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Tired Of Finicking with Mac pro for Gaming.

RoastingPig

RoastingPig

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 23, 2012
1,606
70
SoCal
theres just something about apple machines that just don't do windows rite. random micro stutter, stupid loud fans, and more

i got tired of finicking with my mac pros to get optimum gaming wich i couldnt so i went out and bought a dedicated pc box

4670k
asus z87 pro mb
250 840 evo
corsair 750w gold
2x4gb platinum doms 2133
h100i
using a borrowed 7970 for now hopefully 290x is sub $500 bucks
define r4 titanium windowed

im so happy haha...used to work at frys long ago but still have friends there, employee discount drove the price down from 1100 to 670 bucks so i had to do it
 
Usually games thrive and run better in a Windows environment. Macs seems geared more for production.
 
RoastingPig said:
theres just something about apple machines that just don't do windows rite. random micro stutter, stupid loud fans, and more

i got tired of finicking with my mac pros to get optimum gaming wich i couldnt so i went out and bought a dedicated pc box

4670k
asus z87 pro mb
250 840 evo
corsair 750w gold
2x4gb platinum doms 2133
h100i
using a borrowed 7970 for now hopefully 290x is sub $500 bucks
define r4 titanium windowed

im so happy haha...used to work at frys long ago but still have friends there, employee discount drove the price down from 1100 to 670 bucks so i had to do it
Click to expand...

Interesting. I'm not surprised. I'm always amazed how many folks here try to do gaming on the Mac Pro. Seems like the wrong tool for the job.

To be honest, I use to be a hardcore PC gamer back in the day and around 2009 I got tired of finicking with my PC for gaming... Seriously (Crysis killed it for me). The constant driver updates, expensive GPU requirements to play on a display res also worthy of working on, BSOD issues with SLI, etc., it became too costly and too much of a headache. I ditched the PC and got a PS3 for gaming (with AimOn mouse controller) and haven't missed PC gaming one bit. Now I can game on a 60" screen with surround sound and never worry about drivers or stability and have the best computing tools for my work and photography without trying to make any of them do double duty as a gaming platform. Sure, I don't have 8x AA image quality, but the types of games I play, I'm usually moving too quick to notice jaggies.

So naturally I'm curious, why not opt for a console vs a PC dedicated to gaming?
 
I do Mac Gaming near daily, and I've never had micro stutter, loud fans, or 'more' issues.

It's been extremely smooth sailing, with the exception of Skype not playing ball in convos over 3-4 hours long with Mavericks.

No game issues, ever for me, and I probably play a much larger selection of games than most, as most are Alphas or Betas.

I have found that the native OS X drivers seem to be the best overall for stability with NVIDIA cards though.
 
I game in Windows on my Mac Pro and have never had issues, with the exception of an overheating GPU in summer. I use an Apple 5770 and PC 5870; despite the 5770 being inactive in Windows its gets really hot.

I will be building a dedicated gaming PC at some point too though, maybe next year. I can't upgrade my 08 Mac Pro anymore from a gaming perspective without fiddling with power supplies etc.

Tempted to make it beastly, maybe 8 core i7 "Broadwell", nvidida 800 series, Caselabs case :cool:
 
What an odd post by the OP. Mac Pros are not designed for gaming; they're Xeon-based workstations. Always amazes me how people say 'Macs are for people who don't know anything about computers!'; the same people who justify PCs over Macs because they're better at gaming.

Macs have the stability that you can only get from unified hardware and software. There's a reason they're used in the music and film industry, because computers are a tool, and it's the best tool for the job.

If you want to faff around eeking an extra 2fps from Crysis, go for it. There's nothing wrong with that; build your own PC for gaming. But if you buy a Mac with the predominant reason of gaming, and then complain about the price of the hardware compared to elsewhere, you've completely missed the point. People who do work don't want to cock around upgrading hardware, updating drivers, running soak tests and overclocking. They want stability and excellent, swift customer support if something goes wrong.

Congratulations, OP. You've figured out what everybody knows already. If you want a gaming PC, don't buy a Mac.
 
Gee it would be nice to be able to play CivV half reasonably though.

The annoying thing for me is that the specs of my my particular Mac absolutely destroy that of my Xbox360. And yet the 360 can play a game the scope and complexity of GTAV with barely a stutter. I understand that they are machines with very different purposes, but still, i have to wonder why the Mac performs so very poorly...
 
Nova Sensei said:
Gee it would be nice to be able to play CivV half reasonably though.

The annoying thing for me is that the specs of my my particular Mac absolutely destroy that of my Xbox360. And yet the 360 can play a game the scope and complexity of GTAV with barely a stutter. I understand that they are machines with very different purposes, but still, i have to wonder why the Mac performs so very poorly...
Click to expand...

What are the specs on your MacPro ?
 
A) Mac Pro != gaming rig
B) OS X not optimal for gaming performance
C) Mac Pro has been neglected by Apple for quite some time

That is not to say that the Mac Pro is a piece of crap machine. It's meant to be workstation. You normally wouldn't want ECC buffered RAM in a gaming rig (even the most insane ones with like multiple Titans in SLI). But you wouldn't want non ECC unbuffered RAM in a workstation.

Gaming rigs and Windows computers and Macs are all different machines built for different users.
 
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