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A serious problem. I've got a new desk. My iMac 20" doesn't fit into it - the desk has a rolling cover. The stand of the 20" is removable but takes warrenty voiding measures to remove it.

Even though I'm a simple user (surf, email, iPhoto, iTunes, watch films and TV shows, burn DVDs occasionally) I'm a big fan of Call of Duty games. CoD2 runs well on my iMac with its 256M graphics card. CoD4 is coming out this month for the Mac.

I don't really want an Apple laptop. For the specs (comparing to iMacs) its just too expensive, plus it would sit on my desk for 48 weeks of the year and not get moved. I'd need another keyboard anyway - can't stand not having a number pad.

So I'm thinking Mac Pro. I've got a 22" Acer screen that fits in the desk so I'd only have to get a keyboard. I've got a Razor mouse that works on the iMac so I presume that it'll work on the Mac Pro.

One of the questions that I have is just how 'upgradeable' is the Mac Pro? Can I slap in another graphics card for example? Does this have to be done by a recognized Apple reseller? Same for memory or storage. Before switching to Apple last year I had only ever built my own systems, so I'm not afraid of some light surgery, but I don't want to be voiding any warranty.

I've got space for the beast in a cupboard that is part of the desk. The space is meant for a tower PC so I presume the Mac Pro should be OK. It wouldn't be a tight fit, but I was wondering about heat. Do the Pros tend to get hot?

If I could get a second had one, that accepts the NVidia GeForce 8800 and the price was right I'd pay. Otherwise the spec that I was thinking of :

One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
2G RAM (I'd buy some more from Macway)
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3
320G 7200rpm hard disk
One 16x SuperDrive
AirPort Extreme Card (Wi-Fi)

It would cost me 2200€ here in France, the same price as the 15" MacBook Pro with a 512M graphics card.

You're getting a new Mac because your new desk doesn't fix the iMac?! Won't it be cheaper and more sensible to get a more suitable desk, especially if your current Mac meets all your needs comfortably?

You can upgrade the RAM and hard drive of all Macs, and as long as you don't break anything while doing so the warranty will not be void.

The Mac Pro is more upgradeable in the sense that you can
1) swap out the graphics card for a more advance one later (limited to Mac specific cards)
2) add more than one internal hard drive
3) add way more RAM

But I guess you really need to ask yourself if you can justify the cost when you don't need all that power

Yeah I know. The desk took me a couple of nights to build. If I got rid of it now it would be like ... defeat. Its the desk here.
The current iMac doesn't let the desk close. I have young kids and the desk MUST close. This counts out any sort of iMac purchase.
Plus I like my on-line gaming, which means I need some decent graphics. 512M please sir for the upcoming Call of Duty 4 for Mac. Only the Mac Pro and the high-spec Mac Book Pros have a 512M graphics card. The specs in my original post give me a Mac Pro for the same price as a MacBook Pro.

OK good, as long as I could do it myself.

I don't NEED all that power. But I want it, I have the money for it - and by jove I shall have it !!!!!

Looks like an iMac right in the picture! Perhaps that's the 17" model. Forgot for a while that Apple made any iMacs smaller than 20"

I suppose you've made up your mind about the MacPro. It's really powerful, so as long as you can afford it you'll definitely be happy with it.

They are pretty big, so you might want to check out the dimensions of the MacPro and see where you can put it and still have space to sit. Looks like it might be tight under the desk.

Just curious - why is it such a necessity for the desk to be closed when there are kids? The iMacs are meant for schools and all that.

Thats why I bought the thing !!! After seeing an iMac I was sold. But yeah it must be the 17" because my 20" does not go in - even when angling the screen.

The Pro should fit into the cupboard on the right. I've got the Pro dimensions and the cupboard is much larger. I did wonder about heat dissipation though. I might have to drill a few holes in the back of the cupboard if I find that the Pro runs hot.

The daughter is 4 years old, and my 11 month old son is just starting to walk. I only want them to access the computer area when seated on my lap. Plus the desk is in our lounge, and when people are over, I'd like to hide all the wires and junk that I have on the desk.

