Which mac for future gaming?

I was looking into more the imac and macbook pro. I want to play Gears of War, Bioshock, Unreal 3 and Prey at high resolutions. (obviously using bootcamp)

The imac has the ATI 2600 pro 256. From what I have read this card is not very good. It's street price is like $99. And the benchmarks I saw were for games like FEAR, which weren't very good.

The macbook has the Nvida NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 256MB. I have not seen benchmarks for this card.

Which mac will last me at least a good year or two of decent future gaming?

 

Actually the iMac has the Radeon mobility HD 2600XT which is a far better card from the benchmarks that have been posted on the internet. Those benchmarks are for the 2600 Pro which is a cheap desktop card.

The games in Vista and OS X have gotten good marks on this card but it does need better drivers but I have no issues playing BioShock on mine.

 

I am confused. The apple site shows the imac ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO.

 

LOL, yes it does show the 2600 Pro. What Apple doesn't state is that it's the mobility version and not the desktop version. There are several threads on this and the mystery was solved and found out to be actually Mobility HD 2600XT.
I hate to use this example but it was actually found out in Windows. Both XP and Vista seem to read this card's information better than OS X. In Windows it shows the Radeon HD 2600 XT and all of the info and even the part number which matches the same part number on ATI's website. The part number and model of the card are under the mobility section on ATI's website.

This card is NOT the HD 2600 Pro as there's no mobility version of it and the iMac (aside from the HDD and a few other things) uses mostly notebook parts including the graphics card.

 

So will it play Gears of War at full resolution come November?

 

Probably not full resolution, but medium-ish to high settings.

 

If you want a computer for the main purpose of gaming, than custom build yourself a pc. For the gaming you want to do, at minimum you would want an 8800gts.

 

No one knows how unreleased games will run.

 

Chris27 I don't mean to knock your idea because all ideas are welcome but building a PC isn't an easy solution for even die hard gamers. Most people will change hard drives or graphics cards but that's about it Not everyone is tech savvy or even wants to bother. I have a degree in computer science and I just don't have the interest to build a computer. Alienware (Dell in disguise) makes some great gaming rigs but to tell someone, "Just build yourself a computer" is easier said than done.
Besides if the OP is inquiring about an AIO then building a PC is not part of his diet.

 

Building a pc isn't difficult at all hldan, but if youre gonna build it then more then likely youll want to upgrade stuff at different points anyways. But this thread is about macs, and not building pcs, so I'd have to say that the 8600 is a good card. i had a 6600 in my main pc rig, and lasted me even up to this day playing most games on medium quality. If youre really converned about it lasting then I'd probably say that the 2.4 15" pro is good and itll last you for a while.

 

I built my first PC from parts when I was 12. I'm 18 now and I've built two more from parts. You don't need to be "tech savvy" to build a PC. You just need to be able to read english.

Also if you want to play any of those games with max settings and decent FPS the best solution would be to build/buy a pc (when I say buy I don't mean dell/any brand name I mean finding a good internet custom PC builder). You could probably find a pc for about 1400-1600 that will play those games MUCH better than a Mac that would end up costing you 500+ more.

 

Well just keep in mind that screen shots you see of newer games such as UT2007,Crysis, etc are being rendered on machines with dual 8800gtx's. a mobile 8600 has approximately 1/10th the power of the above so you will have to lower the settings accordingly (i.e. no AA to smooth out jagged edges, will have to run at lower resolutions with less detail)

 

It definitely helps if you are knowledgeable. There are a lot of components that go into a computer, and there are many different things that you need to know. You can't just go out and buy any kind of motherboard, processor, and RAM then expect them to work together. If you do your research though, it's not that difficult.

Another advantage to building a desktop is that you can continue to use many of the components, even if you want to upgrade. I could update my computer with the latest processor and graphics card, but I would still be able to use my case, power supply, optical drives, monitor, speakers, and various accessories. That isn't the case with a notebook.

When you build a PC you can't run OS X though. If you must have OS X, and gaming is your primary concern, maybe you should look at the Mac Pro.

 

The least expensive iMac with the HD 2600 PRO (according to Apple) costs $1499 (without any discounts) and has a 20" display.

If you're not too serious about gaming and more serious about OS X, that might be a pretty good solution.

If you're more serious about gaming, then for around that price, you could put together a PC with similar gaming capabilities for around $500. You know what, splurge and get a better graphics card, so make it $600. Buy an OEM copy of Windows if you need one for around $100. Then get a 20"-22" LCD monitor for $250 or so. If you still want to run OS X, buy a Mac Mini for $600. The Mini and the gaming PC can share the monitor; you may want to get a switch to make that easier. You're not much over the cost of the iMac, and you have a much more flexible setup. Not as good Mac performance, but better and much more upgradeable gaming performance.

 

The main idea about having the iMac is that it's simple and ready to go out of the box. The HD 2600XT is a great card but not for the hard core gamer who has to have the maximum settings on all 3D games he plays. I play Bioshock on my iMac and it plays great.

Sorry to go back to this but some of you who have built PC's feel it's fairly easy, because it's easy for you. I have a few friends that hardly know their way around MS Word and many people on this forum on a daily basis are asking simple questions like which ram works in their new Mac? So at this point are you telling me that recommending someone to BUILD a PC if they are into gaming is the easy solution? No way.
Now I understand that for a hard core gamer it may be an idea to consider but the caveat is there's no warranty and no support.

 

I'd personally go for the macbook pro. with 256mb 8600m GT. It has DDR3, and that can max out any games at the moment.

If you're going to play Crysis..you'd be able to play it at med-high settings, same thing with COD 4 modernwarfare.

 

I would make sure to get a DX 10 compatable card too.

 

Can you elaborate on that? I know the HDD is desktop, but what are the "few other things?" I can't find the answer anywhere.

Thanks.

 

Aren't both Radeon HD 2600 and 8600M GT already DirectX 10 capable?

 

<strike>Well, the 2.8 GHz Core 2 Extreme in the 24-inch iMac is a desktop processor...so that's a desktop part. But the other processors in the 20-inch version are notebook processors, yes.</strike>

Info edited. See several posts below. Thanks Xander for the correction .

 

yes, however they are not really powerful enough to render a lot of the new DirectX 10 effects.

 

Yeah, they will strain a bit trying to run DX10 effects, but they are DX10 capable cards. I was just wondering why GMeanie said "get a DX10 card" when the cards offered by the iMac and MBP are DX10 capable anyways.

 

Wait I thought the 2.8GHz CPU in the 24" iMac was the Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900, which is a mobile chip.

Source

 

Isn't it a desktop chip? I'm confused now .

http://www.macrumors.com/2007/08/23/intel-launches-mobile-extreme-cpu-already-in-imac/

Yeah, you're right. Xander 1, Sam 0 .

 

Don't get too excited about gaming with any of the cards offered in the iMac and MacBook Pro lineup. While they are as good as it gets for that size of laptop or all-in-one, they are still midrange cards that will choke on high-end games. That's not to say they won't play them, they will, but you will need to dumb down most settings.