That, or Apple could change the EULA to allow peeps to put OS-X on any computer they wish (legally!).
Or they could make a way for peeps to build an "Apple Branded" computer.
Or they could sell a gamer's edition Mac Pro/Mac Book Pro or similar.
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Mac Pro Gaming
- Thread starter MagicThief83
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That, or Apple could change the EULA to allow peeps to put OS-X on any computer they wish (legally!).
Or they could make a way for peeps to build an "Apple Branded" computer.
Or they could sell a gamer's edition Mac Pro/Mac Book Pro or similar.
The gamer edition is a possibility. I can't see the other two manifesting tho - no way.
But if all the OP wants in order to game is bootcamp as he says, then his wish will come true. Bootcamp is pretty close to completely changing the Mac into a PC. Or at least the last time I looked at bootcamp it was... And I'm pretty sure Apple will continue to offer it for the new MP6,1 when it comes out.
If the New Mac Pro is an actual pro machine as promised, I don't see why it shouldn't be able to handle gaming. Even if that's not its primary use. Buy it if you want it, and use it how you want.
I think Apple keeps their OS to their own computers so that they know exactly what hardware to support and not support. The wonders of the walled garden. Oh, and they probably do it so they have a reason to sell Macs. That being said, it would be nice if they allowed OS X on any PC, under the notion that "you're on your own."
I always say that if you want a Mac for gaming, you should pick up a refurbished Mac Pro. It's a Mac, it's an actual tower, it's older and should be affordable (considering what you'd spend on a good PC gaming rig), and the specs should still hold up despite being a somewhat-older computer. It also helps that Mountain Lion supports a good handful of "PC" video cards out-of-the-box, albeit without EFI support...
I think Apple keeps their OS to their own computers so that they know exactly what hardware to support and not support. The wonders of the walled garden. Oh, and they probably do it so they have a reason to sell Macs. That being said, it would be nice if they allowed OS X on any PC, under the notion that "you're on your own."
I always say that if you want a Mac for gaming, you should pick up a refurbished Mac Pro. It's a Mac, it's an actual tower, it's older and should be affordable (considering what you'd spend on a good PC gaming rig), and the specs should still hold up despite being a somewhat-older computer. It also helps that Mountain Lion supports a good handful of "PC" video cards out-of-the-box, albeit without EFI support...
If they actually include an option with a non workstation GPU i'll look into buying one in the future. I have a hacked 4,1 to 5,1 Mac Pro with a 7950 currently and I primarily use it for both school and gaming. I am also looking into buying the 5,1 CPU eventually but I need more finances.
I just like OS X and I always get a mac pro because of the ability to upgrade stuff like the GPU and RAM after i've bought it.
This Mac Pro has me very very worried about upgradability, and I really don't want to get an iMac because you can't change the GPU so the computer becomes useless far quicker than my current Mac Pro does.
I just like OS X and I always get a mac pro because of the ability to upgrade stuff like the GPU and RAM after i've bought it.
This Mac Pro has me very very worried about upgradability, and I really don't want to get an iMac because you can't change the GPU so the computer becomes useless far quicker than my current Mac Pro does.
I'm afraid that you and I and others who have this concern are no longer Apple's target market. You could argue that this has been the case for several years now. Hope they prove that theory wrong, but time will tell I guess.
I just went through this. It's not really economical at all, but I did it anyway. A used mac pro 4,1 in good condition with a fast cpu upgrade, ssd, and video card is going to run you in the neighborhood of 2 - 2.5k. Mine was on the higher side. If you go apple refurb then tack another 1k on to that price. Note i'm considering the 3.3ghz 6 core as the best choice for a "workstation" that can also pull double duty for modern games. A gtx680 or 7950 is also pretty requisite if your going to drive a high resolution lcd.
Roughly:
- Mac Pro 4,1 $900-$1000 in good condition
- GTX680/7950 - $400 - $500
- 480gb SSD $320
- 3.3 hex core - $600
THAT..... Is exactly what I plan to do.
That's what I did. A MacPro 3,1 with 16gb and a radeon 7970 makes for a rockin gaming system at a decent price if your willing to tinker and build it out yourself.
Would the CPU upgrade be worth it? Games tend to put importance on the graphics card first, then RAM. The SSD would be nice but it's not essential.
I'm personally not sure where the processor comes in to gaming, although if you intend to do serious work then it might be worth looking at. But for pure gaming, I doubt you'd even need more than four cores for the majority of games, which could mean an even older Mac Pro could be feasible as an OS X gaming machine.
