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Why Apple is breaking my heart.
- Thread starter heffer2k02
- Start date
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Thanks for the advice. I will post when I'm committed. I don't think I'm going to spend money on a new PC gaming rig or upgrading my current one until next year. I've spent too much money this year including just over £1000 on my Mini. In the mean time I may just install the OEM Windows 7 I bought from Amazon on my Mini using Bootcamp. I've got a PS3 and an Xbox 360 as well for my gaming needs and I'm planning on buying the Playstation Vita.
Buying a mac for gaming is like buying a hot dog and getting a sausage without a bun. Just build your own gaming PC for less than $800. Build takes 1 hour (2 if it's your first time). I never understand people who buy a mac for $2000 and expect it to run games flawlessly.
I bought an iMac for work (need a powerful Mac) and for gaming (need a powerful PC). It can run games, helps me develop games, edit 1080p trailers for my games flawlessly.
Buying a second machine is just silly to me. You might as well put the money for that second computer into one and then you have a machine that can (on a consumer level) do anything you throw at it - OSX or Windows. Instead of 2x2ghz machines you could buy a 3ghz, or whatever, you get the idea.
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We have 2 Macbooks, a MBP, 2 iMacs, and a Mac Mini server in our house (along with other assorted Apple stuff), just so you know we have a clue. As far as top-end gaming, TurboBass is right on the money. We love our Macs, but we have systems for gaming while the Macs are for everything else.
My hubby likes COD, and he has a souped-up PC he built to play it. Daughter likes the PS3. Me, I don't do a lot of RPG-style gaming (they just aren't my cup of tea), so the MBP is just fine for me. Scrabble and Zuma do not require a ton of graphics <grin>.
Your best bet is to either build or buy yourself a PC you can upgrade as you go. Apple machines have a wonderfully long life, and a super strong, but they are not very customizable, and of the Mac line, the MBA is probably the least customizable.
The only thing, make sure ALL you use the PC unit for is gaming. Hubby found out the hard way to not do anything else on it.
My hubby likes COD, and he has a souped-up PC he built to play it. Daughter likes the PS3. Me, I don't do a lot of RPG-style gaming (they just aren't my cup of tea), so the MBP is just fine for me. Scrabble and Zuma do not require a ton of graphics <grin>.
Your best bet is to either build or buy yourself a PC you can upgrade as you go. Apple machines have a wonderfully long life, and a super strong, but they are not very customizable, and of the Mac line, the MBA is probably the least customizable.
The only thing, make sure ALL you use the PC unit for is gaming. Hubby found out the hard way to not do anything else on it.
Since when has Apple ever cared about cannibalizing their own systems? It's actually one of the things I like about Apple. They build better even if it means sacrificing another line.
I have a gaming PC, a 3.1 PIII long in the tooth, but I agree that for gaming at home if you want the fastest and cheapest, it might just be a PC. But I travel. For this circumstance the MBP with Bootcamp/W7 is heaven sent. Now that I have one computer that meets all of my needs, I may not go back to a PC for gaming. 
This isn't the Apple that I know. A careful scan of Mac lines & their various specs, past & present, suggests virtually no cannibilization. Certainly not since Jobs returned. In that time, Apple has mostly maintained a distinct difference between all models.
If that wasn't a kernel part of their business strategy, I'm sure they'd have offered an upgradable, headless desktop Mac at consumer prices years ago. As such a Mac would almost certainly eat into iMac sales, I don't expect Apple's stance on this to change.
Maybe it would be more like their iMac sales would eat into their mid-range tower sales (i.e. all-in-one computers are a TINY NICHE in the PC World; the ONLY reason they sell in the land of Macs is because you HAVE NO OTHER CHOICES for a reasonable price). They won't have to worry about a cannibalized iMac sale with me. I simply won't buy one period. I'll build a Hackintosh instead first. Screw Apple for not listening to their customers.
Maybe. FWIW, I bought an iMac, then it died on me within 3 years (not guaranteed, as I believed the hype & expected a new, well-cared for Mac computer to last much longer - yes, my fault). I won't buy another one, but not because the last one died, but because of the glossy screen.
Like many others, I wish Apple would release an upgradable, consumer Mac. I believe they won't though. Profit margins by far & away come first & Apple daren't risk selling an upgradable, consumer Mac without a screen as they'd have to sell it significantly cheaper than the iMac for it to make sense.
Maybe things will change when Tim Cook has been CEO for a few years, but I'm not holding my breath.
Like many others, I wish Apple would release an upgradable, consumer Mac. I believe they won't though. Profit margins by far & away come first & Apple daren't risk selling an upgradable, consumer Mac without a screen as they'd have to sell it significantly cheaper than the iMac for it to make sense.
Maybe things will change when Tim Cook has been CEO for a few years, but I'm not holding my breath.
