Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Contemplating a Mac but have lots of questions...

trparky said:
I'd like to keep it under $1800 to $2000 if at all possible. I'd have to save up some cash to do it so it'll be a couple of months until I pull the trigger on this little plan of mine. I just want to get some ideas on what hardware I should get before walking into the Apple Store; I have two of them that I can choose from to go to.

1 TB would be enough. I keep most if not all of my programs and data on a 500 GB SSD on my current Windows machine and have more than enough to spare.

I have 16 GBs of RAM in my current Windows box but who knows how much RAM I would really need in a Mac. Most of the time Windows users need a lot of RAM is because Windows is such a pig when it comes to RAM. I can always upgrade the RAM later by adding more later if need be.
Click to expand...

OK, now we know the following:

1) You are casual gamer, and you don't play graphics-intensive First Person Shooters

2) Your budget limit is $2000

3) Your hard drive capacity needs are up to 500GB

4) RAM 8 - 16GB

5) It will be a few months more before you can buy an iMac

This last point is important, because, if you can hold off till October, you might get the current iMac some 20% cheaper, and if you are lucky you might find a refurbished one for a further 20% discount.

Currently the base iMac 5K is $1,999, with 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD. With a 500GB SSD it goes up to $2,499. In October this particular setup shouldn't cost more than $2,000 - and a refurbished one even less.

So, my advice, wait till October before walking in an Apple Store! Good luck and have fun, you will enjoy the world of OS X I can promise you that.

P.S. One more thing (wink wink): If you are doing video editing, I suggest 16GB RAM, otherwise 8GB is enough.
 
dollystereo said:
I insist, look at the refurbished store, you can get a heck of a deal!
One example:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/G0PG4LL/A/refurbished-27-inch-imac-35ghz-quad-core-Intel-Core-i7
Get away of the RImac, get a nice maxed out last gen with a fusion drive.
I play the same games as you, blizzard works very well on the mac, they make nice games with good support.
...even cheaper:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/G0MS5LL/A/refurbished-27-inch-imac-34ghz-quad-core-Intel-Core-i7
Click to expand...

I understand he is a casual gamer. Games aside, 5K is the way to go man, don't put him off of the best display in the world. Viewing photos @5K makes a world of difference, not to mention increasing 4K video content. Photos from my Canon 5D are 5616x3744, which is still higher than iMac's 5K. So I personally wouldn't mind an 8K :)))

I guess he is buying an iMac with intention of keeping it for at least 3 years, and you're telling him to go 2K? :-/
 
trparky said:
So what is the general consensus? Is it that just because I play some games I'm going to be forever stuck in a Microsoft dominated hell? I for one don't and can't accept that.

There's got to be an alternative for people like me that can't stand where Microsoft is going.
Click to expand...

A refurbished (from Apple) or second hand (from any other source) 27" iMac with a 680MX will be more than adequate for your needs. Alternatively a refurb iMac with the 775M or 780M.

That would be the Late 2012 model to Late 2013/4 models.

It doesn't have a retina screen, but the screen it has (a 2560x1440 panel) is outstanding, and the GPU in it is cool, quiet and plenty powerful for all of Blizzard's games in their Mac native versions.

Bonus: you'll pay a lot less for one of these than a retina one and it won't run like a space heater when you're playing the occasional game.
 
trparky said:
Finder will annoy me? Heck, Explorer on Windows annoys me so no change there. LOL

There's a lot of things that annoy me to no end about Windows. Like having to reinstall Windows every year or so just because the thing had been loaded down with so much garbage under the hood that it runs like truck tied to a boat anchor.

----------

I figure that when I do go for it, which will be some time until I get the funds for this kind of endeavor, I'll sign up for that Apple class where you get a year's worth of tutoring on how to use Mac OS X.

----------

I figure that if I'm going to do this I'm not going to cheap out. I'm not going to settle. I'm going to save up the cash and do it right.

The good thing is, once I buy this thing I'll be able to get a good long time out of the machine. Some people have said that they have gotten as many as five (sometimes more) years out of a Mac.
Click to expand...

I'm using a Mac Pro and I've been using the same machine for 8 years now and it's still going strong. Never had a single hiccup, not a single crash, ever. It was a beast of a machine back in the day and even today, with an upgraded video card and SSD, I can still do pretty much any task well, though I will be switching to a 5K iMac in the next week and use my old Mac Pro as a secondary computer.