I think it depends on the CPU your coming from and what your expectations are. For example, some of the games I play currently have both OSX and windows versions. Take Guild Wars 2 or EvE Online there are cider ports for OSX that work reasonably well, but they are highly CPU bound because of the cider wrapper doing all of the dx to OpenGL translations. I want to play it at 2560x1440 and a reasonable settings (medium for example). In order to do that you need in my experience at least 3.3ghz i7 series on 4 cores and a good modern graphics card. Cider ports actually can use 4 or more cores for the multi-threaded opengl translations so a hex core does help. On the Windows side you can get the same or better performance with around 2.6ghz and you still need a decent gtx6xx card or better. If I can get a game I like to run reasonably well in OSX without a lot of sacrifice, then I just stay in OSX and play it. I'm generalizing but you get the idea. For games written to run natively on OSX like WoW, Diablo III, League of Legends, Starcraft II, etc, the performance difference is either non-existent or much smaller. And then there are the games which only have a Windows port and your forced to bootcamp.
One of the biggest benefits for me was 2 ssd's for OSX and Windows which making booting back and forth between each much less of a inconvenience.
The i7 imac with the gtx680mx almost got me because it's just on the edge of being able to do what a fully upgraded mac pro can, and I think for most people who maybe game less it would be a better choice. I just like/need the 4 drive bays and pci slots, etc.
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Not really even close on the high end. Low end yes. And I am talking Windows because it knows how to actually scale the available hardware while most of the OS X games putter at the same speeds regardless of hardware. Cider aint the only cap even Steam natives get 80FPS in OSX and 200+ in Windows. Even if you don't need 200 the difference to me is bothersome.
GTX680mx is GTX 660 or thereabouts (a bit less in DX11 a bit more in DX10). An upgraded Mac Pro can get a Titan if you wanted or even an official GTX 680 which is 25-50% faster. It will be fine in iMac under 1920x1080 which is already scaling down. At iMac native res you will be crawling on new games a real GTX 680 can do quite easily.
A GTX 680MX IS NOT equivalent to a GTX 660. It's actually has the same specs as the desktop GTX 680 (same number of CUDA cores, same memory bus and speed, etc) but at a slightly lower clock speed. See this thread for more info: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1474578/
I have seen that thread many times it does not open up any new info to me I was there as it was unfolding. The cores are clocked (not slightly lower) but very very low. Look here for the true results and stop kidding yourself. The real GTX 680 is 25%-65% faster in all cases depending on res and extremity of testing.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-680MX.83519.0.html
It is a notebook chip that is why no one has it much anywhere else except bare feats which only tests OS X which has it's own issues with scaling the hardware accurately. And has nothing to do with any new architectural bus widths on the iMac.
I stand corrected. I was mainly going off of core counts. I didn't realize that the 680MX was clocked ~30% lower than the desktop 680.
I just did this as well.
- Mac Pro 4,1 $700 (4x 2.66GHz /w 5770. Sold the 5770 for $150, so we'll call it $550 out of pocket) flashed to 5,1
- 24GB Corsair ECC Registered RAM, 1333MHz
- 3.46GHz Hex Core Xeon W3690 - $650
- Gelid GC Extreme Thermal Paste - $9
- GTX 680 2GB /w EFI Firmware - $470
- Syba SD-PEX40068 Marvell 88SE9230 6G SSD RAID Caddy (Native drivers)- $43
- ORICO PFU3-4P 4-port USB 3.0 Card (Native drivers) - $38.00
- Misc power cables for running power to USB 3.0 and Orico cards - $20
- Samsung 840 Pro 256GB x 2 - $480
- 2xWD Red 2TB - $250
Total: $2660 (No OS)
For comparison, a comparable Alienware Aurora:
i7 3820 3.6GHz @ 4.1GHz Quad Core
USB 3.0/SATA III Integrated
GeForce GTX 670 2GB
16GB 1600MHz RAM
512GB "SSD" with 1TB 7200 RPM drive
Integrated Audio
$2499 (Includes Win7)
All of my components, save the RAM and CPU are new. I could've spent a little more for a comparable gaming PC from a known vendor. If I was going cheap, for a comparable system, I'd have done this:
Intel X58 System board /w SATA 3.0/USB 3.0 - $189
- i7-990x 3.46GHz (Off eBay) /w Intel HSF - $640
- Gelid GC Extreme Thermal Paste - $9
- Corsair XMS 24GB 1333MHz Non-ECC - $90
- Galaxy GeForce GTX 680 - $478
- Corsair Graphite 600T Case - $120
- Corsair HX Professional Series 850-watt - $170
- Samsung 840 Pro 256GB x 2 - $480
- 2xWD Red 2TB - $250
Total: $2426 (No OS)
My Mac Pro Premium comes out to a total of $234. And I'm sure the Mac Pro is a bit quieter.
Overall, happy with my build as both a work and a gaming system, dual booting.
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It would be soooo awesome if they made a prosumer version of this with a non workstation graphics card.
Mac Pro for gaming? It's very good machine to play games with bootcamp. And what's best thing is that you can have both powerful computer with osx to working and powerful computer to gaming with windows. I play with my mac pro a lot when i have time for that. And i haven't find any game yet what is not working fast with my mac pro what you can see in my signature. So why buy a gaming pc and mac separately? Just buy mac pro and you can do all what you need with that (and i'm sorry about my bad english sometimes )
(and i'm sorry about my bad english sometimes )
The FirePros have no issues with games. This is just FUD.
