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Mac Pro as a gaming machine?
- Thread starter Michael Goff
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LOL, not my daily driver yet. As soon as it is I will do.
I'm an OS X only gamer but 've actually found my 09 Mac Pro has done well over the years despite the low 2.26GHz base clocks.
I've changed the GPU over the years from the BTO 4870 to a 5870 and now a 7950 going up to a 1440p screen in the process and it was all made more affordable by being able to sell the older GPUS on.
Although I did a lot of H264 encoding over the years which the cores really helped with (especially when I wanted to do something else as well) and audio work in Logic X etc. I really got this over specced machine simply because I'd enjoyed owning and expanding a sawtooth G4 and Power Mac G5 before it.
The new Mac Pro despite the nice new design I've concluded isn't really an option for me now given the change in focus to Open CL and video/rendering plus the price (especially as only the D700's would be better than the 7950 in OS X games) but I'm not sure what the next step should be....
On the one hand the Retina iMac when upgraded to the best CPU and GPU has massive single thread performance and just beats the multicore performance I have and the mobile 295X is slightly better than my 7950.
On the other hand Xeon CPU upgrade options for this machine including the possibility of dual hexacores if I flash the firmware are getting more affordable and that should give me better single thread performance closer at least to modern machines with truly massive multicore and it may yet be possible to get a worthwhile GPU upgrade again down the line although this will not likely be a "Mac edition" now and I could do with that boot screen...
I've changed the GPU over the years from the BTO 4870 to a 5870 and now a 7950 going up to a 1440p screen in the process and it was all made more affordable by being able to sell the older GPUS on.
Although I did a lot of H264 encoding over the years which the cores really helped with (especially when I wanted to do something else as well) and audio work in Logic X etc. I really got this over specced machine simply because I'd enjoyed owning and expanding a sawtooth G4 and Power Mac G5 before it.
The new Mac Pro despite the nice new design I've concluded isn't really an option for me now given the change in focus to Open CL and video/rendering plus the price (especially as only the D700's would be better than the 7950 in OS X games) but I'm not sure what the next step should be....
On the one hand the Retina iMac when upgraded to the best CPU and GPU has massive single thread performance and just beats the multicore performance I have and the mobile 295X is slightly better than my 7950.
On the other hand Xeon CPU upgrade options for this machine including the possibility of dual hexacores if I flash the firmware are getting more affordable and that should give me better single thread performance closer at least to modern machines with truly massive multicore and it may yet be possible to get a worthwhile GPU upgrade again down the line although this will not likely be a "Mac edition" now and I could do with that boot screen...
I'd say running Dragon Age Inquisition at 4K resolution qualifies the nMP as a good gaming machine!
Ok, look now!!!!
This. Thing. Flies.
I know there are plenty out there with faster machines than mine but there is a very noticeable difference.
Sonnet Tempo SSD PCIe controller next too.
I feel pretty good about this purchase now too as for the first time in the Uk, the nMP has appeard on the refurb store.
I would have purchased a 6 core if any but instead of spending £1K like i have now it would have cost me £3k. Now yes it may well have been a bit quicker, (the new on benches 20736 versus 16630 for mine). But for me the diference in cost, (I’ve not factored in the additional TB enclosures I’d need etc etc), it wasn’t worth it.
I have an Apricorn PCIe SSD card arriving today so we’ll see what else I get.
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