I'm looking at getting a gaming rig rather than buying into the new generation of consiles, to run windows via bootcamp so that I can abuse the Steam sales. But what would be better? An older Mac Pro, or a new Mac Mini? At the moment, they are about the same price here in Aust.
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New Mac Mini vs Old Mac Pro
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I think if you really want a PC just for gaming, there won't be a way around a discrete GPU. But towers are also much more power consuming than notebooks (an the Mac mini consists only of notebook components).
I may end up getting a PS4, but at the moment I'm looking at getting a mac for PC gaming.
Anyone else with some advice? I really don't know which way to go.
Mac Pro, because it's upgradable. New video card, more memory, more drives, more processing power... The Mini would be OK, but upgrading it is really limited... Like pretty nonexistent... I run Win 7, Win XP, Win 98 and flavors of Linux on my Pro. Just updated the video card, although I haven't looked to see if the video card falls through to Fusion yet. I run in waves of having to run Windows, and I haven't had to run it much lately. Not that I at all mind that. ;-)
And it's possible that the resale price might hold longer for a Pro versus a Mini, although the Mini would make a good doorstop or kitchen counter machine in the future...
Hope that's sarcasm, or else good luck with running OS X on it. Ignoring the major compatibility issues, someone would need to write custom drivers to get any graphics acceleration beyond a VESA framebuffer.
It has roughly the same GPU as the new MacPro, so it only needs some tweaks to the drivers of that machine.
If you want PC gaming, get a PC. Just grab any old i5 or 45nm Core2Duo PC second hand for 100$ and pop in the best GPU you can buy. It will outperform any MacPro config and is a lot easier to install, and half price or even less.
An i5 or a C2D is supposed to outperform a Xeon? Not saying one needs much more than an i5 just for gaming, but...
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