Speaking of which..., what about a 5,1 Mac Pro desktop? They are beasts still and you can upgrade the graphics card(s) even to something like NVIDIA GTX 970 or even GTX 980 (search the forum for people who've done it) if gaming is one key aspect. The attractiveness of going that route would be that you can upgrade almost all components yourself and spend less than going with a new Mac Pro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGtx-KX4lVU

If you want a latest model, I suggest that you hop on over to Youtube and checkout what it's like to game on an iMac. There are plenty of videos that demonstrate the performance you can expect on various machines.

World of Warcraft demo on an iMac 5k: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFYifUSvycA

World of Warcraft on a late 2013 iMac (non Retina): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5WE8prVOj8

There are plenty more videos you can check out, the above are just two random samples.
 
EnesM said:
I guess he is buying an iMac with intention of keeping it for at least 3 years, and you're telling him to go 2K? :-/
Click to expand...

I don't know where the idea that the 1440p panel in the "old" 27" suddenly because terrible overnight, but it is a rock solid, high quality piece of hardware that is 90% of the way to being retina for typical viewing distances (the dpi is slightly on the wrong side of the curve but only very slightly).

For the vast majority of people the 1440p panel is going to be outstanding.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dollystereo
joe-h2o said:
I don't know where the idea that the 1440p panel in the "old" 27" suddenly because terrible overnight, but it is a rock solid, high quality piece of hardware that is 90% of the way to being retina for typical viewing distances (the dpi is slightly on the wrong side of the curve but only very slightly).

For the vast majority of people the 1440p panel is going to be outstanding.
Click to expand...

Outstanding it is, but we're talking about a few years later. Will he regret getting the non retina in 2017? I'm 100% certain that he will.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I've been using a retina Macbook Pro for 3 years now, and I can't go back to non-retina displays any more. I'm sooo used to it that the pixels now really annoy me on other screens. Just yesterday I was at a friend's house, and he has a non-retina 27". I played around for a few minutes and decided it's not for me (I'm not exaggerating).

He should really go the Apple Store and play around with both of them for 15 min each. First on the 5K, then on the older one ;)
 
I've been running a 23-inch monitor at 1440x900 resolution for so long that resolution doesn't really matter to me. Hell, I wear glasses and my prescription is so strong (I have high-index lenses and the sides are still thick as hell LOL) that extremely high resolutions will be lost on me. My eyes are bad, what can I say.
 
If you are not already set on which Mac you want to purchase then I can tell you that the iMac 21,5" with NVIDIA 750M is one hell of a machine - I've been using one for almost 2 years - I haven't had issues with it at all. Running cool and I can run the games that I want(GRID and GRID 2 for instance)

I think you'll be happy with OS X and the tools it offers - the Finder is not as bad as some like to tell you.

:)

But with regards to Retina iMac - I so want to purchase one of those too. I've seen Retina in an Apple Store and that is a crazy cool display.
 
You like Windows 7 but not 8? Have you looked into Windows 10? I hear a lot of people consider it an improvement over 8. And from what I've seen shares a lot of similarities with OS X.

As far as gaming goes a PC w/ windows tends to be a better choice. Better selection overall and can have better performance vs price (if done properly especially if you build your own).

However those games you mention will run fine on a 27" iMac (I used to play WoW). I currently play Elder Scrolls Online and on medium high (mostly high) graphic settings I hover around 30-60 (vsync max). All under OS X.

i5 3.4, 775m graphics, 24gb RAM.

Regardless if gaming was high on my priorities I wouldn't get a Mac. Thats just my opinion though.
 
The more research that I'm doing the more I've come to the conclusion that if I game I'm going to be stuck in Windows land for forever. I guess I better start liking Windows 10 because that's where I'm going to end up getting stuck with.

Hopefully someone can come up with decent WindowBlinds themes to make the OS look semi decent as versus the God awful design that Microsoft thinks looks good. I still stand by the statement that whoever signed off on the design of Windows 8 and 10 should be fired and have his head put on a pike for this horrific mistake as a message to the next ten generations that you don't mess with a good thing.

Sorry to take your time folks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Cape Dave
Metal on Mac OSX 10.11 El Capitan, it might just be what it takes to help level the playing field when it comes to gaming on the Mac (I certainly hope it does) and it might just be what it takes to loosen Microsoft's death grip on the computing market.

Blizzard has already said that their games will take advantage of Metal on the Mac once El Capitan is released so for a person like me who plays a lot of Blizzard games like the ones that I mentioned earlier in this thread, it may be what it takes for me to jump ship to the Mac.
 
trparky said:
The more research that I'm doing the more I've come to the conclusion that if I game I'm going to be stuck in Windows land for forever. I guess I better start liking Windows 10 because that's where I'm going to end up getting stuck with.

