Seeking an advice for a gamer/student

[DabisBarg]

Hi! I am David, and I am very new (Very recently registered) here! Nice to meet you!

Anyways, I am 17 yr. old, soon-to-be Junior in HS, and somewhat hardcore gamer. After struggling with my 8 yr. old computer and XP's evil side, I decided to switch to Mac!

My first choice was 20" iMac, with 2.4 Ghz C2D at the base-line setup. But I got a suggestion that I should just buy laptop, just to be prepared for college and all.

Next choice was MBP. but looking at a thread "Why did you choose MB over MBP?" I realized that MBP wasn't right for me.

My third choice was to get high end Macbook. but as a (somewhat) gamer, I realized that integrated video card was, well, not good enough.

Choice that i made one week ago was, buy refurb MacBook (2.2 Ghz) and refurb. iMac (2.4 Ghz w/ 256MB ATI HD 2600 Pro). One for portability and one for just playing games and graphic works at home. But I calculated all the accessories that I needed and it was kinda over my budget.

Now my choice is this. Get high-end iMac and get MB or MBP next year

Yes, as you can see, I think too much about what to buy.

So, can you give me an advice?

I have a job, and I am hoping that I would get 3,000-3,500 dollars at the end of the summer.

And reminder, I have 2 years till College (Ga. Tech, here I come! I hope)

Again, can you help me?

Thanks in advance

-David

 

[brandonzar]

It seems a bit redundant to me to have a MBP and a iMac since they can be made to have very similar specs. I have a 2.2GHz MBP and it plays games like battlefield 2 and call of duty 4 just fine (in bootcamp). I'm not a hardcore gamer by any means so I haven't ever tested frame rates etc. but the performance is acceptable. As far a portability goes I think the MBP is great for students, I am a grad student so I leave most of my books and other stuff in my office at school and carry around my MBP and accessories with me most of the time. I don't really notice the weight of the MBP and I am grateful for the screen size because I read and write a lot of papers on it. The only reason the MBP would be a burden to carry around is if you are already hauling around a lot of stuff, or if you are a small female (if you are a small male then you should carry the extra weight just to make you stronger ).

 

[Consultant]

Get the iMac for now, you don't need a laptop as a HS student.

If you NEED a laptop for college, then get one in 2 years. At that time the MBP (or equivalent) will most certainly be faster than current iMacs.

You might want to read some benchmarks on the iMac gaming, on such sites such as barefeats.com

 

[MacHipster]

It depends on what sort of games you'll be playing. I'd recommend a PC desktop for games and a MacBook for studies.

Scratch that. You'll be at college. Why would you waste time on gaming? You should be going to parties.

 

[savvos]

24" iMac w/8800GS

If you are a hardcore gamer, the 24" iMac with the 8800GS will give you the best gaming experience for the money. It's almost as fast as the 8800GT in the Mac Pro and should keep you happy for a few years.

There is no point in buying a portable laptop now in preparation for college in two years. If you wait until you need it, you will get something much faster and by then the Macbooks will most likely have LED back lighting, longer battery life and some other cool features in addition to the speed. Also, do you really want to be in your senior year of college with a 6 year old laptop? If you need to do anything processor intensive on your laptop, you'll want something fast. I have a 7 year old TiBook, which works fine for web browsing and Word, but any intensive modern program brings it to its knees. Going to a tech school, you might have to run something more intensive than that.

 

[DabisBarg]

Thanks for those replies, everyone
I think I need to add more informations

- I am not "I HAVE TO GET BEST GRAPHIC CARD SO I CAN GET 1027123 FPS on CRYSIS" gamer. I enjoy some online games and I, sometimes, enjoy somewhat graphic intense game.

- Will MBP get significantly better in 2 years?

- Refurb or New?

- if I do get iMac and as "somewhat" gamer, what type do you recommend? 2.4 Ghz? 2.66? 2.8? or 3.08?