I agree about a new desk...

The new imacs are blazing fast, far more than a casual user could ever take advantage of. Getting a mac pro in this situation would be like buying a Ferrari to go to the corner market because, well, you can.

If you can't wrap your mind around a new desk, you might consider a new loaded mac mini. Still plenty fast, plus cheap and compact.

A Mac Mini is not for games. He's better with a Mac Pro than a Mac Mini. I agree it's a bit more power than he needs (an iMac does fit him), but it'll last him awhile.

He also mentions watching TV and burning DVDs,... if he starts getting a digital collection of video, his Mac Pro may come in handy for video ripping/conversion.

Yeah, those are both good points. If he goes with the basic Mac Pro with the 8800 vid card, it won't be crazily expensive and will play his games nicely. It is still overkill though, and it won't solve his wish for the gear to be out of sight. The new desk sounds like the best option.

Buying a Mac just to play games is really just a huge waste of money. Instead of spending $2000+ on one, why not get an HDTV and a game console? Or even build a PC solely for gaming, and use your Mac for everything else! Either way, you'll spend a LOT less money and you'll get much better game performance and selection. With all the money you save you can get a whole bunch more games!

Seriously, Macs are good for a lot of things, but gaming is not one of them. If you're a casual user who uses a Mac for everyday tasks and occasionally plays a game or two, that's fine. But if you are going to be doing any degree of serious gaming, or if you're buying more Mac than you need for the sole purpose of gaming, you're wasting your money. Gaming on the Mac is worse in every way:

1. Performance is worse since games must be ported.
2. Hardware upgrades are expensive or impossible, so you can't play new games as they come out for more than a year or two after you get the computer.
3. Game selection is abysmal.
4. What games do get released often come out months or even years after the original version came out, and cost full price upon release, long after the Windows version has dropped into the bargain bin.
5. Mac versions often lack some of the features of the Windows versions. Sometimes this even means that PC-Mac multiplayer is not possible (may no longer be the case; I think this had to do with the processor differences).

If the thought of using a Windows computer sickens you, just get an Xbox 360 or PS3 and you won't have to use Windows. Hell, for the money you're willing to lay down for a mediocre-at-best gaming Mac, you could get both, with extra controllers and accessories, and plenty of games for each, and still have enough left over for a 32" LCD HDTV!

The Mac Pro is an excellent computer. It is a fine workstation. It is not a gaming machine at all. It can play games, but Apple doesn't have any gaming computers.

Thanks for taking the time to write your reply Luca. I do realise that its alot of money, my wife is also making sure that I know this as well.

The console route is out. The TV is the wife's domain, the computer is mine. I can't play first-person-shooters on a console controller anyway.

The easy option would be to build a really good gaming PC. I've done it before and I could make a really sh*t hot machine for the money. But I don't want to have Windows. I've had enough of it. I want the ease of use of OS X, the good hardware and the security. I've spent too many weekends and nights fiddling about to get the damn Windows PCs to work. Be it virus probs, weird hardware, my very basic Canon camera, music etc. At work I do basic SQL Server DBA tasks. I do Oracle on Windows DBA tasks. I hate it. I hate Windows with a passion. As for Linux - great OS : for servers. I love administering the Oracle instances that we have on Linux - its easy, its understandable. I've used Linux as a desktop since 1999 - I've had enough of the tinkering to get it to work how I want it as well. As for games on Linux - nuf said. I only changed last year to a Mac but I've 'seen the light' as it were.

So far in my short Apple experience I've come up against one major problem - my damn machine doesn't fit in my nice desk. Yeah I could send the desk back. It would cost me nearly 100€ and I wouldn't have a desk. I suppose that I could build my own but my time is worth more than that (to me anyways).

The iMac was supposed to last for up to three years. Its done 17 months. I figure that the Pro will be a lot more long lived because of its 'upgradability'. It meets another goal of mine - the one computer to rule them all type test. I can have Windows on it if I need to. With enough RAM I could run some virtual machines (on the iMac I have Parallels with CentOS and Oracle 10g installed) with several operating systems. I can add more disks and use it as a server. I have the potential to do more than just the simple tasks that I listed before.

