Is next MP likely to be a gaming giant?

[ronweathers]

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Perhaps a contributor to the delay of the MP is to allow the syngeries with Steam to take hold and then to leverage this to intro some new high gaming and graphics platform

 

[Hellhammer]

For 3000$ (that's the price of MP with better GPU and more RAM), it's not. Six-core is useless for gaming as only few games even support quad-core plus Apple GPUs are horribly overpriced. You can get PC with about the same performance for ~2000$, even for ~1000$ if you get AMD based

 

[Umbongo]

I doubt it, Apple's strategy doesn't gel with what PC gamers want.

 

[aiqw9182]

If Apple were to put at least a 5870 in it, I don't see how people could complain about the GPU.

The 4870 was a pretty damn good card when the 2009 Mac Pro was released.

 

[Umbongo]

If Apple were to put at least a 5870 in it, I don't see how people could complain about the GPU.

The 4870 was a pretty damn good card when the 2009 Mac Pro was released.

The complaints are usually on price and then later turn in to it being outdated and the usual sentiment towards Apple only revising graphics cards when they launch new systems.

 

[Hellhammer]

The complaints are usually on price and then later turn in to it being outdated and the usual sentiment towards Apple only revising graphics cards when they launch new systems.

I agree. 600$ ATI 5870 isn't really worth it plus people will anyway complain because they are forced to buy that, no option for e.g. 5850 or 5970. The fuss starts again when ATI releases Northern Islands in early 2011 as it again takes a long while before Apple adopts them. Apple doesn't even drop the price of GPUs, ATI 4870 can be bought for 120€ while Apple asks 349€ for it

 

[aiqw9182]

I agree. 600$ ATI 5870 isn't really worth it plus people will anyway complain because they are forced to buy that, no option for e.g. 5850 or 5970. The fuss starts again when ATI releases Northern Islands in early 2011 as it again takes a long while before Apple adopts them. Apple doesn't even drop the price of GPUs, ATI 4870 can be bought for 120€ while Apple asks 349€ for it

5850 would be confused with the iMac when it likely gets a mobility 5850 and I never stated that there wouldn't be an option to upgrade to a 5970.

The fact of the matter is, PC gaming isn't advancing as fast as it has in the past due to consoles. You don't need to have a new GPU every year to be able to play recent games.

 

[Hellhammer]

5850 would be confused with the iMac when it likely gets a mobility 5850 and I never stated that there wouldn't be an option to upgrade to a 5970.

The fact of the matter is, PC gaming isn't advancing as fast as it has in the past due to consoles. You don't need to have a new GPU every year to be able to play recent games.

I know you didn't but I doubt we'll see 5970 and if we are, it's going to be something like 999$!

That's true though. Most games are made for consoles so PC versions are pretty poor. If you're going to play with e.g. Apple 30" CD, then the GPU really matters as playing games @2560x1600 is pretty demanding. Most players are stuck with 1920x1200 or lower so it's not a surprise that a weaker card is okay. Of course, if you are used to have the newest and shiniest to get the best FPS (as most HC PC gamers are), then Mac Pro isn't the best choice at all

 

[aiqw9182]

I know you didn't but I doubt we'll see 5970 and if we are, it's going to be something like 999$!

That's true though. Most games are made for consoles so PC versions are pretty poor. If you're going to play with e.g. Apple 30" CD, then the GPU really matters as playing games @2560x1600 is pretty demanding. Most players are stuck with 1920x1200 or lower so it's not a surprise that a weaker card is okay. Of course, if you are used to have the newest and shiniest to get the best FPS (as most HC PC gamers are), then Mac Pro isn't the best choice at all

I don't think folks like that would ever go near a Mac Pro anyway.

 

[Hellhammer]

I don't think folks like that would ever go near a Mac Pro anyway.

That's what I meant with the last words If you have the money to bang for the 2.93GHz quad with GTX 285, then it might be okay but seeing what you could get with that money in PC world, it's not worth it.

 

[xgman]

I can't imagine buying a mac pro for the primary purpose of gaming. You could build 3 gaming pc's for the price of a mac pro. There may be some mac pro users who play games on it, but xeon and registered ram aren't needed for gaming and hard core gamers tend to want to overclock.

 

[aiqw9182]

That's what I meant with the last words If you have the money to bang for the 2.93GHz quad with GTX 285, then it might be okay but seeing what you could get with that money in PC world, it's not worth it.

I'm saying that if the Mac Pro had as many GPU options as the PC side of things, they still wouldn't touch it but that's besides the point. There's no doubt about it that the current Mac Pro is ridiculously outdated and overpriced.

If Intel could get their **** together this wouldn't a problem.

 

[cherry su]

No, the Mac Pro was built to be a professional workstation like the Dell Precision T series. You don't see those machines being offered with a Radeon or a GeForce card, do you? They're all FireGLs or Quadros.

 

[Hellhammer]

No, the Mac Pro was built to be a professional workstation like the Dell Precision T series. You don't see those machines being offered with a Radeon or a GeForce card, do you? They're all FireGLs or Quadros.