Thanks again

 

[0098386]

Get an iMac. Play Orange Box on high. Enjoy every moment of it.

 

[savvos]

Compare the MBP now to the "baseline" from 2 years ago--it should give you an idea of the performance change to expect: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/performance.html

Also, the 8800GS might seem a little overpowered for your needs now, but it will be much better at running games 2 years from now than the HD2600. I would suggest taking a look at the Age of Conan thread in the Gaming section of the forum to get a better idea about performance. I would get the 2.8 Ghz 24" iMac and upgrade the card to the 8800GS.

 

[thinkband]

Okay, I have quite a bit of knowledge about gaming computers (as I have been doing a lot of research lately).

I will need to know what kind of games you really want to play. As previously mentioned, if you play some basic games and won't die if it doesn't play Crysis or some games at top settings, you will be good. In general, an IMac as a gaming machine is way overpriced. That is just because a macbook pro is basically an Imac in a portable box.

You do not need a macbook pro now, if you are going to college in more than a year (Technology changes way too fast). Personally, I play some games, nothing too intenseive, and am buying a macbook pro for college next year. I am not buying it for games, but because I like the extra features. If you need something now, I say go with a iMac or nice desktop PC. If you bought a nice PC around $1200 now, you could make that your gaming computer for college and it will work very good for that purpose. If you buy an iMac now, then I would probably recommend a macbook for college since a macbook pro and iMac are the same machine.

I think you are thinking a little too soon about new computers. It is a great time to buy a new computer around graduation, because a good computer can last four solid years without popping out of the generation. As said, if you can handle some light games and nothing too wild, a macbook now would work great, and a macbook before college for portability would be awesome. You will be the coolest person there, I promise

 

[DabisBarg]

Thanks for those replies again
I think I'm in very weird position.

I am thinking of buying Refurb. iMac w/ 2.4Ghz and 256MB vram (Will cost less, yet have good time with Mac for the first time ), and 2 years later, get MacBook Pro (Trying to get high end one by then). What do you think?

P.S. Do desktops have higher chance of being stolen in dorms? This is in my head, but having your computer around everywhere you go would have lower chance. Just my guess

 

[PyroTurtle]

Thanks for those replies again
I think I'm in very weird position.

I am thinking of buying Refurb. iMac w/ 2.4Ghz and 256MB vram (Will cost less, yet have good time with Mac for the first time ), and 2 years later, get MacBook Pro (Trying to get high end one by then). What do you think?

P.S. Do desktops have higher chance of being stolen in dorms? This is in my head, but having your computer around everywhere you go would have lower chance. Just my guess

As long as you're smart about it, there's not a lot of chance of anything being stolen. Personally, I was more worried about my laptop most of the time. That said, in three school I don't know of anyone that's actually had a desktop or laptop stolen. I personally had 4 desktops and 2 laptops come out unscathed from college

 

[thinkband]

A desktop is a little bigger and more obvious if someone runs off with it. A 24" iMac is not common so my guess the person who stole it (a student) would be caught very fast if he did not have some place to hide the computer.

You can buy a desk lock for your macbook pro and probably something similar for your iMac. I doubt anyone would try to steal anything anyways. The risk is too great if you get caught, because some colleges have some strong policies against stealing.

 

[retrofraction]

same possition

yeah I had to get a computer this year too, I went with the imac 2.8ghz and 8800gs. I fgure this way I can keep the computer for a good 6 years and still sell it for $1000 later.

though I would probly go with the ati pro hd with 256mb, i have heard alot about boot camp errors with the 8800gs, it looks bad when you put it down like this 256 vs 512 but i can fully asure you there really no way the prossesor in the 8800 can fully utilize the ram in it, mainly just because it is 256bit not 521 bit.

if you want to save money go with ati
if you want to run the newest games like far cry 2 buy A pc cause I really don't think even the 8800gs could run it lol!