Hi everyone. New to the forum.
I'm looking at buying an iMac or a MacPro for use as my primary computer, which means I'd like to dual-boot it with XP, and run games on it. My issue is that I'm concerned with the graphics cards currently in the desktops not being powerful enough for a real gamer.
The first option I am looking at, and the one I would prefer, both for cost and space, is the high-end 24" iMac. My reservation is that it contains an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro with only 256MB, which puts out a weak 4.8GTexels/sec. While I feel like this might be enough to drive the 20" iMac's 1.7MP monitor, I'm extremely skeptical on the 24" 2.3MP monitor. Can anyone share specific gaming experiences, preferably with fairly high-end games?
The second option I am looking at is the Mac Pro, with the GeForce 8800GT, which seems a lot more reasonable, but still not ideal for a 1920x1200 res monitor. Were I looking at a PC option instead of mac, I would certainly look to dual cards with a SLI link to drive that kind of resolution. Again, does anyone have experience using a setup like this and gaming? I am looking for experience with modern, more high-end games, from Oblivion to Crysis, running at 1920x1200 resolution.
Any experiences you can share will be greatly appreciated, particularly if you can provide frame rates and resolutions on high-end games. Again, I'm sure the iMac will pump out great rates with Lego Starwars, but running Crysis on XP with these setups, I'm not so comfortable with.
Thanks everyone!
I'm looking at buying an iMac or a MacPro for use as my primary computer, which means I'd like to dual-boot it with XP, and run games on it. My issue is that I'm concerned with the graphics cards currently in the desktops not being powerful enough for a real gamer.
The first option I am looking at, and the one I would prefer, both for cost and space, is the high-end 24" iMac. My reservation is that it contains an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro with only 256MB, which puts out a weak 4.8GTexels/sec. While I feel like this might be enough to drive the 20" iMac's 1.7MP monitor, I'm extremely skeptical on the 24" 2.3MP monitor. Can anyone share specific gaming experiences, preferably with fairly high-end games?
The second option I am looking at is the Mac Pro, with the GeForce 8800GT, which seems a lot more reasonable, but still not ideal for a 1920x1200 res monitor. Were I looking at a PC option instead of mac, I would certainly look to dual cards with a SLI link to drive that kind of resolution. Again, does anyone have experience using a setup like this and gaming? I am looking for experience with modern, more high-end games, from Oblivion to Crysis, running at 1920x1200 resolution.
Any experiences you can share will be greatly appreciated, particularly if you can provide frame rates and resolutions on high-end games. Again, I'm sure the iMac will pump out great rates with Lego Starwars, but running Crysis on XP with these setups, I'm not so comfortable with.
Thanks everyone!
