Intel Mac Pro this spring?

[macgeek2005]

I'm rather dissapointed with the video card in the Intel iMacs, and the MacBook Pro. I'm looking to get a new gaming machine, but the Radeon X1600 just isn't good enough.

I think i'm right in assuming that the Intel PowerMac will either have a Radeon X1800 or X1900, in which case I would definetaly wait for those to come out.

Is there anything that can give us an estimate on when they might be released?

 

[Eidorian]

Merom, 'nuff said.

I don't think our workstation buffs will want a 32-bit Intel Power Mac on the Yonah core. Expect a window of July to October?

 

[chibianh]

I'm rather dissapointed with the video card in the Intel iMacs, and the MacBook Pro. I'm looking to get a new gaming machine, but the Radeon X1600 just isn't good enough.

I think i'm right in assuming that the Intel PowerMac will either have a Radeon X1800 or X1900, in which case I would definetaly wait for those to come out.

Is there anything that can give us an estimate on when they might be released?

So what sort of games will you be running? I hope whatever you plan or want to play will be universal binary by the time you get a Macintel. I mostly play WoW and if i was in the market now, I'd settle for an iMac since it'll play WoW nicely.

BTW, Barefeats has some benchmarks of the iNtel iMac and it wasn't too shabby at Doom3 and UT2k4...

http://www.barefeats.com/imcd.html

 

[macgeek2005]

I'd like to play Doom 3 on High Quality, at higher resolution than 1024x768, and with shadows and anti-aliasing turned on.

The maxed out 20" iMac played it at Medium quality, 1024x768 resolution, and no shadows or anti-aliasing, at 53fps. That's slow.

It'll be a shame if I have to wait until July-October, but what must be done must be done, and there is no way, I can afford to waste my money on a computer that will become obsolete (for gaming) in no time, and is not upgradeable.

 

[johnnybluejeans]

I'm looking to get a new gaming machine

Then why in the world are you buying a Mac?

 

[combatcolin]

I'd like to play Doom 3 on High Quality, at higher resolution than 1024x768, and with shadows and anti-aliasing turned on.

The maxed out 20" iMac played it at Medium quality, 1024x768 resolution, and no shadows or anti-aliasing, at 53fps. That's slow.

It'll be a shame if I have to wait until July-October, but what must be done must be done, and there is no way, I can afford to waste my money on a computer that will become obsolete (for gaming) in no time, and is not upgradeable.

53FPS slow?



As anthing over 60 is a waste of time then 53 is a pretty damn good frame rate.

Of course all frame rate and no tasty effects isn't overly brilliant.

 

[cnakeitaro]

53FPS slow?



As anthing over 60 is a waste of time then 53 is a pretty damn good frame rate.

Of course all frame rate and no tasty effects isn't overly brilliant.

yeah i'm confused too.....exactly what did you expect they would put in the iMac and new Powerbooks? And since when is a Mac a gaming machine? I mean it can be, but if your rly just a gamer go to http://www.alienware.com. They have much better machines for what you want.

 

[bodeh6]

Gamers don't buy Macs. Sorry. I mean we only get a select handful of games from the PC side. Hopefully with the Intel Macs, we might get more games seeing how the hardware is now pretty much the exact same and the only difference is the OS.

 

[Xephian]

It wouldn't be very smart to buy a Mac for gaming...

And I doubt that the Mac Pro will have a high end ATI card like the X1900XTX 512MB. It'll probably have something like a GeForce 7300 pre-installed.

 

[macgeek2005]

I don't think you understand. I am a mac user, who likes to play games at the same time. It's not like I have no mac right now, and i'm just looking for a gaming machine and I thought that the Mac was the best gaming machine out there. At the same time as upgrading to a new mac (which I would have done anyway), i'm looking for which option would also allow me to play games very well.

 

[chibianh]

I don't think you understand. I am a mac user, who likes to play games at the same time. It's not like I have no mac right now, and i'm just looking for a gaming machine and I thought that the Mac was the best gaming machine out there. At the same time as upgrading to a new mac (which I would have done anyway), i'm looking for which option would also allow me to play games very well.

I guess the question is, do you game more than you 'Mac'? Either way, I think a Mac Pro tower would do nicely as it's more flexible in terms of what you can get for the video card.

 

[macgeek2005]

It's almost certain by now that the Radeon X1800 will be available for mac, whether or not it's the standard card in the Mac Pro Tower right? I really want that card!!

 

[combatcolin]

Im very confident that WOW on an Intel Mac will be something to shout about compared to the PPC version.

We've seen Apple put more effort into their graphic cards (Not as much as we would have hoped for but its an inprovment) but of course the best option for gaming will always be the entry level PowerMac will lots of RAM and a built to order GPU.

 

[johnnybluejeans]

I don't think we'll see the PowerMac line move to Intel until two conditions are met.

1) Merom
2) Pro apps available from major 3rd parties (i.e. Adobe)

 

[Moog101]

I don't think you understand. I am a mac user, who likes to play games at the same time. It's not like I have no mac right now, and i'm just looking for a gaming machine and I thought that the Mac was the best gaming machine out there. At the same time as upgrading to a new mac (which I would have done anyway), i'm looking for which option would also allow me to play games very well.

I was in the same boat. So I bought an iMac and an XBox 360 and now I have the best of both worlds, and a lot cheaper than buying a top of the range PowerMac just for games..

M

 

[bodeh6]

Don't you think it is time for Apple to make 1GB of RAM standard on the Mac Pro? They have it standard on the MacBook Pro 1.83GHz.

 

[combatcolin]

Well, as its going to be 6 months before we see the new Powermacs i think we can safely assume that they will come with 1GB RAM as standard.

 

[Kelson]

Not Merom, Conroe....

Folks,

Merom is a mobile processor. It will not be in the Mac Pros or Power Macs or whatever they call it. The Desktop processor is Conroe which is based on the same architecture as Merom.

- Kelson