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Finding my iMac's weak spot? ( performance )

]I apologize if this is in the wrong sub forum.

I have 3.06 ghz intel core 2 duo 27" iMac. I run a windows partition to play some games on but I have trouble with fps on higher settings for two games ( Rift / EQ2 ).
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Kind of a waste of money to buy a Mac for video games. Xbox or the like is the way to go.

Memory is not going to help you. The way to figure this out is by watching "Performance Meter". Looking there yo can see if memory or I/O or the CPY or disk access is maxed-out. It it is then address that, if not. if for example the CPU is ony 50% used then getting a faster one will only make it 25% used.
 
Unfortunately console gaming isn't for me anymore...I like the access to mods and mmorpgs that consoles don't have. Guess I'll have to give up osx to model / game...which is really unfortunate.
 
The Hockaday. said:
Yep, I just have to decide if I want to attempt to build a new mac, build a pc, buy a gaming pc, or buy an older? perhaps...mac pro and upgrade it. I love macs but I need something powerful for gaming / 3d modeling.

Any suggestions?

Edit: Does anyone have some recommendations on a site to go to find read up on what would be good to make a powerful mac? I'd really like to retain OSX if I can.
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If you can afford it - get a rig like mine.

I have a MBP 15 HI-RES Glossy, 2.3 Ghz, 8 GB Ram, 256 SSD (and soon a Momentus Xt Hybrid 500 GB drive in the Optibay for storage) as my portable and at home connect it to a ACD LED 27", a wireless keyboard, a magic mouse and magic trackpad - and do my Mac stuff on this.

Then I'm about to build a monster PC with top of the line stuff for all my Microsoft Office stuff, Adobe CS5 stuff and for all my games.
I will run this on my second ACD LED 27" in a dual setup.

Then I get a Logitech Performance MX mouse and a Logitech Wireless K800 Illuminated keybaord and connect it to my Harmon Kardon Soundsticks and I'm set :cool:
 
your video card is the only thing at this point that is really ruining your computer as an average gaming machine. it wont ever be the best, but if your card was the 512mb model then im sure it would run a whole lot better.

256 mb of video memory isnt enough to run most demanding games these days



what is your budget for buying a new computer?
with this imminent imac refresh in the next couple weeks you could pick up a mid 2010 27inch i7 with the 1gb 5750 in it for fairly cheap since everyone will want to upgrade.

same computer i have and i am very impressed with it, handles all my games very well. sure its not custom built PC, but its def better or on par with half of the pc gaming rigs out there
 
well I think i'll be getting rid of this...powermax says they'll give me $1050 for my iMac...but I think I could get more on ebay or something. I know this is probably the wrong place to ask but I don't want to make a bunch of threads...do you think buying a gaming pc from newegg would be good? linkie http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=i7+2600k&x=0&y=0 I'm really looking for something I can keep upgrading down the line...I don't need it to be the best but I need something more...I'd love to get a mac pro and upgrade but the cost is really high...and I think i'd be downgrading performance ( if you go to powermax and see the used 06 mac pros they're pricey )

My goal is to retain osx but i'm thinking in my current financial state, i'll just have to get a win system.
 
No I haven't tried running rift ( newest game I have ) on anyone elses pc...I think I'll try the benchmark on my dads pc.
 
What's your budget? Can you spend 2k?

This is my dream machine which is quite nice imo:


From what I've been told, the GPU is brilliant. Just read the "Overview" on NewEgg for it, I want this card!

Total comes to 1909.


Badger^2 said:
MBPs suck for gaming.

http://barefeats.com/mbps03.html

It seems really funny that you are doing all this to play some crappy 7 year old games.

For comparison, have you tried running those games on someones newer and faster PC to see if there really is a difference?
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Perhaps I missed something but I'm pretty sure he's talking about a Mac Pro not a MacBook Pro.
 
MythicFrost said:
What's your budget? Can you spend 2k?

This is my dream machine which is quite nice imo:


From what I've been told, the GPU is brilliant. Just read the "Overview" on NewEgg for it, I want this card!

