Bengt77
macrumors 68000
I really enjoy re-reading posts with claims that later turned out to be completely bogus, so here goes:
NEVER GONNA HAPPEN!
(So, hopefully, it actually will.)
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New Gaming iMacs? Apple's entry into Gaming MArket?
- Thread starter dingdongbubble
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NEVER GONNA HAPPEN!
(So, hopefully, it actually will.)
Exactly, we need a mini tower not another cube. The cube was cool but its space was too tight to fit major upgrades (rem the ATi 8500 card had to be trimmed to squeeze it in).
What I don't understand is why Apple can't take a leaf from Dells book. Dell produce Optiplex mini towers with Core 2 Duo chips and they are reasonably expanable. They sit perfectly in between the Dimension and Workstation machines. Apple could easily produce something like this. Would it eat into MacPro sales? I dunno, are MacPro sales so amazing that a headless iMac like mini tower would destroy sales? I doubt it.
At work I have an aging dual 2ghz G5 tower. Its been a real work horse but its now nearly 4 years and works policy is to replace hardware after 4 years. There is no way in hell that they will agree to put down £1500 on a MacPro when they can get a reasonable Optiplex for £700-800. The problem here is comparisons... ideally we should be comparing the MacPro to the Dell workstations which are way more expensive. But work would not configure a workstation with Xeons, they'd take the Core 2 Duo option. Therefore the price drops a lot. And this is where Apple will lose a sale. No midrange tower no sale.
So this argument stretches beyond gaming really, Apple need a mid range tower than can appeal to gamers and coporate environments. IMO there's room for massive growth there.
What I don't understand is why Apple can't take a leaf from Dells book. Dell produce Optiplex mini towers with Core 2 Duo chips and they are reasonably expanable. They sit perfectly in between the Dimension and Workstation machines. Apple could easily produce something like this. Would it eat into MacPro sales? I dunno, are MacPro sales so amazing that a headless iMac like mini tower would destroy sales? I doubt it.
At work I have an aging dual 2ghz G5 tower. Its been a real work horse but its now nearly 4 years and works policy is to replace hardware after 4 years. There is no way in hell that they will agree to put down £1500 on a MacPro when they can get a reasonable Optiplex for £700-800. The problem here is comparisons... ideally we should be comparing the MacPro to the Dell workstations which are way more expensive. But work would not configure a workstation with Xeons, they'd take the Core 2 Duo option. Therefore the price drops a lot. And this is where Apple will lose a sale. No midrange tower no sale.
So this argument stretches beyond gaming really, Apple need a mid range tower than can appeal to gamers and coporate environments. IMO there's room for massive growth there.
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I own the current imac and have for some time... Almost a year actually and I have played lots of intensive games on it and it fares pretty well on high settings. Im sure apple has a good reason for waiting to release a new imac. Hopefully itll be a gaming rig
I own the current imac and have for some time... Almost a year actually and I have played lots of intensive games on it and it fares pretty well on high settings. Im sure apple has a good reason for waiting to release a new imac. Hopefully itll be a gaming rig
chrisdazzo
macrumors 65816
going off topic here...gaming hardware can be cramed into a tight space ,maybe not as tight as the iMac's but still not bad. Think of this as a really oversized mini 😛
http://www.pcdesignlab.com/
http://www.pcdesignlab.com/
DoFoT9
macrumors P6
lol i really wouldnt call that tiny.... the mini would fit into the PSU of that thing 😀..
hows the weather up in NT ???? lol.
true true it is big 😛. The weather is kinda cool I know the water has been about 21 degrees lately, which is cold for the locals 🙂.
BlackMax
macrumors 6502a
I also believe a gaming iMac would be a great move on Apple's part. Design it with a top of the line GPU that can be upgraded. There are notebooks on the market with upgradable GPUs, why not an iMac?
Even if the GPU could not be upgraded I would still buy. I keep a PC in the house just to play games that either of my Macs cannot handle. I would really like to shed the PC and do everything on my Macs.
Even if the GPU could not be upgraded I would still buy. I keep a PC in the house just to play games that either of my Macs cannot handle. I would really like to shed the PC and do everything on my Macs.
