Help me decide which mac to buy

[Medleyz]

Hi
I'll keep it quick
I want a mac to do all, video editing, gaming etc
I also want it to last
Here are the options for my £2500 budget
-imac 27 upgraded cpu and 780m
-Mac Pro 2013 quad stock (will purchase display later on )
-Mac Pro 5.1 6 core 3.33ghz with 5870, 7tb, apple 27 display
-Mac Pro 5.1 12 core 2.6ghz with 5870

Feel free to post advice and if you want read on.

I have to get a mac for my job but also am a serious gamer. I'm young and need something to last long, upgradable.

- Imac, great value and performance.
-Mac Pro 2013, quad does not perform great and gpu not ideal for gaming and no screen.
-Mac Pro 6 core, upgradable, fast cores probably better for gaming as don't use much multi core applications.
-And Mac Pro 12 core, same benefits just a bit slower ghz but more cores.... More future proof?

Any help very appreciated

 

[bounou]

Hi
I'll keep it quick
I want a mac to do all, video editing, gaming etc
I also want it to last
Here are the options for my £2500 budget
-imac 27 upgraded cpu and 780m
-Mac Pro 2013 quad stock (will purchase display later on )
-Mac Pro 5.1 6 core 3.33ghz with 5870, 7tb, apple 27 display
-Mac Pro 5.1 12 core 2.6ghz with 5870

Feel free to post advice and if you want read on.

I have to get a mac for my job but also am a serious gamer. I'm young and need something to last long, upgradable.

- Imac, great value and performance.
-Mac Pro 2013, quad does not perform great and gpu not ideal for gaming and no screen.
-Mac Pro 6 core, upgradable, fast cores probably better for gaming as don't use much multi core applications.
-And Mac Pro 12 core, same benefits just a bit slower ghz but more cores.... More future proof?

Any help very appreciated

Forget about the base pro for gaming, unless you can afford to upgrade to twin D700's there is not point of getting the base pro if you want to play games.

Mac's are not really gaming friendly, it's ok if you don't mind running the games in windows with boot camp.

I would go with the iMac and the upgraded GPU will give you the best performance for the money you have to spend. Forget about the CPU upgrade, instead get the GPU and spend money on either a fusion drive or a SSD will make much more of an impact then the CPU will.

 

[Medleyz]

Thanks for your advice.
How do you feel about old Mac Pro, old tech or more for the money?

 

[bounou]

Thanks for your advice.
How do you feel about old Mac Pro, old tech or more for the money?

Depending on the GPU you end up putting in it could be a viable option. Forget about the 5870 unless you want to play Facebook games or something. There are a few mac edition gaming cards that will work with the old Pro and you can always buy some of the non mac edition ones if you don't mind tinkering a bit with them to get them to work.

Your problem really is gaming, the mac is much better at everything compared to windows except gaming, the only way to do any serious gaming with a Mac is with boot camp.

If you don't mind throwing money at the problem you can get some really good performance but understand you will be paying much more for the same amount of performance.

As a general rule it's probably a better idea to spend less today and upgrade sooner then spending more today and keeping the computer longer, especially with mac's who keep their value longer.

The best gaming Mac from a value/price ratio is probably the 27 inch iMac with upgraded GPU and it will also handle anything else you need it to handle.

 

[shaunp]

Sadly as others have said the Mac isn't for gaming as such. Why I don't know. Utter madness in my opinion, I mean Apple are all about consumer computing and you can't get much more consumer than games. For now it is what it is but I do wish more people would bitch about it so Apple will wake up and start pushing games on the Mac. Anyway I was in a similar position to yourself and here's what I did.

I already had a PC that is more than adequate for gaming (Core i7 3770k, 32GB RAM, several SSD, GTX 780), but I wanted a Mac for my ever day stuff. I already had a good 27" monitor too - a Dell U2711. I didn't see the point on ditching the PC for a worse gaming experience at a much higher price so I bought a mini (core i7 2.6, 265GB SDD) and I now just use the PC as a glorified xbox and for developing VM's when I need to. The rest of the time the Mini is perfect - very fast and very quiet, just lacking in graphics performance that would make it a good gaming machine.

I'm going to keep this setup until either the integrated graphics take a big jump up on the mini, there's a stand-alone Mac with good dedicated graphics or the nMP is available with a single fast GPU. Then I'll get rid of the PC and the mini. Until then however I won't be tempted by an iMac as I think the GPU is underpowered for the display when it comes to gaming and I hate glossy screens. Check the benchmarks comparing the GTX 780M to the GTX 780 (don't for get the M bit on the first card) and you'll see why I don't rate the iMac. I also think the nMP is exceptionally poor value for a gaming machine, but to be fair it's never been designed as a gaming machine.

I was also tempted by an older Mac Pro, but they still aren't all that cheap for a machine that was released in 2010.

 

[wildmac]

You left out a key piece of info.. what software (and what games).

 

[Medleyz]

i do game development but most is done in windows so i will spend most of time in bootcamp but osx is required at some points. and in terms of gaming i just came from a pc with a 7970 so i want to keep playing high end games on high settings.

 

[ActionableMango]

I hate to be that guy but it sounds like you will be way better off if you buy a Windows rig for your work and games, plus a Mac Mini for your occasional dabbling in OS X.

For control, use a KVM switch, VNC, or if you have two monitors, Synergy.

A nice side bonus is you can start a demanding job on one, then switch to the other while waiting.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

[-Mac Pro 5.1 6 core 3.33ghz with 5870, 7tb, apple 27 display] is your best deal!

Later you can add: another 6 core CPU, SSD for OS X and BootCamp, Nvidia GTX for gaming, addtitional RAM.

GL & Cheers

 

[Dark Dragoon]

i do game development but most is done in windows so i will spend most of time in bootcamp but osx is required at some points. and in terms of gaming i just came from a pc with a 7970 so i want to keep playing high end games on high settings.

If this were me I would either buy/build a new PC and run Windows on it, or upgrade the existing PC.
It will be the best solution for developing and playing Windows games.
Especially if most of your time would be spent in Windows.

Then if you still really want a Mac I would consider the Mac mini or even a MacBook Air if a laptop would be useful to you.

What exactly do you require OS X for though?
As that may change what the best option is quite a bit.

 

[Medleyz]

Thank you very much for the advice. I'm new to game development so am starting with 2d games for ipad. Osx is required for uploading app to App Store but the software I use is windows only but possible mac port in future. I will be moving onto 3d in the future so some power is needed. I have decided I want a mac and run parallels whilst using the mac software I like and osx.

I feel my options Are
2012 Mac Pro- please advise on ghz or cores
Imac maxed out
Or MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt Display

I'll explain on MacBook Pro
Benchmarks seem pretty much same as imac....which I don't get
I like I can upgrade macbook but keep display plus I don't have a laptop so would be still used. Portability would be nice but would choose power. Also will have two displays.