Mac Pro and Gaming

How well do the Mac Pro and iMac perform in terms of gaming? I'm looking to buy a new desktop computer which I will be using throught senior year and probably throughout college.

I need it for basic student needs, music recording, and gaming;D


I wanted to ask you guys if Mac Pro or iMac is a good choice considering all of those?




PS for gaming All I'm really asking is if it won't lag on me, audio lag, no long load times etc.

Well do Boot Camp, run a version of Windows, game on that. That's what I do.

(and it's amazing.)

Go with the Mac Pro.. Although the iMac does have a decent video card, the Mac Pro has a higher end nVidia card, I believe it's the 8800 series now. Or at least you can customize is if/when you order from Apple.

Depends on what you want to play and what type of gaming. I suggest using a different mouse, especially. SimCity 4 and Half-Life 2 plays flawlessly on full settings. Hopefully Spore will too.

Mac Pro for basic student needs is overkill. A mini can do that.
Save yourself $1000+ and get the iMac.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Pro. But 95% of all tasks can on a mini. I wish I had the $2000 to put down on a house or something.

bryphotoguy said:

Mac Pro for basic student needs is overkill. A mini can do that.
Save yourself $1000+ and get the iMac.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Pro. But 95% of all tasks can on a mini. I wish I had the $2000 to put down on a house or something.

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yea really, the Pro is insane overkill for everyday computing and even gaming.

The iMac can be configured with an 8800GS (which i have in my PC). That card will run any new games on high settings on a 24" LCD, minus AA. That card upgrade brings the cost to over $2000 for the iMac though.



IF you seriously want to do good gaming, just get a mac mini and build a windows PC. For $2000 you can buy a $700 mini and build a kickass rig for $1300 which will kick the pants off any iMac config...

budafied said:

yea really, the Pro is insane overkill for everyday computing and even gaming.

The iMac can be configured with an 8800GS (which i have in my PC). That card will run any new games on high settings on a 24" LCD, minus AA. That card upgrade brings the cost to over $2000 for the iMac though.



IF you seriously want to do good gaming, just get a mac mini and build a windows PC. For $2000 you can buy a $700 mini and build a kickass rig for $1300 which will kick the pants off any iMac config...

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My thoughts exactly. A Mac Pro is versatile but the video card is its crutch. The 8800GT is great but it will be the only "gaming card" available till next years release. That next card might not be supported by the model out now.
My suggestion is to also get a mini to use OS X and build a kickin system to get your game on.

OK so Ya i was talking to my brother and Mac Pro would be too much so I guess the iMac would be the best choice for me.

I don't really want to bother with building stuff etc. etc.

Whats this upgrade I can get for the iMac to do better at gaming?

Is the iMac itself without any upgrades a good, OK, or great system for gaming?

As mentioned above, there is a 24" iMac that comes with an nVidia 8800GS. Beyond chosing how much RAM and what size hard drive you want that's the extent of the upgrades. I just bought one. I have only tried Half-Life 2 on XP via Boot Camp but it runs great.

The one thing to take into account is that you will never be able to upgrade the video card. About the only thing you can upgrade is the RAM, up to 4GB.

Oh yeah, you will want a different mouse for gaming. Might I reccomend the Logitech MX Revolution?

Well the iMac with the 8800 is a bit pricy but I'll see if I can convince my parents to get that one.

With this 8800 upgrade other then gaming what should I expect? Better movie graphic? Faster??

No, just higher framerates in games.

How could you convince your parents to get the Mac Pro but not the iMac??

i couldn't ^^^ I just realized that the Mac Pro was A bagilion ($3000) dollars

Alexis said:

No, just higher framerates in games.

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But the 2600 Pro card on the 20inch and 24inch's frame rate would still be good and not look laggy? what would determine if it's laggy

seriously, the only card offered on the iMac that will run games on highest settings these days is the 8800GS. I think it even has more memory than the default card for windows does, which means it could possibly do AA.

But seriously, if you wanna do a lot of gaming, just build your own machine or buy a dell/ibm and slap in a GPU. You can build a kickass rig for under $1000 even, and then include a big monitor + speaker system, etc for the same price as that iMac... maybe even throw in a Mac Mini if you really want one...

Personally, I will be just doing a little gaming on my Macbook Pro during college via Boot Camp. However if you want a Mac desktop, but want to do a little gaming on the side as well, that would game just fine. If you want something that just does games (getting a desktop solely for gaming), you can custom build one for extremely cheap (compared to a mac pro at least) for less than 1500 bucks using for example, newegg.com. For that price you can have an extremely powerful gaming rig, including a nice monitor. I was going to build one, but decided to just wait and use the 8600gt 512 that came with the MBP, (I'm not a hardcore gamer, but like the occasional COD4 game.)

It all depends what your looking for, but if I were ever to get more into gaming, I would probably custom build a machine. Hmm, maybe in 4 years when I'm out of college? lol