Mac Pro as Gaming Machine and regular PC.

[Zeov]

'Ey guys.


So, my windows 7 PC yet again (like the last 3-4 PC's i've had) started to crash and be insanely slow from only like 3-4 months, and thats only from playing games (cs 1.6 and GTA IV mostly) and running the internet, now this is something i'm getting really tired off, and now i've thought about just buying the Quad Core Mac Pro with 6GB of ram.

Now, this is obviously a pretty expensive machine, but i personally feel that it would be worth the money to keep it for many years instead of changing every few months because of crappy PC's.

Now, as i mentioned it's pretty expensive, so obviously i want some questions answered:


1: Will the Mac Pro be able to run 100/120 HZ with the Samsung 2233RZ ?

2: Will it run games good? i am going to put i windows 7 on it, i need it for CS 1.6 (reason for the 100hz) but in general, will i be satisfied with this machine as a gaming machine? here i'm thinking WoW on nice graphics, GTA IV on Max and so on. Other reason for windows, is that i've been told it runs better at games (is that true?)

3: I',m not really good at hardware and stuff, but will i be able to upgrade it pretty easily? and is this Machine a good buy for the future in terms of long lasting.

4: Is there anything else regarding the Mac Pro i should know? if so, write it ;-)

edit: the reason i want Mac Pro over the mini or iMac is because i need 100HZ and i cant do that through mini display, or HDMI (as far as i know)


Hopefully you guys can help me

Thanks


/Mike P.

 

[CyberCat]

1. Not sure on this one.
2. With the 5970 at 1680x1050 you should pretty much be able to play most recent games on highest settings, you may have to lower AA/AF in some cases though.
3. The Mac Pro is the most upgrade friendly Mac second only to a Hackintosh. You can easily upgrade the RAM and HDDs and with a little more work you can upgrade the optical drives and CPUs.
4. You'll be really limited on the graphics front as far as what's fully compatible compared to the Hackintosh or PC world, also no CrossFire/SLI. Unlike some Apple products the Mac Pro is fairly bad value in terms of the parts you get for the money. For example the baseline 2010 Mac Pro uses a Xeon W3530 which is only $314.99 on newegg. However the Mac Pro is a really great system if you need the power and flexibility it's hard to go wrong. Not to mention it comes with one of the best designed tower cases I've ever used.

 

[beto2k7]

go pc for games.

 

[PowerGamerX]

Keep your PC for games, and use a Mac Mini for everything else.

 

[goMac]

The OP is asking about CS, WoW and GTA4 and you're telling him to get a gaming PC?

Don't listen to the other posters. The Mac Pro can easily run these games on max settings. Even in OS X. I don't know what their deal is.

 

[Hellhammer]

The OP is asking about CS, WoW and GTA4 and you're telling him to get a gaming PC?

Don't listen to the other posters. The Mac Pro can easily run these games on max settings. Even in OS X. I don't know what their deal is.

And costs twice as much as PCs. You can get a PC that runs circles around the Mac Pro for way less than 1500$.

 

[Zeov]

And costs twice as much as PCs. You can get a PC that runs circles around the Mac Pro for way less than 1500$.

But my point is, i'm tired of these crappy PC's.. and i'm willing to pay a little extra for the thing to work for several years.

 

[VirtualRain]

But my point is, i'm tired of these crappy PC's.. and i'm willing to pay a little extra for the thing to work for several years.

If you want to leave crappy PCs behind, you need to leave Windows, Windows drivers, and Windows gaming behind too. The actual hardware is the least of your problems. I now game on a PS3 connected to a 52" screen and 7.2x110W audio with a FragFx controller. My Mac is for computing. Suggest you consider the same. It's nirvana.

 

[Hellhammer]

But my point is, i'm tired of these crappy PC's.. and i'm willing to pay a little extra for the thing to work for several years.

What are the specs of your PC? Have you tried doing a clean install of Windows? It is very unlikely that the hardware in your PC is bad. Most likely you have just installed something that slows it down, pretty normal for Windows.

The thing is, Macs use the same hardware as PCs do. You will have to run Windows in the Mac Pro anyway as GTA IV is only for Windows. If you have managed to slow down your PCs, then you will most likely be able to slow down the Windows partition in Mac Pro too.

