[sinosleep]

After asking around, and doing some research I am seriously considering switching from PC to Mac. Most everything that I’ve read and seen has pointed towards Macs outperforming Windows based PCs at pretty much everything other then gaming. I’m 23 years old and while I don’t buy computers strictly for gaming I do game quite a bit which is where I run into problems. Seems all my other aps would run better in OS X while having less worries in regards to maintenance while my games are going to be better running on Vista.

So what I had in mind was going with a Mac Pro while running Bootcamp to play games. Which leads into my next problem with the GPU choices on Mac Pros. I’ve seen Mac Pros on this forum running 8800gtxs on their Vista boots but having to pop cards in and out on reboots seems like a major pain.

I’m not planning on getting a Mac till I’m out of the army (around January) so I’m hoping that by then 8800s will be available on the Mac, but if not would you guys consider the benefits of switching to be worth the hassle I’m going to go through to play any directx 10 games?

[svtcontour]

Hmmm honestly, I'd have to say if you do any major gaming and if your concern is to have a high end video card such as an 8800 in your computer, then I'd say you migh tbe better off building a high end PC thats workstation class with the ability to run a high end card that would be suited for gaming. Yes there might be a bit more maintenance such as downloading an antivirus program (I like AVG free), but thats about it. I cant think of anything else that needs to really be maintained. Oh make sure you have a hardware firewall/router and dont connect directly to a modem.

I will probably build a new box for myself soon based on the following so maybe you would want to do the same - if you want a strong box that will be strong at gaming as well. If gaming is not that critical, then I'd say get the Macpro and dont worry about having the fastest card. It will be fine for 90% of games as long as you dont have to have the absolute highest detail enabled.

If you do decide to build something, I'd go for something like this maybe...

System board - Intel 975X board $215
NCIXUS.com - Buy Intel D975XBX2 ATX LGA775 Conroe 975X DDR2 PCI-E16 SATA RAID Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard - BOXD975XBX2KR.

Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz 8MB Cache - $300
NCIXUS.com - Buy Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor LGA775 Kentsfield 2.40GHZ 1066FSB 8MB Retail Box - BX80562Q6600.

Memory - 4x 2Gb pieces of DDR667 - $405
NCIXUS.com - Buy Corsair Value Select 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2-667 CL5 240PIN DIMM Memory - VS2GB667D2.

Video - EVGA 8800GTS 640mb $418
NCIXUS.com - Buy EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTS Superclocked 576MHZ 640MB 1.7GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Card - 640-P2-N825-AR.

Chassis - Antec P180 $119
NCIXUS.com - Buy Antec P180 ATX Advanced Mid Tower Aluminum Case 4X5.25 1X3.5 6X3.5INT No PS W/ USB & Audio Ports - P180.

Power supply - Seasonic 550W $126
NCIXUS.com - Buy Seasonic S12 ENERGY+ 550W ATX12V V2.2 20/24PIN Active PFC Power Supply Retail Box - SS-550HT.

DVD Burner - Pioneer DVR-112D $32
NCIXUS.com - Buy Pioneer DVR-112D Black DVD-RW 18X6X18 DVD+RW 18X8X18 DL 10X IDE OEM DVD Burner No Software - DVR-112DBK.

Boot drive - Western Digital Raptor 74Gb $155
NCIXUS.com - Buy Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA 10000RPM Hard Drive 5.2MS 16MB NCQ 5 Year MFR Warranty - WD740ADFD.

2nd Drive - Western Digital SE 16 500Gb $112
NCIXUS.com - Buy Western Digital SE16 500GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB Cache 8.9MS NCQ Hard Drive OEM 3YR MFR Warranty - WD5000AAKS.

Operating system - Vista Ultimate X64 $200
NCIXUS.com - Buy Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition 64BIT DVD OEM - 66R-00838.



So all in all it will be a very fast computer at 4 cores, 8gigs, 10K drive, 8800GTS.etc and if you can put it together (or get a friend to help) you will spend about $2100.

While its not a Mac or OSX, it will run most apps very quickly and game strongly and X64 Vista is pretty rock solid no matter what anyone says. You just have to decide if you're willing to deal with a little more hassles here and there with security - and even there, just dont surf to "mystery" sites or downoad warez and you'll be fine.

Thats my suggestion if you can only have one machine and if cutting edge gaming is important. If not, then definitly go Mac Pro with whatever video card thats just below the workstation ones that are super expensive.

[RealMac]

On a sidenote, directx 10 hasn't really caught on much in the Windows Vista world yet. It will eventually but I think there will be some time before the latest releases are no longer compatible with 9.

Personally I have had a Mac Pro for over a year. It's a great performing machine, even if I keep finding myself running out of disk space. I am not a gamer but have over 1.3Terabytes of storage connected to my machine and 4Gb of RAM. I have the GeForce 7300GT connected to two displays and rarely am able to max out both CPUs even under heavy multitasking. Leopard will take better advantage of each core and handle 64-bit processing from the ground up, which would be a huge plus if I ever upgrade to over 4gb. For my average-joe type usage though this machine should last me for a few years.

Mac OS X is incredibly stable if you stick with good hardware and quality drivers. I had one faulty piece of hw/sw, an EyeTV Hybrid that would kernel panic machine every 2 days. Got rid of it and I'm up to 19 days of uptime.

I'd expect sometime later this year the graphics offerings for Mac Pro machines from Apple will expand. Simple put, they want to increase marketshare and having cards that are two years old in your machines simply isn't going to cut it.

[mduell]

Yes, but not until Apple updates the Mac Pro (which is overdue).

[sinosleep]

I know there's not many games with directx 10 support now and that directx 9 won't stop being supported for quite some time, but I try to make my desktops last at least 3 years which is why I'm hoping for 8800 support by the time I buy one.

[goMac]

It's a pretty sure bet that the Mac Pros will be updated before January, and I'd bet they'll include 8800's.

Myself, I'm looking to buy a Mac Pro next month, and I'm hoping they get updated before then. Even just a price drop would be nice.

[tavin64]

Only thing is I would get the new Intel P35 Bearlake motherboards instead of that 975X. At that price you can get the new ones that support DDR2 and DDR3 ram. Plus it will also be more future proof as the 975X does not support all of the new 1333mhz bus cpus.

[bballe336]

Originally Posted by svtcontour 

snip

Windows can only recognize 3.5gbs of ram.

Anyways, if you would like to buy a mac pro I'd wait for the next update, it's very over due and should be here soon. Hopefully that will add some reasonable graphics options.

[mfbernstein]

Originally Posted by bballe336 

Windows can only recognize 3.5gbs of ram.

Not true. Windows XP and Vista 32bit only recognize 3GB (4GB with a hack, but it's not so useful). However Vista 64bit recognizes 4GB+. Regardless, there are no 64-bit games yet to take advantage of the extra memory, but the OS can handle the it, and it will help when running many apps.

As to the original question, Apple has never been particularly good about offering the latest and greatest in graphic card technology. Whatever Mac Pro updates occur in the next 6-9 months, the odds of getting SLI (or Crossfire) are pretty negligible. You can also pretty much guarantee that the upgrade possibilities for Apple-blessed video cards will be very limited (witness today, the Mac Pro still has only 2 options: the GeForce 7300GT or the Radeon X1900, both of these well over 9 months old)..