Old iMac is dying, do I need a new iMac or Macbook Pro?

[Reinke]

Hi all,

My old (see signature) iMac from 2012 is dying. Its having kernel issues and crashing when playing (blizzard) games so a hard reset is needed to do anything, and even that could take a while as it will need to cool down before it will boot again.

Anyway, about my needs:
Im using my macbook air from 2011 (yes 2011) when I need the portability and for studying, it does fine as long as I dont do anything intensive like youtube, this will literally set the fans on max. I use it mostly to write presentations or write articles together with endnote. Battery is good for 3-5 hours tops.

I have my iMac at home for when I need the bigger screen to do what I wrote above, and I play blizzard games on it.

So now im facing a choice, would the new macbook pro TB 13" be a good upgrade for both machines? As in could it handle all my needs? Ofc. it would be able to do anything my old Air can do, but how well does it handle blizzard games?

Or should I stick with the old Air (it really does fine when im not stressing it and it seems like it could last til next summer when I graduate) and upgrade the iMac whenever they release this years iMac?

Or, is there an option I haven't considered?

 

[borgranta]

Hi all,

My old (see signature) iMac from 2012 is dying. Its having kernel issues and crashing when playing (blizzard) games so a hard reset is needed to do anything, and even that could take a while as it will need to cool down before it will boot again.

Anyway, about my needs:
Im using my macbook air from 2011 (yes 2011) when I need the portability and for studying, it does fine as long as I dont do anything intensive like youtube, this will literally set the fans on max. I use it mostly to write presentations or write articles together with endnote. Battery is good for 3-5 hours tops.

I have my iMac at home for when I need the bigger screen to do what I wrote above, and I play blizzard games on it.

So now im facing a choice, would the new macbook pro TB 13" be a good upgrade for both machines? As in could it handle all my needs? Ofc. it would be able to do anything my old Air can do, but how well does it handle blizzard games?

Or should I stick with the old Air (it really does fine when im not stressing it and it seems like it could last til next summer when I graduate) and upgrade the iMac whenever they release this years iMac?

Or, is there an option I haven't considered?

It probably could play blizzard but may or may not be able to play at desired setting due to the 13 inch lacking a dedicated GPU. An external GPU could work to give you performance possibly superior to your iMac at its best but would require an external display being run through the external GPU. If you do not want to use an external GPU and an external monitor you can then buy the 15 inch with a dedicated GPU to cut costs while sacrificing a small amount of performance by using the dedicated laptop GPU.

 

[maflynn]

So now im facing a choice, would the new macbook pro TB 13" be a good upgrade for both machines? As in could it handle all my needs? Ofc. it would be able to do anything my old Air can do, but how well does it handle blizzard games?

I'm not familiar with the Blizzard games but the 13" MBP lacks a GPU and is not a good choice for gaming

 

[panjandrum]

Hi all,

My old (see signature) iMac from 2012 is dying. Its having kernel issues and crashing when playing (blizzard) games so a hard reset is needed to do anything, and even that could take a while as it will need to cool down before it will boot again.

Anyway, about my needs:
Im using my macbook air from 2011 (yes 2011) when I need the portability and for studying, it does fine as long as I dont do anything intensive like youtube, this will literally set the fans on max. I use it mostly to write presentations or write articles together with endnote. Battery is good for 3-5 hours tops.

Quick suggestion: Build or buy a gaming PC that can cool itself correctly, OR learn to handle thermal-management and performance of games running on a Mac manually (i.e. cap performance at 30fps while running fans all fans at max rpm.) Apple has not, for many years, designed or sold a computer capable of properly cooling itself under serious load (OK, I guess I don't know about the iMac Pro yet, but if they designed that one properly it'll be the first one since the real MacPros.) Gaming on a Mac without those precautions will cook your system and eventually lead to thermal related failures.

You *can* game on them, and prior-gen games (FO3, DAO, FNV, DAII, AC, and the like) even run well on current integrated GPUs, so there is plenty of fun to be had if you don't care about running the latest games, but you have to learn how to do it right.

 

[Reinke]

@borgranta Thanks for your reply! I've had not considered using a eGPU which could be the problem solver I needed, however an expensive one . Would it not be possible to run without an external display?

@maflynn This is the reason I still consider an iMac The question is, whether my games are light enough to be played on a macbook pro 2018.

@panjandrum I absolutely agree, building my own gaming pc would be the cheapest option, and something I might consider. I only game "light" games as Heroes of the storm and occasionally WoW, so that might even bit a bit overkill. I do however like to use the big screen when I do my work (statistics or writing articles) in the Mac OS, which is why a windows based gaming computer might not be for me right now . As I replied to borgranta, the Macbook Pro could be a solution and then if need be an external GPU could potentially be the solution.

 

[mathepac]

Just a thought, but have you checked the fan/cooling grille openings on the MBA for dust/fluff/hair ingress? Use a QTip to dislodge detritus from the openings and use a vacuum-cleaner to suck up anything that falls out and to clear the openings before starting the MBA.