 

[gpzjock]

Hardware isn't usually the reason for slowdowns over time.

If your PC was capable of running Windows 7 fast to begin with it should be able to again if you maintain the software on it.
Malware and excessive clutter, fragged up data and general poor registry management are the majority of reasons for Windoze slowdowns.
As Hellhammer suggests a clean reinstall might help restore the pep it had.

Back in the XP days I knew a couple who bought a new PC every year without fail just to ditch the software baggage their previous one was carrying, they liked getting an annual upgrade at a cost of around £500 a pop. The old machine was sold on, minus the HDD which was binned with an iron nail driven through it.

A m8 of mine uses Vista and backs up his data every week, then wipes his drive every 3 months and puts a fresh copy of Vista on to keep it spruce.

Both methods would be cheaper than a Mac Pro purchased only to find that Windows doesn't keep its house any cleaner on a super duper Apple workstation.
It will still crap on the floor and expect you to clean up after it or walk round the piles forever more.

 

[Zeov]

aight guys, thanks very much for the responses.


i'm currently scanning the entire machine, and after that i might clean it for dust and hair and whatnot (cat..) and i'll see how it turns out.

 

[VPrime]

Cs 1.6 is a ten year old game... My toaster can play that.
There is no need for a Mac pro for any of the games you mentioned. Get an imac if you must go Mac. No need to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on playing some out dated games.

 

[initialsBB]

1: Will the Mac Pro be able to run 100/120 HZ with the Samsung 2233RZ ?

if you want to use nVidia's 3D Vision, you will have to find a Mac blessed GTX 285 or see if ATI's 3rd party support the 5770/5870 & the 2233RZ.

2: Will it run games good? i am going to put i windows 7 on it, i need it for CS 1.6 (reason for the 100hz) but in general, will i be satisfied with this machine as a gaming machine? here i'm thinking WoW on nice graphics, GTA IV on Max and so on. Other reason for windows, is that i've been told it runs better at games (is that true?)

I can't get GTA IV to run smoothly at max settings on my Mac Pro 6x3,33 + ATI 5770 + 16 GB RAM... just sayin'

3: I',m not really good at hardware and stuff, but will i be able to upgrade it pretty easily? and is this Machine a good buy for the future in terms of long lasting.

motherboard+processor aside, the Mac Pro is a very open machine.

4: Is there anything else regarding the Mac Pro i should know? if so, write it ;-)

No comprehensive multi channel audio support onboard.

edit: the reason i want Mac Pro over the mini or iMac is because i need 100HZ and i cant do that through mini display, or HDMI (as far as i know)

HDMI 1.4a should be able to achieve that. ATI 5770 and 5870 in the Mac Pros can output HDMI 1.3 only.

 

[Luis Ortega]

So, my windows 7 PC yet again (like the last 3-4 PC's i've had) started to crash and be insanely slow from only like 3-4 months, and thats only from playing games (cs 1.6 and GTA IV mostly) and running the internet, now this is something i'm getting really tired off, and now i've thought about just buying the Quad Core Mac Pro with 6GB of ram.

My 8 core Mac Pro with 16 gb ram and a GTX 285 is a great machine but it doesn't play games as well as my son's PC, which cost 1/2 the price and has lower specs.
I'd say that you need to learn how to set up and maintain your PC.
It's very easy.

 

[Zeov]

if you want to use nVidia's 3D Vision, you will have to find a Mac blessed GTX 285 or see if ATI's 3rd party support the 5770/5870 & the 2233RZ.


I can't get GTA IV to run smoothly at max settings on my Mac Pro 6x3,33 + ATI 5770 + 16 GB RAM... just sayin'


motherboard+processor aside, the Mac Pro is a very open machine.


No comprehensive multi channel audio support onboard.


HDMI 1.4a should be able to achieve that. ATI 5770 and 5870 in the Mac Pros can output HDMI 1.3 only.

about GTA IV on Max.. can you show a video of that? seems very weird :S

 

[initialsBB]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

if you want to use nVidia's 3D Vision, you will have to find a Mac blessed GTX 285 or see if ATI's 3rd party support the 5770/5870 & the 2233RZ.