RichardI
macrumors 6502a
I think that may be right on. That's what I'm hoping for. Those spec's would be quite adequate for nearly any game. I hope you're right...
Rich 😎
Hmm a games console the size of a Mac Mini... with a connector to support HDMI or DVI support (like the MacBook).
I could see that. Although consoles usually have a large enough technology leap to surpass the current PC/Mac platforms. It's that difference that makes them desired.
Look at the consoles where the PC/Mac has caught up.. they don't exist anymore.
If a game behaves then I see no problem running them on my home system. Usually this is not the case due to bad programming.
Although I look forward to BF2142 on the mac to replace my PC version - I have a feeling in the back of my mind that the instability and system impact will be just as bad as the windows variants.
Games companies treat your computer as if they own it. I really don't want to have my OSX stable domestic install go the same way as my XP games install..
I could see that. Although consoles usually have a large enough technology leap to surpass the current PC/Mac platforms. It's that difference that makes them desired.
Look at the consoles where the PC/Mac has caught up.. they don't exist anymore.
If a game behaves then I see no problem running them on my home system. Usually this is not the case due to bad programming.
Although I look forward to BF2142 on the mac to replace my PC version - I have a feeling in the back of my mind that the instability and system impact will be just as bad as the windows variants.
Games companies treat your computer as if they own it. I really don't want to have my OSX stable domestic install go the same way as my XP games install..
Actually, the iMac 24" is using MXM already, so it has in theory an upgradable GPU. The problem is that there's no external access to it, and that Apple doesn't sell any upgrades. I guess it's only there to make the BTO easier to customize.
Digital Skunk
macrumors G3
You know what I want Apple to do for the gamers.
Just give them a MacPro for around $1900 base configuration like the PowerMacs back in the day. I got my dual core 2Ghz late October 05 for around $1800 ($2000 regular price) and I would never EVER get an iMac to play serious games. Even now I would just have to suck it up and get the MacPro. The iMac wasn't made to handle serious games until you get up to the 24" model and you still can't upgrade any parts down the road.
The iMac is also a machine made for people that aren't too interested in upgrading in the long run since they will be running apps that depend more on RAM then on graphics.
My girlfriend wanted a new desktop that could run Sims 2 and probably the upcoming Sims 3 so I informed her to get the 24" since it will have a much better graphics card and screen, and since everything else she will be doing other than the Sims will be "high end" teacher work (Excel) she wouldn't need much else.
Gamers... I don't see a new Apple gaming rig... I see better and more upgradeable iMacs (upgradeable to a certain extent) and I see cheaper more affordable MacPros. This headless tower thing is the past, the all-in-one with laptop parts and desktop HDDs is the future. 😀
Just give them a MacPro for around $1900 base configuration like the PowerMacs back in the day. I got my dual core 2Ghz late October 05 for around $1800 ($2000 regular price) and I would never EVER get an iMac to play serious games. Even now I would just have to suck it up and get the MacPro. The iMac wasn't made to handle serious games until you get up to the 24" model and you still can't upgrade any parts down the road.
The iMac is also a machine made for people that aren't too interested in upgrading in the long run since they will be running apps that depend more on RAM then on graphics.
My girlfriend wanted a new desktop that could run Sims 2 and probably the upcoming Sims 3 so I informed her to get the 24" since it will have a much better graphics card and screen, and since everything else she will be doing other than the Sims will be "high end" teacher work (Excel) she wouldn't need much else.
Gamers... I don't see a new Apple gaming rig... I see better and more upgradeable iMacs (upgradeable to a certain extent) and I see cheaper more affordable MacPros. This headless tower thing is the past, the all-in-one with laptop parts and desktop HDDs is the future. 😀
My guess is that you will see an 8600 GT in the new top of the line just like the previous line of iMacs. I would be happy to be wrong of course 🙂
I just hope they start including esata ports on their computers soon.
-mx
I just hope they start including esata ports on their computers soon.
-mx
There is a 2.0 MacPro in the special deals section right now for $1,800 and you can configure a new one to be around $2,200 by dropping the cpus to 2.0.
-mx
And if you have educational discount, it's less. But...
