Why do so many people buy iMacs for gaming?

[Irishman]

I am planning to buy a Mac and to use it mainly for gaming. The reason I am going to buy the Mac is mostly for the design of the Mac. I want to put the computer in the center of the living room so I can be with my family and at the same time do some gaming. The wife doesn't want the living room to be cluttered with power cables and stuff that you would have if you buy a normal (or even a small form) windows gaming pc.

So I need an all in one solution that has great looks. The windows all in one machines are not to my liking. Either they don't have a dedicated GPU, they look awfull, they are non-costumizable, they have expensive 27" touch screens that I don't really need.

I just want to be able to play old and new games fluently on medium settings. I think the mac should have enough graphical power to pull that off.

The thing that I really dislike about the mac is that its so expensive to upgrade. If you want to use a larger SSD, you're paying a high premium. You could get a 1TB SSD from amazon for a third of the price apple is asking. And while an SSD is not essential for gaming. It does really help with startup times and level loading times.

Edit: I realize that I am not a typical mac user. I won't be doing video editing or something. Just gaming and the normal stuff youtube etc. You would tell me if I am making a mistake and throwing away $2000, right?

If you want expandability and performance, you can go one of two routes, neither of which are all-in- ones.

1. Buy a used Mac Pro tower that's new enough to run Mavericks. Then buy a new os x-supported GPU to put into it.

2. Build a Hackintosh. This, of course, requires you to be more comfortable doing it yourself, and being your own tech support, yet it will be a powerful option.

That said, within the constraints you mentioned, an iMac will do well for you (I have a late 2012 iMac, and game on it daily). Just make sure that you get the best GPU your budget allows, and add your hard drive choice at the point of purchase, because you won't be able to upgrade once you have it.

 

[Truefan31]

Is it more beneficial getting a regular hdd 7200 rpm and adding a ssd externally thru tb ?

 

[yjchua95]

Is it more beneficial getting a regular hdd 7200 rpm and adding a ssd externally thru tb ?

Better to have an internal SSD. SSDs over TB can't give you full SATA3 speeds let alone PCIe.

 

[cirus]

Better to have an internal SSD. SSDs over TB can't give you full SATA3 speeds let alone PCIe.

Yes they can.

 

[yjchua95]

Yes they can.

No it can't.

I've tried this with a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB mounted in a Buffalo HD-PATU3 TB enclosure, and can only get around 420-430 MB/s at most. When connected natively to my 2011 MBP's SATA3 bus, I get 500MB/s.

And no TB enclosure will get you 700MB/s of SSD speed. Unless you stripe them in an RAID0 array.

 

[cirus]

No it can't.

I've tried this with a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB mounted in a Buffalo HD-PATU3 TB enclosure, and can only get around 420-430 MB/s at most. When connected natively to my 2011 MBP's SATA3 bus, I get 500MB/s.

And no TB enclosure will get you 700MB/s of SSD speed. Unless you stripe them in an RAID0 array.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4489/promise-pegasus-r6-mac-thunderbolt-review/6

Hitting almost 1 GB/sec.

Its very likely some setting is messing with your system. Needless to say multiple reviews show TB being much faster though obviously the drives themselves need to support the speed. Yes this will mean RAID. You will get Sata 3 speeds though even with a single drive.

 

[yjchua95]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4489/promise-pegasus-r6-mac-thunderbolt-review/6

Hitting almost 1 GB/sec.

Its very likely some setting is messing with your system. Needless to say multiple reviews show TB being much faster though obviously the drives themselves need to support the speed. Yes this will mean RAID. You will get Sata 3 speeds though even with a single drive.

Image

Hence I mentioned in my previous post that RAID would be needed.

People who boot off an external SSD aren't going to build a 4-6 SSD RAID array out of it, they're just going to use a single SSD connected over TB. So you still cannot get full SATA 3, let alone PCIe this way.

 

[Anitramane]

Buying one just for gaming would be retarded since you’re paying a lot for the apple design and stuff. Someone who buys just for gaming only wants the best performance for that persons games.

 

[Anitramane]

My property, my rights. So I can do whatever the hell I want to my own Mac.

Besides, hardware on iMac lasts longer than on Windows. The Intel i7 chips in Macs aren't the same as the ones you buy off the shelf for Windows PCs. They're custom built to meet Apple's requirements of withstanding higher temperatures and stress. Same goes to RAM and SSDs and GPUs.

The i7-4770S that you buy off the shelf isn't the same as the i7-4770S in the 21.5" iMac. Rather the i7 in the iMac is tougher. Keep that in mind. Same applies to the Crystal Well chips in the 15" rMBPs.

Yeah I call ******** on this. Anyone remember 8600gt? Apple buys the same parts as other companies like dell and hp in bulk.

For the price, it's cheaper in the long run, because you don't send in a Mac for repairs as often as Windows. And there's value added with free software from Apple.

There’s more value freeware on Windows than Osx. For example something that runs circles around Pages etc; Open Office.

And I live in sweden/eu so if the laptop goes for repairs because of your 8600gt chip within 3 years it’s free since it counts as a manufacturer defect. Just some law stuff…

Overall, a Mac is cheaper than a Windows machine. If you own a Windows machine for 4 to 5 years then you are likely to upgrade Windows 2 to 3 times. Those upgrade can run $100 each.

