future convert (hopefully)

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I am 14 and planning to get a mac at Christmas. I was wondering what would be the best for what I need. I like to play games on my current PC (I have a 3 year old Dell Dimension 8400 with a 256 MB GeForce 6800 and a 3.6 GHz Pentium 4), and I do some light stuff like word processing, video/photo editing, and some occasional web browsing. My Questions are as follows:

1. Is the MacBook Pro or the iMac capable of running DX10?

2. I know the GMA950 integrated graphics on the macbook is supposed to only be capable of running graphis unintensive, non-3D games such as bejeweled 2, but I saw a video on youtube of someone playing Madden 08, which on apple's website, says can not be played with the GMA950, but he was playing it under XP (I'm assuming using boot camp). Would the macbook actually be capable of playing EA's newest releases?

3.Would you recommend iWork '08 or Microsoft Office 2008?

4.Would the Core 2 Duo at 2.16 GHz be about the same speed as my Pentium 4 at 3.6GHz?

5. Is iPhoto as good or better than Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 for Windows?

Any and all opinions/comments would be helpful
Thanks
 
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Hi artic5693, Welcome to Mac Forums!

To your questions:

1/ Can't help here - will defer to others.

2/ The generally accepted wisdom is that you will not be able to play any really intensive games on the integrated graphics. Some threads have discussed coaxing it into playing some things, but performance is never good.

3/ I would recommend neither. NeoOffice, the Mac port of the excellent and MS-Office compatible OpenOffice, is your best bet. Completely free and truly exceptional. Check it out before you spend *any* dollars on office software.

4/ A Core 2 Duo GHz is roughly 1.4x a PIV GHz. So the 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo would be roughly equivalent, per core, to a 3.0 GHz PIV. You do get two cores, but even now, you won't find that to make much difference.

5/ In my opinion, Photoshop Elements is miles better than iPhoto, but in all fairness, they address different audiences. Photoshop Elements is for the serious photography hobbyist who is interested in investing time and effort into a good set of fairly complex tools and then learning how to use them well. iPhoto is for the casual photographer who wants a set of tools that work easily and intuitively and do most major tasks (red eye reduction and so on). So, it really depends on what you are looking for.

This is not an attempt to dissuade you from considering a Mac, but in all honesty, your 3.6 GHz PIV, equipped with an nVidia 6800 based video card, is still a pretty smoking machine in todays market (as long as you don't have Vista on it!). Perhaps your dollars might be better spent in adding more RAM and upgrading the video card to the excellent nVidia 7800 series or the even better nVidia 8xxx series out there. You might find you get more "bang for the buck".
 
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17 inch 2 GHz C2D imac (5,1) with 3GB DDR2 RAM, X1600 (128MB memory) GPU - OSX 10.6.3
I totally agree with the above comments but I'll like to add my few comments too.

1. From the literature I've read the new aluminum and glass imacs are caplable is direct X 10 through bootcamp. But if you want to emulate windows inside of OS X you'll have to check up on the emulation software you want to use to see if it's DX 10 capable. As far as I know at the moment none are. So bootcamp seems to be the best bet here.

I'm not sure about the white imacs though. I think they should do it fine. But I don't think your in the market for one of those.

2. It plays non 3D games quite well. And 3D games not so well. It's a hit and miss affair. Either it'll not play it or it will play it but not at the best performance level. I would download any demos or wait for reviews of the upcoming EA titles to see in the integrated graphics chip will work with them. Either way it won't be the best experience if they do run.

3. If you need access I'd get Office 08. But that's a really expensive way just to get one program. I think iwork is much better. Cause it does most of what Office does for a much more resonable price. I'd download the trial and see if you like iwork before you buy it.

Other alternatives. There is always Neo Office as mentioned above. And you should be able to find an old copy of Appleworks on the net somewhere to download.

Personally I like Appleworks the best. Yes it's old software but it still suits my needs and I really like it. But I'd try out all the free apps and trials out there to see which one you really like. Cause all of them really are just many different ways of achieving the same end result. And it's mostly personal preference as to which one is better.

