- Joined
- May 2, 2009
- Messages
- 480
- Reaction score
- 13
- Points
- 18
- Your Mac's Specs
- MBP 2.33 4GB: MacPro 8 Core 2.8, 16GB: MacMini 2.26 4GB: MacMin 2.53 4GB: iPhone3GS 32GB
So, after a few months of deliberation I finally pulled the trigger on migrating my gaming platform over to my MacPro (specs in signature).
I installed Win7 via Bootcamp on a separate drive in the MP last week and gave the system a dry run using the NVIDIA 8800GT that came with the machine (purchased via eBay about 6 months ago). I was quite impressed with the overall performance, noise factor etc. My stock games (Bioshock, FEAR2, HalfLife2) all ran roughly comparable to my NVIDIA SLI 8800 Ultra box (AMD 6400, ASUS Crosshair 590). As expected, Crysis was a bit sluggish on the 'very high' settings but very playable at 'high' settings.
So, today I got the NVIDIA 285 Mac Edition (obviously) and popped it into the MP. After installing the latest NVIDIA drivers things are running well and the noise level remains consistent with what I was experiencing with the 8800GT (far quieter than my gaming rig BTW which is roughly comparable to firing up a chainsaw in the house).
After building quite a few machines on my own, I am continually amazed by the ingenuity and elegance of the MP interior design, quality and overall craftsmanship. Of course, for the price tag, you would expect as much.
My main purpose in doing this was to consolidate hardware to avoid having to use a KVM switch to go back and forth between the AMD rig and the Mac. In my day job I on use Mac/Linux so having a dedicated Windows gaming machine beside my other hardware just irked me. A majority of people probably wouldn't mind this, but for some reason it just annoyed me to no end.
I was a bit skeptical about the MP being able to run GPU intensive FPS titles effectively, but I have to say the hardware handles the load quite readily. Of course, when the next big FPS title comes out this may all be rendered obsolete, but overall I am pleased with the results.
I installed Win7 via Bootcamp on a separate drive in the MP last week and gave the system a dry run using the NVIDIA 8800GT that came with the machine (purchased via eBay about 6 months ago). I was quite impressed with the overall performance, noise factor etc. My stock games (Bioshock, FEAR2, HalfLife2) all ran roughly comparable to my NVIDIA SLI 8800 Ultra box (AMD 6400, ASUS Crosshair 590). As expected, Crysis was a bit sluggish on the 'very high' settings but very playable at 'high' settings.
So, today I got the NVIDIA 285 Mac Edition (obviously) and popped it into the MP. After installing the latest NVIDIA drivers things are running well and the noise level remains consistent with what I was experiencing with the 8800GT (far quieter than my gaming rig BTW which is roughly comparable to firing up a chainsaw in the house).
After building quite a few machines on my own, I am continually amazed by the ingenuity and elegance of the MP interior design, quality and overall craftsmanship. Of course, for the price tag, you would expect as much.
My main purpose in doing this was to consolidate hardware to avoid having to use a KVM switch to go back and forth between the AMD rig and the Mac. In my day job I on use Mac/Linux so having a dedicated Windows gaming machine beside my other hardware just irked me. A majority of people probably wouldn't mind this, but for some reason it just annoyed me to no end.
I was a bit skeptical about the MP being able to run GPU intensive FPS titles effectively, but I have to say the hardware handles the load quite readily. Of course, when the next big FPS title comes out this may all be rendered obsolete, but overall I am pleased with the results.