Want to do some gaming... WWYD?

[Agent OrangeZ]

I have an i3 2018 Mini. Should I add a Razer Core X and AMD 5700XT? $750

or

Get a Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Thin Gaming Laptop (Ryzen 9, Nvdia RTX 2060) $1400

(I need a Mac around and I don't have room for 2 desktop computers... so don't suggest building desktop)

Would an i3 bottleneck games (if I go with Mini/EGPU)?

 

[cheezeit]

I was in the same boat. Egpu doesn’t play real nice in bootcamp with AMD cards. Takes a little work. I considered going nvidia for games on boot camp and iGPU for Mac.

Not sure what games you’re looking to play but the 580x can do warzone at 1080p close to 100fps and about 50-60 at 1440p

 

[shenfrey]

For PC gaming always go to Windows.

 

[Agent OrangeZ]

For PC gaming always go to Windows.

Well... I would fo that on the Mini via Bootcamp. I am wondering how processor dependent games can be though. I mean... can I expect good results pairing a quad core i3 with a recent graphics card?

 

[shenfrey]

Well... I would fo that on the Mini via Bootcamp. I am wondering how processor dependent games can be though. I mean... can I expect good results pairing a quad core i3 with a recent graphics card?

Boot camp isn’t worth it. Egpus don’t play nice and you can also suffer weird black screen glitches when switching back and forth between boot camp and MacOS. Trust me mate, just do yourself a favour and get yourself a small, bespoke gaming PC you can may sit next to your mini or under your desk, and use that.

 

[LeeW]

For not a lot more than a decent eGPU enclosure and card you could build a reasonable PC to game on. If you have a MM then you must have everything else you need anyway, it would just be another box.

Depends on what you play I suspect you will be disappointed in performance + hassle of it all. The i3 is not great for gaming, given the performance loss between the eGPU and MM you will need a good GPU that in the end won't complement the i3.

 

[etn]

I have been using shadow.tech cloud computer for a while and am generally happy with it.
You get a lot of computer for the money. Obviously not everything is perfect and there is room for improvement, but it is already a viable solution.

Pros:
- replaces a decent gaming computer
- does not use any room (like you I do not have any available)
- price! (energy costs of a gaming PC would already represent a good fraction of that price)
- supports USB peripherals (I use it for flight sim with yoke, throttle and rudder pedals)
- includes a Windows 10 license
- works on any low-end computer (I use it with an old dual-core Microsoft Surface Pro, I don't expect any problem with an i3 Mac Mini)

Cons:
- only support 1 monitor as of now
- waiting time is expected to be loooong if you register now
- needs a good internet connection
- available only in limited areas of the world (Western Europe plus some regions of the US)
- auto logoff after 20 minutes of inactivity (used to be 2 hours 30 minutes, reduced to 20 minutes due to COVID-related increase in demand.) I hope this is a temporary problem...
- Mac client not as good as Windows client. (The above-mentioned peripherals are not always recognized on the Mac. Never had a problem with my Surface Pro.)

 

[shenfrey]

I have been using shadow.tech cloud computer for a while and am generally happy with it.
You get a lot of computer for the money. Obviously not everything is perfect and there is room for improvement, but it is already a viable solution.

Pros:
- replaces a decent gaming computer
- does not use any room (like you I do not have any available)
- price! (energy costs of a gaming PC would already represent a good fraction of that price)
- supports USB peripherals (I use it for flight sim with yoke, throttle and rudder pedals)
- includes a Windows 10 license
- works on any low-end computer (I use it with an old dual-core Microsoft Surface Pro, I don't expect any problem with an i3 Mac Mini)

Cons:
- only support 1 monitor as of now
- waiting time is expected to be loooong if you register now
- needs a good internet connection
- available only in limited areas of the world (Western Europe plus some regions of the US)
- auto logoff after 20 minutes of inactivity (used to be 2 hours 30 minutes, reduced to 20 minutes due to COVID-related increase in demand.) I hope this is a temporary problem...
- Mac client not as good as Windows client. (The above-mentioned peripherals are not always recognized on the Mac. Never had a problem with my Surface Pro.)

So it's a streaming service?

 

[etn]

So it's a streaming service?

Yes it is.

 

[Brodlum]

Which games? I've played a few titles (Cities: Skylines, Black Mesa, and Modern Warfare (Warzone)). Seems to run OK on that same Razer Core X w/ AMD RX 5700 XT. I'm going to try GTA V as a benchmark (considering it's been temporarily free) maybe this weekend too.

Was a bit of a pain to get it running; downloading the right version of Windows (and drivers) was painful (support for RX 5700 XT supposedly broke, and was maybe fixed in a recent Insider update, but works on some older versions). The egpu.io forums have a few pretty good guides.

Edit: side-note: I am using the i7@3.2 model, though