bottom level gaming machine

[maelstromr]

Hi all -

I have a powerbook G4 I'm using for school and my main machine, but have a 20" screen, keyboard, mouse and all of that I hook it up to when I'm home. I love Civ IV more than eating, but the powerbook is KILLING me with slowness. I was thinking of getting an older or lower level machine to game with and use for itunes storage and such on the side - either an intel mini or a G5 tower. Which do you think is the most cost effective for me to play WoW, Civ IV and maybe a few other current games? I don't need blazing, but I want to play those significantly faster than the powerbook can (WoW actually runs fine on it right now.)

I was going to use ebay or craigslist as well as our forums when I buy - but was interested in opinions on how much to spend, what to outfit it with and which machine would suit me. Like I said, I want something to take my desk space at home, so imac and such is out. Thanks in advance.

 

[bluetorch18]

With a 64mb integrated graphics card, the mini wasn't exactly built for gaming and if you are planning on playing those games on OS X and not XP through bootcamp, I'd definitely recommend getting a PowerMac G5 instead, but wait for Apple to upgrade the PowerMac line at WWDC(August 7th-11th), this way you can get a PowerMac G5 at a cheaper price.

 

[RedTomato]

Either get a cheap PC to use as games machine and network storage (for iTunes etc) or put more RAM in your powerbook?

Soon you'll be too busy / enjoying life too much to do much gaming anyway.

 

[maelstromr]

Either get a cheap PC to use as games machine and network storage (for iTunes etc) or put more RAM in your powerbook?

Soon you'll be too busy / enjoying life too much to do much gaming anyway.

Well I hope that whole PC thing goes without saying - yuck. The powerbook is not even technically supported by Civ IV, and I have about 1.5 gigs already, so more RAM isn't going to up it much.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

I wouldnt go for any G5 machine unless you want to limit and isolate yourself, If you want to game you need a real GPU. Its that simple. I would wait for WWDC see what happens. Mini would be great if it had the next generation Integrated graphics. The current GMA 950 is just weak & cheap.