What do you mean by a "consumer Mac"? Apple's target market group IS consumers for most of their Macs, except for the Mac Pro. So unless you're implying that Apple, one of the most successful companies in the world, is missing their target market could you clarify exactly what you mean?
I mean "consumer" as you &, presumably, most here would think of such a Mac.
But to clarify, I mean an upgradable, headless Mac which might have similar (or slightly lower) specs to iMacs at point of sale. However, it would need to be sold cheaper to make sense as it'd come without a mandatory built-in glossy screen, also allowing consumers to do their own video upgrades, etc. & avoid Apple's rip-off prices.
Such a Mac, IMO, would certainly cannibalize both iMac & Mac Pro sales, so is unlikely to be released by Apple. Though I hope otherwise, my hopes are vague at best.
When people see some Intel motherboard chipset in there, they immediately say "This is crap!" But honestly, while the hardcore gamers keep ignoring them, they've been getting faster and do a decent job with most games. And once you factpr power consumption / heat generation into the picture, then they're even more impressive.
Not sure why it is silly. You can get a 13 MBP and gaming pc for the price of a 15 MBP. The fact is pcs are faster at games. And laptops are not great gaming rigs either. So 2 machines is not silly.
Think of your gaming pc as a console.
£999 13" base MBP
£500 decent gaming PC
£500 decent monitor (or at least equivalent to a 21" iMac. S-IPS LED)
That's a bit more than a £1549 15" base MBP.
And PC's aren't faster than Macs for games. That's just silly. The hardware is the same and you don't lose an ounce of performance when using Bootcamp. For the price of one machine I have a powerful Windows PC and OSX Mac.
Who said anything about laptops?
I think you mean IF the hardware is the same. All Macs except the Mac Pro use mobile GPUs and they simply cannot compete with a good desktop GPU, let alone a high-end SLI setup, which Apple doesn't offer on ANYTHING. That is what PCs trounce Macs for gaming, not because two identical machines running Windows on both won't perform the same. But once again, if you compare the same hardware with a Mac running OSX only and a PC running Windows, the PC comes out ahead every single time because Macs aren't optimized for gaming (i.e. slower drivers and usually slower software that was made to run on DirectX with OpenGL as an after-thought or worse yet a wrapper setup that loses even more speed like Cider)
MBA + Dream Gaming PC, totally awesome combo. My next Mac is gonna be an air/redesigned ODD less MBP. I've finally come to grips that Apple will never bless it's systems with gaming worthy GPUs. It's sad our 1500$ laptops can't game like a shotty Alienware/XPS
I was talking about bootcamp, so one would assume the hardware remains the same no matter what OS is selected on boot up.
I'm not sure what the differences are between mobile and desktop GPUs in this day and age. My friend has a desktop 6970 2gb, and I have the iMac version. We get the same exact same benchmark scores (averaged since they're randomised) in Street Fighter 4, Just Cause 2 etc.
Sucks for low end macs. But it's hard to say the top end iMac isn't a decent gaming PC.
Like the other guy said pc hardware is faster and games run faster in Windows than on the Mac.
You do not need that expensive of a monitor. Plus the monitor expense will last through many computer purchases and you can use it with your Mac laptop.
Yes the comparison to the base MBP 15" is more difficult to make if you want to come out even, but the base MBP 15" has a low end vid card. By building your own gaming pc you are getting faster gaming performance than found on Apple's $2000+ Macs.
I have a gaming pc and a MBP and an iPad right now. I bet I paid less for all three including monitor than what the $2200 15" MBP would have cost me. Let's see. Gaming pc was $600 max. 24" Monitor was $128. iPad was $600. And new 2011 13" MBP was $915. Pretty dam close although admittedly I got a deal on my MBP and shopped around for my pc parts. And I could get the $2200 MBP for a good $200 less at least. Pc has 6950 vid card in it.
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Once you've played games on an S-IPS LED 27" 1440p display it's very hard to go back to anything lower
. And in my situation I would have had to buy a new monitor, a 20" from 2004 doesn't cut it these days. For the same reason I could argue that console gaming cost me £1000+ more than most people because the only HD content for my TV is provided via my Xbox 360 .I hear what you're saying. And I'm not arguing that OSX gaming is on par with PC gaming, it's not. I'd never play games on OSX, even on Apple's highest end iMac, I like to get the absolute best performance from my computers so Windows for gaming and OSX for the rest.
A Mac Pro makes a good gaming machine. Just don't get it only for gaming and you won't feel buyer's remorse.
It won't beat a high end PC with SLI cards nor will its price/performance ratio (for gaming) impress, of course, but it'll run just about any game save Crysis or Metro 2033 on maximum settings, full resolution at 60 fps.
It won't beat a high end PC with SLI cards nor will its price/performance ratio (for gaming) impress, of course, but it'll run just about any game save Crysis or Metro 2033 on maximum settings, full resolution at 60 fps.