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almost2mac
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Join Date: Jul 2006
 
2006-11-19, 23:49

I was going to make a new thread, but this one has been informative. I've been speculating "what if" for the future.

I have the first gen intel iMac 17" and it's rocked my world. I love it. The Mac version of WoW runs perfectly well with some of the settings down that I don't feel like I'm playing a choppy blocky game. I didn't buy it just for games, I bought it out of frustration that my old pc (Medion P4 3.0gig with a pretty good agp graphics card) was doing some weird stuff and the people who also use the computer weren't smart enough to avoid the pitfalls you have to with windows.

So the PC is squirreled back for my gaming use. It runs *pretty* well, although I think I'm going to upgrade the power supply which I think may be the cause of some random crashing. I tried the Vista RC on it and it was a nightmare, nothing worked, and it was unstable and I read that many people didn't have those problems, so its probably the hardware.

But I'm thinking forward for a year or two. I was going to avoid Vista like the plague, but I'm guessing one of the games that I'm expecting, Bioshock, will require DX10 which is Vista only. If the power supply solves the issue I'm fine and I'll run this machine into the ground.

For a while I even toyed with getting a PS3 once they're more readily available or even an Xbox and avoid messing with PC hardware. I loved the PS2 but I'm not sure if I want to invest in another console.

My friend got a Mac Pro and he loves it ... he was a hardcore "build it myself" PC-er, but now that he can plug his guitar into Garageband he's all about Mac. He was able to play WoW with every setting maxed with the default Mac Pro build bought from an Apple store. He does not own Windows, so I have not seen the performance in Boot Camp. But now I'm drooling thinking if I ran Windows on a Core 2 Duo machine that was *upgradeable* then I WOULD EASILY CONQUER THE WORLD!

I've read on this thread that Mac Pro legitimately qualifies as a gaming rig but still isn't as good as a PC with Windows. On the iMac XP partition I actually installed Oblivion and it ran solidly...although it starts to chug in the outdoor areas. So far it didn't seem unplayable. XP altogether seems to run better on a Mac than PC hardware to me. So would dual-booting a Mac Pro come close to an uber gaming rig that is expensive but worth it, especially since upgrades are easy and one could potentially upgrade it for ten years?

Someone mentioned there are only three choices for Mac video cards, surely there will be more as the Mac Pro becomes more commonplace.

My other choices would be to chuck gaming altogether and get a MacBook to pair with the iMac like a responsible working adult person, or just run the PC into the ground and eventually in a year or so get a current Core2 Duo PC for like $800 that probably will only last 2 years.

Now, if I could just win the damn lottery....
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