lion so far, I am interested in playing around with getting a machine to use as my main PC. I currently have an fairly new Alienware Laptop that I use for gaming (World of Warcraft) and general business applications.
Given that I'm still paying off the MacMini Server I can't afford to go buy a new second Mac all at once, but I have plenty of systems building experience and am not afraid of experimenting. I was thinking of a getting an older Mac Pro off Ebay, and seeing what I can upgrade. I also don't mind taking time looking for parts to get everything together.
What I am hoping someone could provide some insight into is what I should look for in terms of models of Mac Pro's, that I would be able to upgrade to a good Video card in eventually.
From my limited research and thread reading, it seems like there is a break in 2008 with regard to models that can be upgraded to current higher level video cards. I'd be interested in if it would be possible to use earlier Intel Proc models and still drop in a pretty fast current card (6870, or even faster?), or should I steer towards something else.
Finally, if anyone could post their gaming experiences using older mac pro's that they have upgraded, I would appreciate the insight in terms of frame rates, etc. For whatever you're doing, are you playing it in bootcamp or in OSX?
I'm not quite brave enough to want to go the hackintosh route either; otherwise I'd just build a straight up gaming windows PC.
Thanks in advance!