The Mac Pro simply is NOT a gaming machine. Period. The biggest problem is the FB-DIMMs, which Anandtech did a good article on last year. They limit performance in gaming, plus they're significantly more expensive than regular DDR2. Add to that that relatively few games are even able to utilize dual-core CPUs, never mind 2 dual-cores. (I remember seeing reviews that indicate multi-core systems actually perform worse than single core machines in games that aren't optimized for multi-core.)
I really want a new Mac. But if Apple doesn't deliver a system that's affordable and is a true gaming-class box, well, I may just forget about the Mac. I've been making due with a G4 Mini since they came out and a DIY gaming PC, it wouldn't kill me to continue with them. But I, like many others, would vastly prefer a Mac, one that can be both a Mac and a (Windows) gaming machine.
So, in other words, if Apple doesn't release what I want to buy...I won't be buying from them at all. I vote with my dollars, as the saying goes.
Actually, the FB-Dimms are much cheaper now (About $100 for a 1 gig stick). However, if you really want a gaming machine I would not buy a Mac. They are just not geared for it nor is the platform going to offer the selection the PC does EVER.
With the price drops on the Intel quad CPU, you can build a rocking game rig now for cheap - so , cheap that you could have it for just the one purpose and have a Mac for everything else 🙂
-mx
With the price drops on the Intel quad CPU, you can build a rocking game rig now for cheap - so , cheap that you could have it for just the one purpose and have a Mac for everything else 🙂
-mx
shu82
macrumors 6502a
There is no point in releasing a dedicated console. How about a "Game" option in Front Row? It would work just the same as a dvd. Then you sell USB controlers. Make every mac a "game machine". Release an updated mini double the size. Offer the controllers with it as a package.
Simple right?
Simple right?
You spelled $1,900 wrong.
(The old marketing gimmick of knocking $1 off the pre-tax price still works.)
Digital Skunk
macrumors G3
I hear some high end users with MacPros saying that the quad 2GHz MacPro isn't that much faster than the 24" iMac and that the apps that aren't core aware run faster on the 24" iMac than on the MacPro, but I would still pick one of those bad boys up for the price and for the severe upgradability options. Not to mention that when more and more apps become core aware it will be blazing fast.
Macintosh gamers need to pay more attention to these types of deals. I do wish Apple would make a machine for the gaming market that is essential Apple's take on the PC (Plastic Crap) tower, i.e. half the specs of a MacPro with Core 2 Duo Extreme processors, maybe made out of polycarbonate and base (stripped down/crippled) configuration going for just around $999. But in the meantime serious, hardcore gamers could find what they need in a refurbished MacPro, the regular MacPro with quad 2GHz, and the 24" iMac.
I have been looking at the Alienwares for the longest time now. I love their laptop lineup and if I lived and breathed games I would have that 17" with SLI on my desk hooked up to an Apple 30" right now. I don't believe that the Macs weren't built to be gaming machines, just that they are either too professional, or too consumerish to be considered capable of running high-end, 3D, memory/graphics intensive games. The Sims 2 runs fine on an iMac, but Battlefield 2142 would choke the machine to death. And keeping up with the latest graphics cards is a biggie, the iMac is therefore out of the question... and as you said... the memory on the MacPro is too expensive and YES... many games aren't core aware YET. The MacPro, as the MacBook Pro was when it first came out, is just too ahead of the curve with it's quad Xeon chips.
I could suffer through Vista to play the latest games on my Alienware, but giving what I would be loosing by using a Windows machine... I would just deal with the slow frame rates and choppy graphics on a MacPro or 24" iMac.
Bluetooth controllers... 🙂
Not gonna happen. It would introduce market competition from within and Apple doesn't want to do that to the iMac.
Face it folks, the 24" iMac IS Apple's answer to a game machine and I highly doubt they would build anything more specific.
-mx
Face it folks, the 24" iMac IS Apple's answer to a game machine and I highly doubt they would build anything more specific.
-mx
Yeah, we are talking soft numbers here and $99 is within the margin of error in this particular conversation 🙂
-gl
Digital Skunk
macrumors G3
Believe me... I have come to grips with that a long time ago... I wish they would so Dell and other PC makers would just give up, and Microsoft would loose more business, but I know that Apple has their ideas of where they want the computer/tech industry to go.
That's why I am just going to get my MacPro and get my girlfriend the 24" iMac.