The goal isn't really just to have a high spec machine that runs OS X AND can play games, the goal is to get a machine running OS X where the limits are far beyond what I envisage now.

From what I understand, you can put any video card you want in one of the PCI Express slots and use it in Boot Camp, while using the card that comes with the Mac Pro in OS X. But if you get the 8800 I'd think you'd be ok using that in Boot Camp. But you still have the ability to upgrade later if needed. You'd need a monitor with multiple DVI inputs or a DVI-KVM switch to avoid swapping cables though.

I used to be pretty big into PC gaming but only play a few older games anymore (TIE Fighter and Republic Commando), so my MBP fits the bill.

That's a valid point, but the problem with buying a Mac Pro as a gaming machine isn't that the video card is inadequate, it's that you're paying for, at minimum, a quad-core Xeon processor. The 8800GT is a fine card and is probably worth the $150 for the BTO option, but games don't need a quad Xeon for good performance. All you really need is a middle-of-the-road dual core CPU (like what comes with the iMac) and you're set for a long time. The graphics card is by far the most important component of a gaming system. That Xeon is just overkill and it costs hundreds of dollars more than processors that are still perfectly suited to gaming.

Unfortunately, if you want a Mac with a really good graphics card, you're pretty much stuck with the Mac Pro, or the 24" iMac (whose non-upgradable 8800GS is really just midrange, and that's being generous). The MacBook Pro's GPU isn't high end either, but it's still good, and it's quite nice among laptop graphics.

Like I said, there's no Mac that's well suited to gamers. Some can play games, but it's a giant waste of money to buy a Mac specifically for games.

EDIT: Oh, and I loved X-Wing and TIE Fighter. I played them so much back in the day. Too bad there aren't any modern incarnations... they'd sell tons of them!

I'm kinda split on TIE Fighter. Sometimes I'll run it in Boot Camp, other times in Fusion or Parallels. Neither VM supports the 3d graphics though, so you have to run in software mode.

I agree about the overkill, but the only way to come close to future proofing himself and sticking to Macs only is to get a Mac Pro. I sometimes game on the Wii and 360 as well, but not much.

IMO a 2006 MP would be best value.Very strong box and 8800GT graphics cards are available.

-Allen Wicks

I used to be pretty big into Mac gaming, but I'm starting to wonder if my Mac Pro will be my last gaming Mac. I recently bought an Xbox 360 and have found a whole new world of gaming, but I'm still hooked on UT2004 on my Mac and wouldn't mind finding time to play Command and Conquer: Generals a bit more on the Mac.

Of course I use my Mac Pro for more than just gaming...

I'm split right now between Republic Commando (XP), NFS Most Wanted (360), and Super Mario Galaxy (Wii). I have the Xbox version of Republic Commando but I prefer keyboard and mouse to a gamepad for a shooter any day.

I use a Nostromo SpeedPad N52 and a Bluetooth Logitech MX1000 (which works with Steermouse in OS X).

Republic Commando is an awesome game. I'd forgotten that they had made it for PC.

To the OP, it seems like you want to keep your Mac for a long time. I think then that the expandability of a Mac Pro would be great for you. One of my good friends buys the top of the line Mac and then keeps it for 4 or 5 years so that even when he gets a new one, the old Mac can still hold up to the daily grind without issue. Right now he's using a 2.0 GHz Dual G5 with 4 GB of RAM quite smoothly and he plans to get a Mac Pro this fall.

hokie17 : I've got a N52 as well, and a Razor Copperhead. Great piece of kit the N52. Doesn't make me any better, but it beats using a keyboard any day.

imitchellg5 : that's really the reason that I haven't spent more time looking at the MacBook Pros - more limits on upgradability. Plus the spec I want comes in at the same price as a MBPro with 512M graphics card.

Besides RAM, Hard drives and Graphics cards is the rest of the Mac Pro as upgradable? Can you change CPUs for example? Motherboard?

Some review sites like anandtech have successfully upgraded the CPU. There shouldn't be any problem, as long as the CPU is socket compatible

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