I can't get GTA IV to run smoothly at max settings on my Mac Pro 6x3,33 + ATI 5770 + 16 GB RAM... just sayin'


motherboard+processor aside, the Mac Pro is a very open machine.


No comprehensive multi channel audio support onboard.


HDMI 1.4a should be able to achieve that. ATI 5770 and 5870 in the Mac Pros can output HDMI 1.3 only.

about GTA IV on Max.. can you show a video of that? seems very weird :S

I won't be able to get a video for a while. Anti aliasing and the viewing distance are especially prone to making the game stutter. Turn AA off and set distance to less than 50% helped, but it still wasn't the best.

 

[RebootD]

If you want to run pro apps and make a living off it - Get a Mac Pro.

If you want to play games at the highest settings, and have the ability to buy a new card to keep playing games at highest settings, buy a gaming PC for 1/2 the cost.

 

[tpavur]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1129492/

my dad is in the same boat, now he is going to lose big time selling this machine as he has put much more money in than he will get out of it.

 

[nanofrog]

What are the specs of your PC? Have you tried doing a clean install of Windows? It is very unlikely that the hardware in your PC is bad. Most likely you have just installed something that slows it down, pretty normal for Windows.

The thing is, Macs use the same hardware as PCs do. You will have to run Windows in the Mac Pro anyway as GTA IV is only for Windows. If you have managed to slow down your PCs, then you will most likely be able to slow down the Windows partition in Mac Pro too.

Exactly.

The issues indicated are software based, not hardware.

As per internet use, I've no idea what the OP has downloaded, but there's the potential some of it may contain malware, which can significantly slow down a Windows OS.

 

[VelNZ]

My Mac Pro 8-core 2.4ghz with the 5870 upgrade from Apple runs Crysis 2 on "Extreme" graphics. 'nuff said.

 

[Zeov]

My Mac Pro 8-core 2.4ghz with the 5870 upgrade from Apple runs Crysis 2 on "Extreme" graphics. 'nuff said.

do you think the quadcore with 6gb ram and 5870 upgrade would perform well in gaming?


Extreme, is that the maximum settings in crysis 2?

 

[Renderz]

Mac Pro 1,1 with Flashed Radeon 4870 runs everything so far.

If I may chip in, I've been building a modest PC with the aim to keep it under £300 ($480US)

AMD Athlon II X3 445 3.1 GHz - Socket AM3
ASUS M4A78LT-M LE AMD 760G Socket AM3 Motherboard
4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz Memory
Asus GT 430 1GB DDR3 Graphics card

It can play most games, it can just about play Crysis 2 but since I am more of a Console gamer these days it was fine.

But I wanted to see what I could do to push my Mac Pro 1,1 so I flashed a Radeon 4870 and "bazinga" it is a blazing gaming machine! I can run Crysis 2 at maximum settings at a very high resolution. The graphics card only cost me £60 ($96) and I now have a very respectable gaming machine.

 

[VelNZ]

do you think the quadcore with 6gb ram and 5870 upgrade would perform well in gaming?


Extreme, is that the maximum settings in crysis 2?

Yeah, Extreme is the maximum and the game determined my Mac Pro to be that by default. Makes you feel good

I'm sure it would, probably better than my 8-core in fact. I've noticed Crysis 2 uses 2 cores fully and another half core or so as well. It's not as if it's using all the power of the computer at all so a quad is more than enough as it is to play it. It's the 5870 that's really driving the game so make sure to get that and you're set! I also have the 6gb default RAM and play the game on 1920x1200. It looks epic...

 

[Zeov]

Yeah, Extreme is the maximum and the game determined my Mac Pro to be that by default. Makes you feel good

I'm sure it would, probably better than my 8-core in fact. I've noticed Crysis 2 uses 2 cores fully and another half core or so as well. It's not as if it's using all the power of the computer at all so a quad is more than enough as it is to play it. It's the 5870 that's really driving the game so make sure to get that and you're set! I also have the 6gb default RAM and play the game on 1920x1200. It looks epic...

aight, thanks a lot.


Would you mind making a video of it whenever you have time ?