Total comes to 1909.



Perhaps I missed something but I'm pretty sure he's talking about a Mac Pro not a MacBook Pro.
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Correct I'm talking about a Mac Pro...I'm done with laptops forever ( for power use ). I could have 2k...but I'm not sure...I'm starting to think I'll just build a win 7 system / linux system and save up for a mac...unfortunately for a 06 mac pro ( that needs to be upgraded I believe ) it would cost the same as a custom built system. Now maybe I'm wrong...just starting to think that the mac pro is too expensive in comparison to a hackintosh / win system. PowerMax offered me 1050 for my iMac but I think i could get more on ebay / craigslist.

My real question now is...can I build a hackintosh that would perform just as well as a win 7 system for about the same price, OR could I upgrade an older mac pro ( non ppc ) for about the same price to perform the same.
 
The Hockaday. said:
Correct I'm talking about a Mac Pro...I'm done with laptops forever ( for power use ). I could have 2k...but I'm not sure...I'm starting to think I'll just build a win 7 system / linux system and save up for a mac...unfortunately for a 06 mac pro ( that needs to be upgraded I believe ) it would cost the same as a custom built system. Now maybe I'm wrong...just starting to think that the mac pro is too expensive in comparison to a hackintosh / win system. PowerMax offered me 1050 for my iMac but I think i could get more on ebay / craigslist.

My real question now is...can I build a hackintosh that would perform just as well as a win 7 system for about the same price, OR could I upgrade an older mac pro ( non ppc ) for about the same price to perform the same.
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To be honest, I'd avoid building a hackintosh. I think it's trouble waiting to happen; not ideal if you're going to use OS X for work.
The Hockaday. said:
This is interesting, but i wonder if it'd be more economical to just build something. http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-Mac-Pro-3...7256680?pt=Apple_Desktops&hash=item3a65470668

If I understand that correctly...it would have 6 ghz of processing power. Not sure how " good " it'd be for gaming.
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It doesn't have 6GHz of processing power, it's a dual quad-core @ 3GHz so it will have eight cores running at 3GHz which are able to be used by your applications. Most games only use one or two cores though. An i7 2600K would be better for gaming.

The graphics card in that machine is pretty terrible (ATI Radeon X1900) and would most definitely need upgrading. The best available for the Mac Pro right now is the 5870 1GB. I'm pretty sure the next high end 27" iMac should offer a GPU that is nearly as good as that, or at least close.
 
Well insanelymac must not be a friendly community...my thread got deleted w/o notice lol. I've heard getting osx to run can be a huge hassle on a hackintosh...does anyone have experience with building one? I found a great site for building a gaming pc ( hardware-evolution.com ) but not sure if i can find any builds for a gaming hackintosh.

This build looks interesting...anyone have any experience with something like it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ctk-f1qdMs
 
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The Hockaday. said:
Well insanelymac must not be a friendly community...my thread got deleted w/o notice lol. I've heard getting osx to run can be a huge hassle on a hackintosh...does anyone have experience with building one? I found a great site for building a gaming pc ( hardware-evolution.com ) but not sure if i can find any builds for a gaming hackintosh.

This build looks interesting...anyone have any experience with something like it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ctk-f1qdMs
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The key to hackintoshes is you have to do an enormous amount of research. No one is going to hand you a build. You'll just have to put in the time.

But you can get one built that despite what the naysayers claim, will be 100% stable and functional. I've been running one in one form or another for years now. You're just going to have to put in the time and research them.

I can tell you that you'll likely end up going with a gigabyte motherboard and Radeon card as many are now supported natively. The Nvidia 4xxGTX or 5xx series doesn't work so well. And sandy bridge is so new that I haven't seen a lot of good info on that and hackintoshes. Likely after the imacs come out with sandy bridge then you'll see better support in OSX and then the hackintosh community will get on it and you wait for them to come up with what works and what doesn't.
 
archer75 said:
The key to hackintoshes is you have to do an enormous amount of research. No one is going to hand you a build. You'll just have to put in the time.