(The W9000 and 7970 are basically the same card, so that's the interesting comparison.)
I also play a lot of games. Always did. I love macs, I would never go back to Windows. I was thinking about building a gaming rig, but having separate machines is a no go for me.
So I just bought a Mac Pro and put a GTX 680 in it. It runs every game very well. Crysis 3 runs amazing and so do all other games I play. With this setup, I can do all other things in OSX, use Windows apps via Parallels and for gaming I can boot natively into Windows. Best solution for me.
So I just bought a Mac Pro and put a GTX 680 in it. It runs every game very well. Crysis 3 runs amazing and so do all other games I play. With this setup, I can do all other things in OSX, use Windows apps via Parallels and for gaming I can boot natively into Windows. Best solution for me.
This really depends on which video cards are included. The top-tier will likely have dual W9000, but those cards cost $3,500 each (putting the cost at >$7000, but maybe Apple can discount that somewhat through bulk pricing).
The bottom tier is said to still " dual workstation GPU"--likely FireGL (AMD). The problem is that low-end / prior generation workstation cards are basically totally obsolete for gaming. Having them in Crossfire (joining 2+ cards together) will help but Crossfire is prone to frame variability, stuttering, etc.
Single GPU setups or even SLI (NVidia's multi-GPU) offer a much better gaming experience. It is unlikely Apple will offer a single GPU setup.
One thing we can reasonably be sure of: The GPU likely will not be user-replaceable and even if it is, they are extremely proprietary so options will be very limited. If not replaceable, you're locking yourself into a video card that, even if high-end, will be nearly worthless in 3 years. This turns your "investment" into a disposable machine.
So, in short: the entry model will likely suck for games, GPU options will be limited, upgrades will likely be impossible, it will likely use workstation cards which are overpriced and/or useless for gaming, and if you're buying this for gaming then your friends won't like you.
This is why I just kept my old mac pro for productivity and bought a gaming PC.
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$3,500--it'd better be decent for gaming.
By the way, compare that to a Titan, and realize you're stuck with it for the entire life of your computer. Still a good gaming card?
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Tons of these things are going to be sold to people who are going to use them as gaming PC's, some of them are going to be used as HTPC's.
I would not be surprised if Apple sold more of these too gamers/power users then to professionals if they included top of the line consumer class GPU's and kept the price to around 3-4k.
I know I would buy it over an iMac for sure.
True, but the reason most people say it's not good for gamming is because of the software. OS X itself is third rate. The libraries are not up to date and not very fast either. Sometimes they can even be considered inadequate in comparison. And then there's the games themselves. Half of the games available for OS X are inferior ports from the Windows platform. More than half the games available for Windows don't even exist for OS X and no VM comes even close to performing to standard.
From 2002 to about 2006 it looked as if Apple was going to cater to and entice the game development community but round about 2005/6 they gave up and told us all to make games for their telephone instead. WTH!?!
So for the past 6 or 7 years there hasn't even been hope for good gaming on OS X. And no Apple with a full color monitor has ever in the history of Apple been considered a good gaming platform by people who are actually into games. With the advent of bootcamp things got a little better but hard-core gamers probably aren't going to pay the Apple tax for a fairly low speed system which can't be over clocked and so on.
I agree tho, I hate it too. I totally wish OS X had even the equivalent support for games that Windoze does.
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There isn't really that big a market for gaming on a Mac. Games are costly to develop and optimize on one plateform, more so for two. It becomes a game of diminishing return.
The AAA companies target the PC, Xbox and PS3, and with this they get like 95% of all customers. Which incentive is left to spend $$$ and ressources for the 3% of Mac gamers and the 2% of linux?
With titles that aren't console friendly like World of Warcraft or RTS, then it becomes profitable to spend $$$ on a mac client. But for FPS, there is just not enough of a demand.
At best, if you are deep into gaming you should consider maybe buying a PC or a console, or at worst building an Hackintosh. Because in the and there isn't really that much of a demand for gaming on the Mac. The last real game friendly Apple was the Apple ][ series... And even then, they weren't as good as the C64 or Atari computers.
The AAA companies target the PC, Xbox and PS3, and with this they get like 95% of all customers. Which incentive is left to spend $$$ and ressources for the 3% of Mac gamers and the 2% of linux?
With titles that aren't console friendly like World of Warcraft or RTS, then it becomes profitable to spend $$$ on a mac client. But for FPS, there is just not enough of a demand.
At best, if you are deep into gaming you should consider maybe buying a PC or a console, or at worst building an Hackintosh. Because in the and there isn't really that much of a demand for gaming on the Mac. The last real game friendly Apple was the Apple ][ series... And even then, they weren't as good as the C64 or Atari computers.