Hopefully someone can come up with decent WindowBlinds themes to make the OS look semi decent as versus the God awful design that Microsoft thinks looks good. I still stand by the statement that whoever signed off on the design of Windows 8 and 10 should be fired and have his head put on a pike for this horrific mistake as a message to the next ten generations that you don't mess with a good thing.

Sorry to take your time folks.
Click to expand...

Why not get an iMac that suits your needs, and BootCamp it? You can dual boot Windows and OS X and ease your transition that way, allow you to run games and any other programs as you see fit, and then switch over to OS X when you're tired of Windows. And if it turns out OS X is not for you, Mac hardware consistently gets rated as some of the best machines to run Windows on anyway. So you'll be fine either way. Or, you can sell it. Macs retain their resale value far better than Windows hardware.

Also, there's been little addressing of your other needs: Office Suite and SSH. iWork is decent, though honestly I would recommend getting MS Office for the Mac if you're sharing documents at all with other users. Fortunately even Microsoft is required to adhere to Apple interface guidelines, so nonsense like the ribbon are mitigated by standard OS X menu interfaces that keep things consistent. If I had to choose between Office for Windows and Office for Mac, I'd go with the latter anytime.

And as for SSH, there's a whole UNIX terminal built right in to OS X. I manage linux servers all the time, and the built in UNIX command set and terminal are good enough right out of the box (though enhanced versions exist like iTerm2 if you want).

Anyway, I share your pain. I was diehard Windows but left with the Vista debacle. Windows 7 was interesting, but 8.x and 10 are doing absolutely nothing to make to even consider going back. I do run them (7, 8.1, 10 Preview) as VMs on my iMac, so that I have points of reference with Windows users and can help troubleshoot their problems, but above all else those VMs just keep reminding me why I'm a Mac user.
 
EnesM said:
If you are referring to the Photos app, I couldn't agree more, but I do think they just left out a lot of features in order to get it out the door already. I sincerely hope they'll add more features and flexibility to it as I like the design.

----------

As for the gaming on a Mac advice, I think with the games you mentioned you won't have a problem on an iMac. iMac 5K beats even beat Mac Pro in some benchmark tests. But, of course, don't expect to play them @5K res...

But if you own those games, (and if you're not a pirate), I'd suggest you install Bootcamp Windows so you can enjoy all the games you own already for Windows. That way you can still enjoy the wonders of OS X, and games for Windows.
Click to expand...
He owns blizzard games - all blizzard games bought comes with win and mac os installations - all u need is log in to battle.net account and download appropriate installer. no need to instal Windows.
 
trparky said:
The more research that I'm doing the more I've come to the conclusion that if I game I'm going to be stuck in Windows land for forever. I guess I better start liking Windows 10 because that's where I'm going to end up getting stuck with.

Hopefully someone can come up with decent WindowBlinds themes to make the OS look semi decent as versus the God awful design that Microsoft thinks looks good. I still stand by the statement that whoever signed off on the design of Windows 8 and 10 should be fired and have his head put on a pike for this horrific mistake as a message to the next ten generations that you don't mess with a good thing.

Sorry to take your time folks.
Click to expand...
If you came to us and said that gaming was your primary use for your computer then I'd say that you're probably right to stay with Windows. But you're a casual gamer, you listed games that aren't particularly demanding, and better yet, those games have OS X versions. So what's the problem?

At this point in my life I'm a casual gamer, too. Do you know what I do when I want to play a game that has no OS X version? I run it in a virtual machine. You're not "supposed" to do that because the performance isn't as good, but the games aren't particularly demanding and they look and play just fine. And get this: I'm using a 2011 MacBook Pro. Newer systems can do even more. And if I wanted to play a more demanding game, I'd install Windows to a Boot Camp partition, reboot my computer, and go directly into Windows. It'd be a bit of a pain, but since I'd only be doing it here and there (again, casual gamer), I could pull it off. It sounds like you could, too.

If Windows overall is annoying you for your day-to-day usage, I think the switch might be worthwhile. Mac hardware isn't the absolute best for gaming, and the fact that you can't upgrade your own graphics card can be a detriment, but if you're not gaming heavily or trying to keep up with the latest, most demanding games, then it works fine.