4. Short answer. Basically yes. There won't be much of a speed difference. Long answer: read the above post. It's explained quite well there.

5. I agree with the above post on this one. The best one I think is the one which best suits your needs. But you will be getting ilife (with iphoto) free on your new mac. So you can play with that and see if it suits your needs. If not you can try ouit or get photoshop elements. That's if you already don't have it.

*********************

Why do you want to get a mac? Cause I think your current PC upgraded a little will suit you just fine for most tasks. It's a good machine. Running XP on it though. It just depends on what you really want and which machine will best suit your tasks. And it's not always the mac that is the best everytime. It's different for each person.

But if you do decide on a mac, best of luck to you, and from the sound of things I think you'll love it.
 
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If you are a regular/hardcore gamer I would suggest not buying a Mac...in my opinion they just aren't made for gaming...

as for 2) I highly doubt that you will be able to play the latest games on a macbook...

kuchiki
 
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This is not an attempt to dissuade you from considering a Mac, but in all honesty, your 3.6 GHz PIV, equipped with an nVidia 6800 based video card, is still a pretty smoking machine in todays market (as long as you don't have Vista on it!). Perhaps your dollars might be better spent in adding more RAM and upgrading the video card to the excellent nVidia 7800 series or the even better nVidia 8xxx series out there. You might find you get more "bang for the buck".

First off, I do not have Vista, yet. When SP1 comes out we (my parents and I) were going to get a new PC anyway. The main reason for that is that my stepdad and I both enjoy computer gaming, and XP does not support DX10. Since many games that are going to be coming out in about 6-12 months are going to be DX10 optimized, we wanted a new computer to support all of these titles. We would keep our Dimension 8400, if it were not for the fact that the motherboard only supports the Nvidia GeForce 6 series.
 
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Why do you want to get a mac? Cause I think your current PC upgraded a little will suit you just fine for most tasks. It's a good machine. Running XP on it though. It just depends on what you really want and which machine will best suit your tasks. And it's not always the mac that is the best everytime. It's different for each person.

For the PC upgraded part see post above.

As for why I would like to purchase a mac, well I'd be lying if I said it wasn't at least partly for asthetic appeal. But, mostly there is no other machine that can run all major OS', and as for value, although most people will propably disagree, I believe you get an excellent bang for your buck. (sorry if that sounds a little cliche).
 
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Your Mac's Specs
13" Macbook C2D 1GB RAM
I am new to Macs so I can't answer many of your questions except the graphics card question. As someone who plays PC games, you won't want to play any games on an integrated chip. You could definitely try but I wouldn't expect much. You will probably have to lower the settings to get the best performance. Even then, you might get frustrated that the experience isn't up to par.
 
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Considering a Mac... hopefully
Why would you want to buy a Mac in the first place if gaming is one of your priorities? Games are usually released on Macs about 6 months later than on a PC. I think you'll be disappointed with the Mac if you get one.
 
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artic5693, I am guessing that your PIV is an AGP based system, hence you can't get above the GeForce 7800? Is that it? I do believe that the 7800 was the highest GeForce released for AGP, and the 7800 is not DX10 compatible.

If this is the case, you are right, there is no way to upgrade it without swapping motherboards, which is virtually a rebuild of the whole machine.
 
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artic5693, I am guessing that your PIV is an AGP based system, hence you can't get above the GeForce 7800? Is that it? I do believe that the 7800 was the highest GeForce released for AGP, and the 7800 is not DX10 compatible.

If this is the case, you are right, there is no way to upgrade it without swapping motherboards, which is virtually a rebuild of the whole machine.

You are correct in assuming this. I really don't want to rebuild the machine. I would much rather have a new one with a wararnty.
 
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Yup, that makes sense. My initial motivation was just to be sure that getting a Mac actually made sense for you - I would hate to see you get rid of a perfectly good PC for no reason. But since you definitely have a good reason, a Mac is an EXCELLENT choice! Welcome aboard!
 

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