But you can get one built that despite what the naysayers claim, will be 100% stable and functional. I've been running one in one form or another for years now. You're just going to have to put in the time and research them.
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That's what I thought...and unfortunately I'm just not knowledgeable enough at the moment to really do that. Ashamed to say I would need a shopping list made for me =(
 
The Hockaday. said:
That's what I thought...and unfortunately I'm just not knowledgeable enough at the moment to really do that. Ashamed to say I would need a shopping list made for me =(
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And even if someone does give you a build you have to spend a great deal of time verifying it. I built my last one a little too cutting edge. It works but no one in the community is making software for it anymore. And I bought my fermi hoping it would eventually work but it's not 100%. I could spend some money on a Radeon card and then have 100% functionality again. But with no one supporting my hardware anymore it means I can't run Lion and would need to upgrade again. Which I could do I suppose.

The only way to become knowledgeable is to put in the time. Read thread after thread and keep a list of what is working and what requires how much time and special kexts to get working.
Everything on mine works with a retail snow leopard disk except for audio. So after the install I use kext helper to install my audio kext and 2 minutes later I have sound. I use a 8500GT to do the install which works out of the box. Then update to 10.6.6 or above with fermi support, install the nvidia driver and then install my 460gtx and it works. For two hours then it hard locks due to these cards. Something related to a low power state on them after 2 hours. So that's why I need a Radeon card.

So i'm looking to buy an imac. I want a second gaming computer anyways and if they ship with a 6950m or 6970m i'll be happy. And my wife is getting into photography and I enjoy video editing.
I can still keep my desktop for serious gaming.
 
Yeah, I'm thinking my best bet will be to buy a mac pro and upgrade it / build a pc rig until then.
 
The Hockaday. said:
Yeah, I'm thinking my best bet will be to buy a mac pro and upgrade it / build a pc rig until then.
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Just for the hell of it I priced out a gaming PC with sandy bridge and 3 27" monitors and it came out to $2400. About what I expect to pay for my new imac with the BTO options I would likely add. Tempting...

I was looking for used mac pros as well but couldn't find anything that was priced low enough and the upgrades for those, xeon processors, ECC ram or those older FB dimms or whatever they're called are quite expensive.

But that imac does look sexy and I could just about sell it next year and only lose a couple of hundred bucks and then go buy a new one. I could do that year after year for only $200-$300 loss. They do hold their value well, I don't get it but I like it!
 
Yeah i've heard some nice things about the new iMac...but I'm worried I'd end up in the same situation as I am now. Needing more power and not being able to get it due to i have an iMac. Now if I get into wentworth...I'll have around 5k for a rig I think...so then I could probably get a mac pro and build it up...just disappointing that pcs are so much cheaper. I just hate windows lol.
 
The Hockaday. said:
Yeah i've heard some nice things about the new iMac...but I'm worried I'd end up in the same situation as I am now. Needing more power and not being able to get it due to i have an iMac. Now if I get into wentworth...I'll have around 5k for a rig I think...so then I could probably get a mac pro and build it up...just disappointing that pcs are so much cheaper. I just hate windows lol.
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The quad-core Mac Pro's are about a steady $1k above the equivalent from Dell (give or take a little). The dual quad-core or dual six-core options are almost identical, they're probably your best value. (Prices from Apple).

I'd say to wait for the new Mac Pro's but who knows when they're coming out. The last model was released like six months later than normal.
 
Badger^2 said:
Yup.

Sorry, my response was to CHSeifert's post: "If you can afford it - get a rig like mine." -- referring to his MBP.
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You keep missing the point !

I tell him to get a rig like mine - NOT because the MBP is good for gaming, but because the MBP is the best power laptop for everything else BUT gaming and by getting the MBP he will have the mac with him where ever he goes and when he's at home it's connected to an ACD 27" led display so he can continue to use his favorite mac apps.

The other ACD 27" led will be connected to his monster selfbuilder PC for gaming.

Sorry if I don't express myself clearly - please tell me where in my post above you miss my point, because I can't seem to see where in my post I proclaim the MBP is a good gaming machine ??
 
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