As a side note, part of the reason why gaming on OS X isn't great is because games are poorly optimized for the platform. Many games are made targeting Windows, and are then ported over to OS X. Some ports are exceptional, and others are downright shoddy, leading to games that take more power than they should and that are unstable. It's also partly for this reason that I wouldn't expect big things from Metal in OS X 10.11. It'll be great for games that are designed and/or ported to use its protocols, but drivers were never the primary problem to begin with.
 
The whole idea is that I don't want to have to dumb down the graphics in games or deal with sub-optimal frame rates to play a game. Honestly, if I were to go to the Mac I would take the full immersion route. Use Mac OSX full time and don't boot camp it. I would only have Windows running in Parallels for those few program I still need to use that are Windows only. My idea would be to leave Windows on the trash heap of history where I think it belongs.

I really do think that Microsoft has lost its way. It shows in how they just can't seem to settle on one idea and stick with it. No wonder why the Windows Store is devoid of any really decent apps, the app developers know that it's a joke and a bad one at that (they aren't laughing).

For instance... Windows phone developer have been asked to migrate from Windows Phone 7 Silverlight, to Windows Phone 8.x modern/Store apps, and now to "Universal App" in just the last four years. This is why Developers are fed up, no longer supporting the platform, and not making their apps available on the Windows platform.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Cape Dave
If you look at the Mac and by extension iOS Apple has stuck to a single idea and hasn't left their developers in the cold like Microsoft has. Yes, Apple has come out with a new programming language called Swift but it's not like they've told their developers that they can't use Objective C anymore. Heck, you can have Swift and Objective C all rolled into one app and use each programming language for the pieces and parts of the app that the programming language is good for. Swift for the easy parts and Objective C for the heavy lifting.

But no, Microsoft decided to completely alienate their developers and rip not just one but two programming platforms out from under the feet of their developers. Now they're sitting back on the sidelines wondering why developers aren't making anything for their platforms anymore.
 
trparky said:
The more research that I'm doing the more I've come to the conclusion that if I game I'm going to be stuck in Windows land for forever. I guess I better start liking Windows 10 because that's where I'm going to end up getting stuck with.

Hopefully someone can come up with decent WindowBlinds themes to make the OS look semi decent as versus the God awful design that Microsoft thinks looks good. I still stand by the statement that whoever signed off on the design of Windows 8 and 10 should be fired and have his head put on a pike for this horrific mistake as a message to the next ten generations that you don't mess with a good thing.

Sorry to take your time folks.
Click to expand...
Blizzard games run great in the mac, the non-retina imac are very good gaming machines. Forget about gaming at 5k. The imac is solid and performs well (not as well as a PC, but pretty good). I am sure the iMac from a year from now is going to be great, but actually, the "old" 27" display is amazing, and for gaming is overkill.
 
trparky said:
The whole idea is that I don't want to have to dumb down the graphics in games or deal with sub-optimal frame rates to play a game. Honestly, if I were to go to the Mac I would take the full immersion route. Use Mac OSX full time and don't boot camp it. I would only have Windows running in Parallels for those few program I still need to use that are Windows only. My idea would be to leave Windows on the trash heap of history where I think it belongs.
Click to expand...
Again, since you're not pushing the boundaries of gaming, you're not going to have to touch the graphics settings or deal with poor frame rates. Heck, for the games you're currently playing, you could probably go into the graphics settings to max them out.

The point I'm trying to make is that when people deride gaming on Mac, they're doing so based on what "hardcore" gamers are trying to do. I agree that Macs and OS X are not a good choice for hardcore gamers, but you're not claiming to be a hardcore gamer. I also throw in the bit about Boot Camp not because you should expect to have to do it (I never have), but to be aware that it's an option. Yes, a Mac can be expensive, but the fact is that you'll be able to do just about everything that you're hoping to on the computer. OS X and game support for it doesn't need to be the factor that's holding you back.
 
EnesM said:
I understand he is a casual gamer. Games aside, 5K is the way to go man, don't put him off of the best display in the world. Viewing photos @5K makes a world of difference, not to mention increasing 4K video content. Photos from my Canon 5D are 5616x3744, which is still higher than iMac's 5K. So I personally wouldn't mind an 8K :)))

I guess he is buying an iMac with intention of keeping it for at least 3 years, and you're telling him to go 2K? :-/
Click to expand...
Blizzard games run better on Nvidia. That's why, and the retina Imac is to expensive, his budget is $2000. For this, he can get a nice i7, fusion drive, 16gb gtx780 refurb imac. The games will fly.
Diablo and WoW are pretty demanding in resources.
 
trparky said:
At most I'd go with maybe a 27inch iMac, maybe even a 21inch model. I don't need 5K.