There aren't FireGLs for Mac Pros Only one Quadro and it's 1800$. Most are either GeForce or Radeon

 

[VirtualRain]

The Mac Pro may not be the best choice for someone who wants a gaming rig, but that's not to say that the Mac Pro can't be a good gaming rig.

 

[nanofrog]

The Mac Pro may not be the best choice for someone who wants a gaming rig, but that's not to say that the Mac Pro can't be a good gaming rig.

If the primary task is work which requires an actual workstation, the owner can then boot into Windows (and use any graphics card they want, assuming they can afford the slot for non-workstation duty) to play games.

Better than buying 2x different systems anyway.

 

[cured.not.dried]

if you're talking about boot camp gaming, then the next MP has a chance at being a dream machine if the logic board supports SLI or crossfire (and the PSU has enough 6 and 8 pin cables).

if you're talking about mac gaming, then even most of the current macs can be gaming machines if apple optimizes their drivers to fully support openGL (there's a 4.0 spec nowadays), and they get rid of the GPU memory leaks.

personally I don't think these things fall within the Mac Pro's target market. while steam for mac is a milestone in mac game availability, the games we'll be getting will be ones that could run easily in windoze on an iMac. doesn't need to build a tower for these games to run well.

 

[bob5820]

Is next MP likely to be a gaming giant

Compared to previous MP's - possibly

Compared to the average PC gaming rig - not a chance

Apple markets the MP as a workstation. Steam, and the possibility of a current (if likely under clocked and over priced) GPU may give the next MP some temporary balls as a gaming rig, but in 6 or 7 months when the PC gaming rigs can upgrade to the latest GPU the MP will be left in the dust. MP's are great workstations but no amount of wishful thinking is going to turn them into gaming giants.

 

[Topper]

Is next MP likely to be a gaming giant?

A gaming giant? No.

But the MP can be a very good gaming machine when using powerful video cards in Windows under Boot Camp.

My Mac Edition GTX 285 when running under WinXP gets very respectable frame rates.
The next MP may have an HD 5870 card. Under Boot Camp, that should kick some butt.

Question for some knowledgable Mac person: If the next MP has a bto HD 5870, can that card be teamed-up with a pc HD 5870 with Crossfire under Boot Camp (WinXP)?
If so, that would be a fantastic gaming machine.

 

[Techguy172]

It's definately not going to be a super gaming machine, will it be powerful? yes, but it won't be designed as a gaming machine. I'm really hoping though that there will be an option for the NVIDA 480GTX, that would make me very happy!

 

[nanofrog]

if you're talking about boot camp gaming, then the next MP has a chance at being a dream machine if the logic board supports SLI or crossfire (and the PSU has enough 6 and 8 pin cables).

SLI = hardware support on the logic board
CrossFire = Software support (hardware is the bridge connector that connects the cards)

Power, is another story. But there is a 5.25" PSU made for graphics cards that can fit into the empty optical bay assuming whatever PSIG connectors are inadequate for the power requirements for a pair of cards (example). Nice clean installation, and not bad for $46USD including shipping, considering what other things cost to make things work (i.e. drive adapters for RAID cards) in a MP.

It's also possible to run a normal PC PSU externally by shorting the green and black wires in the main board connector of the PSU (allows the unit to power up). It's not pretty, but it does work. Cheap if you've already got one lying around. If it's to be purchased, the above 5.25" bay type might be a better way to go.

Question for some knowledgable Mac person: If the next MP has a bto HD 5870, can that card be teamed-up with a pc HD 5870 with Crossfire under Boot Camp (WinXP)?
If so, that would be a fantastic gaming machine.

Crossfire would work under Windows, so long as you've attached the bridge connectors and there is sufficient power (Windows drivers have Crossfire support written into them). And there are work-arounds for power if needed.

 

[Gomff]

Personally, I like to keep my gaming on a console. With a PC, there's always a better card and more hardware to spend money on and the PC gaming scene is all about performance, frames per second and anti alias settings.

I prefer the level playing field of a console because games are optimised for exactly the system you're playing on. What's more, if they perform poorly on that system, it usually gets picked up in game reviews and you can swerve them. And I prefer gaming in the living room on the sofa, not in the space where I spend my time working. I like the division between the two.

 

[wisty]

Over the next couple of years, Steam will encourage more people to use Macs as gaming machines (though serious gamers will still avoid them), which will make it worth Apple's while to spend a bit more effort on their 3D cards.

But I wouldn't expect it to happen too soon.

 

[grue]

If Apple were to put at least a 5870 in it, I don't see how people could complain about the GPU.

The 4870 was a pretty damn good card when the 2009 Mac Pro was released.

No, it was a decent card that was crippled by having half as much memory as it's supposed to, and it was/is extremely overpriced even at launch time, PLUS you have to buy an adapter to use a second display because they put the retardport on there.

 

[300D]

The Mac Pro, by definition, is not a gaming computer.