I know the specs. But specs are just numbers. Practice tells people so much more than a few lines of text.
Thank you to all the people who gave intelligent replies. I might get a Mac Pro in *goes to calculate his current income* 2 years.
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So, is the new Mac Pro great for gaming?
- Thread starter MacTrekkie
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I know the specs. But specs are just numbers. Practice tells people so much more than a few lines of text.
Thank you to all the people who gave intelligent replies. I might get a Mac Pro in *goes to calculate his current income* 2 years.
Yeah, and generally people think that "their money" is all in an inexhaustible piece of plastic in their wallet.
A minor rebuttal...
What you say is true but I prefer to use my MacBook pro instead of a console. Why?
1. I can play anywhere as long as I have an outlet. With a console I am tied to my home and I am someone who is always mobile.
2. A good portion of the games that come out on consoles are available for the pc. (personally can't wait for SF4!). The only games I do miss are Final Fantasy, Tekken & Gran Turismo.
3. Because consoles always have the same specs, I never have to worry about requirements for the port. Most pc games don't have crazy requirements except the rare ones every few years that come out like crysis. I am not that hardcore anymore that I need to have all the latest & greatest. Since most of games are at some point going to have a console release they really never push the specs. They also do this because they also want to reach mainstream pc gamers to maximize profits. There is currently no game on the horizon that pushes the limits like crysis did.
4. I can do much more with my machine than if I had just a macbook & xbox/ps3.
5. I have to worry less about which game is for which console when it comes out.
6. For most games there is no online fees. With the xbox it's $50 a year membership.
7. Consoles generally have low quality hardware (ie red ring of death) because they make their money on software. With the MBP I have the best hardware I can get.
8. As was mentioned previously console ports are cheaper.
9. Maybe most importantly my girlfriend thinks it's childish to have a gaming console. I know, I know. But once you get enough stink eye looks you just give in.
If he's got the money for a mac pro then go for it. Though if you've got that kind of money for a desktop I'd recommend a MBP and replace it every 3 years and you'd have a portable gaming machine.
What you say is true but I prefer to use my MacBook pro instead of a console. Why?
1. I can play anywhere as long as I have an outlet. With a console I am tied to my home and I am someone who is always mobile.
2. A good portion of the games that come out on consoles are available for the pc. (personally can't wait for SF4!). The only games I do miss are Final Fantasy, Tekken & Gran Turismo.
3. Because consoles always have the same specs, I never have to worry about requirements for the port. Most pc games don't have crazy requirements except the rare ones every few years that come out like crysis. I am not that hardcore anymore that I need to have all the latest & greatest. Since most of games are at some point going to have a console release they really never push the specs. They also do this because they also want to reach mainstream pc gamers to maximize profits. There is currently no game on the horizon that pushes the limits like crysis did.
4. I can do much more with my machine than if I had just a macbook & xbox/ps3.
5. I have to worry less about which game is for which console when it comes out.
6. For most games there is no online fees. With the xbox it's $50 a year membership.
7. Consoles generally have low quality hardware (ie red ring of death) because they make their money on software. With the MBP I have the best hardware I can get.
8. As was mentioned previously console ports are cheaper.
9. Maybe most importantly my girlfriend thinks it's childish to have a gaming console. I know, I know. But once you get enough stink eye looks you just give in.
If he's got the money for a mac pro then go for it. Though if you've got that kind of money for a desktop I'd recommend a MBP and replace it every 3 years and you'd have a portable gaming machine.
What? The 4870 is just okay for gaming? Aside from the GTX295, 4870X2, and GTX285, there are no faster cards right now. It might be classified mid-ragne now, but its certainly upper mid-range and smokes the old generation by a good 40-50%
Well that's certainly your opinion on consoles, but there are plenty of games that can NEVER be played on console.
Try playing a strategy game. Like World in Conflict, Empire Total War, Warhammer 40K Dawn of War 2, Company of Heroes, etc. on a console. Sorry, it ain't going to happen
And a lot of people prefer FPS's with a mouse and keyboard. I'm one of them. There's a reason why many FPS games on consoles and PC's do not allow them to play against one another online - cause PC users would obliterate console players with their faster pace.
Lets not forget that a PC will also have better graphics, the ability for customizations, modifications, add-ons, user created content etc. that consoles can't have.
What's funny is that on the Mac Pro forums SO many people say they want a mac pro for Handbrake, a "little" video editing and Photoshop files that I guess are then used for billboards or maybe google earth shots. but that's OK.
I feel like every other post on the mac pro forum is like: "Yeah, OK, so we know the load times on a 50 gig Photoshop file. Perfect. I have 37 drives full of those, but Handbrake man! What...are...the...handbrake...speeds!!"
Then somebody wants to know if it's good for gaming, without clarifying that he/she is doing something "worthy" and everyone gets all, let's say, opinionated.
And while we're at it, why can't somebody build a "cheap" PC for photoshop? I mean it's 64bit in windows....
had to get that off my chest.
PS - i read this because I'm about to start gaming on a mac pro. ha!
I feel like every other post on the mac pro forum is like: "Yeah, OK, so we know the load times on a 50 gig Photoshop file. Perfect. I have 37 drives full of those, but Handbrake man! What...are...the...handbrake...speeds!!"
Then somebody wants to know if it's good for gaming, without clarifying that he/she is doing something "worthy" and everyone gets all, let's say, opinionated.
And while we're at it, why can't somebody build a "cheap" PC for photoshop? I mean it's 64bit in windows....
had to get that off my chest.
PS - i read this because I'm about to start gaming on a mac pro. ha!
I want to play at 1920x1200 only , play WoW and EQ2 and DoWII and Empire Total War, and play with a keyboard and mouse.
Let me know that link to a console that does that.
Now back to the OP , if you are buying it to play in addition to using the OS X side of the Mac Pro get a 4870 or two 3870's (can use the crossfire in Windows and works well ) or an Nvidia 8800gt.
Any of those combinations will work very well in bootcamp for PC games just dont use the crap Apple drivers for the video and make sure to grab modified ones once XP/Vista is installed.
And don't pay attention to the college kids trying to tell you how the world's finances work either. It is good advice to tell you if it's purely for gaming go a PC route , but if you have reasons for using the Mac Pro for it's power on the OS X side and want to know if it can game well when you want to do that , then the answer is yes and it's a valid question. The idiots who assume they know your personal finances or go off like they are economic geniuses when likely they haven't had a mortgage and are barely out of mommy's nest amuse me. Their are a certain few on these boards who think they know everything about everything and pump their personal ego up by going around in almost every thread acting like their opinion and knowledge > all. I've learned to just ignore them.
I'm curious about the processor folks would recommend. Would an octa 2.26 be anywhere near as powerful as a quad 2.93? From the previous comments it seems as though folks are only commenting on the video card, so is the idea here the processors are close enough that the focus is on the graphics card for gaming?
Talking purely on the gaming part , the quad 2.93 is going to be faster than the oct 2.26 by a decent margin.
Few games are now barely able to truly take advantage of 2 cores ,and fewer quad.
So the mhz jump will be good bit faster in gaming and quad will still be plenty future proof for games.
Now thats purely on that games angle of it. Thats not saying if you need 8 cores for what you do in OS X more that you wont run games well so I wouldnt base too much of the decision on that. But if you dont really need 8 cores for the OS X portion , I'd lean more towards 2.66.2.93 quad.