There's a nice thing about Blizzard games, if you buy a license for the game on Windows you essentially bought the license to also run it on the Mac as well. Your license is tied to your Battle.NET account so you download the Battle.NET program/app, login, and it let's you download the native game for your OS be it Windows or Mac.

----------

I'm not really a heavy gamer so I could spend most if not all of my time in Mac OSX and just keep Windows in a VirtualBox or Parallels VM.
Click to expand...

27 inch. Best.
 
trparky said:
First, some background. I'm somewhat an entrenched Microsoft customer meaning I've been using PCs for a very long time. I've been in the Microsoft camp since... God, I think Windows 95. I currently use Windows 7 and like the OS but Windows 8.x is a different story, I can't stand where Microsoft is taking Windows. The whole mishmash of tablet, mobile, and desktop is just that, a mishmash and a bad one at that. Generally speaking I don't like where Microsoft is going. I strongly feel that there should be two operating systems; one for mobile and one for desktop. So far Apple seems to be the only company that understands that there needs to be a clear delineation between the two very different platforms.

OK, so with that being said I do have to admit that there really isn't that much holding me to the Microsoft platform. Most of the software I use is very platform agnostic. I use Firefox as my browser of choice and Firefox also runs on the Mac. I need an office suite and it appears that I'd be covered in that department too since an office suite seems to come free with every Mac you buy. I would also need a good text editor with good syntax highlighting and text color for my PHP/HTML/Javascript dabbling. Oh, and an SSH client to SSH into Linux servers.

But, here's the biggie. I do some gaming and by that I mean Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and World of Warcraft. Those are the only games I really play and have any real interest in playing so if I were go to to a Mac the Mac would definitely have to support those games. But, how do I do that without breaking my bank account. What would be the best Mac to get for that kind of workload? And don't tell me Mac Pro because that's well out of my price range.

Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and World of Warcraft all have native Mac versions that need no installation of Windows to function. I would be doing a desktop instead of a notebook, I figure that going for a desktop would be better for the kinds of needs that I have. Gaming is generally not a good thing to be doing on a notebook simply due to cooling limitations.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Hi i have the Retina 5k mac, and are like you a heavy gamer from over 35 years of gaming. I replaced a Core I7 R290 32 GB of Ram Pc with the Mac, it was the screen i wanted for Photography however, in response to your post

You would need to buy one of the older Macs with the Nvidia GPU to get anything worth playing, the X295 in my retina plays WOW/StarCraft and diablo fine, pump up the res and the system does chug, nothings really playable at 5k really sub 20 FPS..... but the 5K does fly if you can do that, what you need is a proper GPU so either a second hand MAC with Nvidia or the 295X in the 5k

Also MAcs are not gaming machines really, and playing the same games in Windows bootcamp IE dual boot gets the framerate up quite a lot, due to a MACs poor ability for Open GL. example starcraft map the arcade one where yuou just churn out units like a tug of war, when it was manic the mac nearly stopped, in bootcamp it coped fine....

I play world of tanks in Mac OS which is as good as Boot camp, however its the SD version no HD variant has come yet, to play World of Warships i need to go back into windows 8.1 bootcamp as there is no Mac wrapper for this yet..

i,ll be honest and say save for the 5K retina with X295 card and everything you want to play will play fine in windows and mac os, but don't go thinking you can play at 5K res as in all honesty to get a proper 60FPS up youd need dual titans to push that many pixals, however the screen is so nice its worth saving for, its a pleasure to use. Paypal do finance if that floats your boat... its an option when buying with a lump sum and a few monthly's youll be fine.. Example a fully loaded 5K mac and an mac book air fully loaded came in at £140 a month for 2 years, take away the Air and drop a lump sum in and youll be looking at probably sub £80...

one thing i need to clarify you can play world of warships maxed out 5k res and its fine, however u need a magnifying glass to see the text LOL.... any slow paced game like company of heros etc, will play 5k just the fast stuff, like WOW etc needs Windows to honestly drive the FPS up, Macs do it but windows beats it.. but that's what bootcamps for, I'm typing this on it now in windows 10 waiting for Apple to release VGA drivers lol for win10

spec wise fusion drives best, its slow for bootcamp but the PCIE card drives are mega expensive, but lightning fast

For an example my core I7 PC gives the exact same FPS as this retina MACs bootcamp, its just a nice neat package with a screen to die for.....
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back