Let’s say I bought a Windows computer with Windows 7 in 2009. Then I upgraded to Windows 8 professional in 2012 for $40. If I bought a mac in 2009 it would’ve come with SL. If I then upgraded to lion in 2011 that would be $30. Only a $10 difference.

On top of that, Microsoft is going to ding you for Office 365 at $100 per year.

On a mac the office 365 cost would be the same. And if you mention Iwork’s better because it’s free and is better; Open Office is also free and beats Iwork.

On top of that, you get more in the way of technical support from Apple especially in-person help with Genius Bar appointments at their stores being free. Then you have to think at how much time you will save if you go all-in on the Apple ecosystem with things just working together.

I’ll give you this one.

Besides the hardware is pretty good. 4GB of GTX 780 is great for BF4. Well worth the initial expensive investment.

I can get better with windumbs computers. Still a great chip though :3

 

[Ambush083]

I got tired of using PC's and just wanted to do everything on a Mac including games. But still I had to dual boot since the games could not be played on OS X. Anyyways, I ended up building another PC for gaming when I couldn't max out all the settings. I know pretty lame right? OH well.

 

[cirus]

Hence I mentioned in my previous post that RAID would be needed.

People who boot off an external SSD aren't going to build a 4-6 SSD RAID array out of it, they're just going to use a single SSD connected over TB. So you still cannot get full SATA 3, let alone PCIe this way.

If you buy a Sata3 drive and hook it up via TB you will get the exact same speeds as if it were hooked up via sata3. There is no reduction in speed in doing this (or shouldn't be, if drivers or such are configured poorly there may be).

 

[yjchua95]

If you buy a Sata3 drive and hook it up via TB you will get the exact same speeds as if it were hooked up via sata3. There is no reduction in speed in doing this (or shouldn't be, if drivers or such are configured poorly there may be).

I've tested this myself and can confirm that this isn't true.

With a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro mounted in a Buffalo HD-PATU3 TB enclosure, I can only get 400-420 MB/s at most, both directions.

When mounted in a cMBP directly via SATA3, I can get around 500MB/s read and 450MB/s write.

When drives are mounted externally, even via a lightning fast connection, there will always be some overhead compared to an internal connection.

 

[cirus]

I've tested this myself and can confirm that this isn't true.

With a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro mounted in a Buffalo HD-PATU3 TB enclosure, I can only get 400-420 MB/s at most, both directions.

When mounted in a cMBP directly via SATA3, I can get around 500MB/s read and 450MB/s write.

When drives are mounted externally, even via a lightning fast connection, there will always be some overhead compared to an internal connection.

Many reputable sites have tested this and found no difference. I'm not saying that you are wrong, only that something seems off.

It depends on the connection and signal routing. An internal and external port can have just the same amount of signal latency (signal cable length is a very minor factor). Ie, two identical ports from chipset present from CPU, one goes to internal and one to external-- there will be basically no difference except due to cable length (extremely minor). Its not internal/external per say but signal routing.

It looks like a specific problem on your end; you cannot make a generalization about TB as a whole when multiple reviews show it is capable of supporting much higher speeds (through a raid array sure but the interface itself can do it). A lot of the reviews on that enclosure report low speeds, that might be related. Not sure if TB support is more robust on newer macs.

http://www.larryjordan.biz/product-review-promise-pegasus2-raid/

Anyway, 400 vs. 500 MB/sec, if you can notice that during day to day usage (beside straight copies between disks) I will tip my hat to you.

 

[Barbados]

Hi One And All....

I'm an old gezzer, and i mean old none of this jargon mean anything to me not a thing
what i need to know is when i play Eve online on my brand new 15" Macbook pro retina
i hear the fans working very hard i have all of my settings down to med/low
what else can i do which might help.
Also will be purchasing new 27" iMac not for gaming but i'm sure Eve will
find her way on there sooner or later, which model would suite.
Do remember i'm your plug in and go kind of guy, know nothing about
bootcamp, wine this card and that card so please be gently with me..

 

[Piggie]

Besides, hardware on iMac lasts longer than on Windows. The Intel i7 chips in Macs aren't the same as the ones you buy off the shelf for Windows PCs. They're custom built to meet Apple's requirements of withstanding higher temperatures and stress. Same goes to RAM and SSDs and GPUs.

I really really hope you are being comically sarcastic and joking when you typed this?

 

[bent christian]

If you buy a Sata3 drive and hook it up via TB you will get the exact same speeds as if it were hooked up via sata3. There is no reduction in speed in doing this (or shouldn't be, if drivers or such are configured poorly there may be).

Thunderbolt, like USB 3 depends on the quality of the enclosure. Not all enclosures will provide the same speed. The Transcend StoreJet 500, for example, gets slower speeds than a typical USB 3 w/ UASP enclosures by about 100MB/sec.

 

[MythicFrost]

Hi One And All....

I'm an old gezzer, and i mean old none of this jargon mean anything to me not a thing
what i need to know is when i play Eve online on my brand new 15" Macbook pro retina
i hear the fans working very hard i have all of my settings down to med/low
what else can i do which might help.
Also will be purchasing new 27" iMac not for gaming but i'm sure Eve will
find her way on there sooner or later, which model would suite.
Do remember i'm your plug in and go kind of guy, know nothing about
bootcamp, wine this card and that card so please be gently with me..

I'd recommend starting a new thread to ask your questions, you may get an answer faster.