[SOLVED] MAC PRO 2013 Gaming?

[Armaan Zabihi]

Hey guys, I want a gaming machine so I was gonna go with the late 27 inch iMac. But then the mac pro got announced. I asked my friend if the mac pro is good for gaming but he said no because it is using workstation graphic cards. Could someone please elaborate on that. Will the mac pro be able to game or not? I want it to run BF4 on ultra! if the not the mac pro, do you think the iMac will get updated with the 780M (X) if so when? thank you guys!

 

[DiaSin]

Good luck playing battlefield on a mac. Most games are not made for macs. Battlefield included. As in it will not even open the installer. If you want to game on a computer it has to be a PC, it has very little to do with what GPU they have. The games are made for PC. Quite honestly when I first saw the title of this thread I thought it was going to be a troll post.

 

[steven785]

Well the 680mx is a little bit slower than a 660 (non ti) and its pushing a 1440p display. They used two 7990's in crossfire for the BF4 demo. The 780mx will probably be on par with a 660. And like the above poster stated the new mac uses workstation video cards. They will perform decently but you will need the best ones available and if apples does include them they will be a fortune and not worth it for gaming.

 

[DiaSin]

Well the 680mx is a little bit slower than a 660 (non ti) and its pushing a 1440p display. They used two 7990's in crossfire for the BF4 demo.

Did you read the original post? We are talking about a mac. BF4 is console and PC only, as are most games. Also, you are wrong. They used a single 7990.

 

[4slime]

Macs aren't good for gaming, period. They are used for work and for graphic design and video editing (because of their HD screens 'retina display') Apple doesn't make their computers for gaming - and you can build a Windows computer to the same specs of a Mac and get it way, way cheaper! I reccomend going with a desktop instead of a Mac.

 

[King Hackintosh]

Ok I'll try to answer all your questions (let me know if I've missed anything)...

To start you any get Battlefield in OS X in the first place so you'd have to use boot camp or a virtual window

Secondly, even if you did get your game through bootcamp (or a virtual machine) the Mac Pro would did horribly because like your friend said, it uses workstation graphics, which are a whole different type of graphics cards and not at all for gaming. If you would like to find out more about workstation graphics, please check out the link at the end of this post...

And lastly, Apple has no intentions of updating the iMacs any time soon so you are better off building/buying a PC if your main priority is gaming - yes I know it sucks for us Mac users 🙁

More info about workstation GPUs:

http://www.adris.co.uk/hardware/cad-workstation-guide/workstation-vs-gaming-graphics

I hope this info was what you were looking for...

 

[steven785]

Well the 680mx is a little bit slower than a 660 (non ti) and its pushing a 1440p display. They used two 7990's in crossfire for the BF4 demo.

Did you read the original post? We are talking about a mac. BF4 is console and PC only, as are most games. Also, you are wrong. They used a single 7990.

http://bf4central.com/2013/04/monster-pc-battlefield-4-demo/

He mentioned the imac. I responded with it's current top video card performance and what it's equivalent desktop card would be.

 

[DiaSin]

Well the 680mx is a little bit slower than a 660 (non ti) and its pushing a 1440p display. They used two 7990's in crossfire for the BF4 demo.

Did you read the original post? We are talking about a mac. BF4 is console and PC only, as are most games. Also, you are wrong. They used a single 7990.

http://bf4central.com/2013/04/monster-pc-battlefield-4-demo/

He mentioned the imac. I responded with it's current top video card performance and what it's equivalent desktop card would be.

My point is that we really need to hammer in the point that the game is not even made for a mac, most are not. We need to stop him from spending alot of money expecting to game on a mac.

 

[Armaan Zabihi]

Ok I'll try to answer all your questions (let me know if I've missed anything)...

To start you any get Battlefield in OS X in the first place so you'd have to use boot camp or a virtual window

Secondly, even if you did get your game through bootcamp (or a virtual machine) the Mac Pro would did horribly because like your friend said, it uses workstation graphics, which are a whole different type of graphics cards and not at all for gaming. If you would like to find out more about workstation graphics, please check out the link at the end of this post...

And lastly, Apple has no intentions of updating the iMacs any time soon so you are better off building/buying a PC if your main priority is gaming - yes I know it sucks for us Mac users 🙁

More info about workstation GPUs:

http://www.adris.co.uk/hardware/cad-workstation-guide/workstation-vs-gaming-graphics

I hope this info was what you were looking for...

Thanks for the response, but I dont know how to build a computer and my friend built one and his motherboard broke. Is it worth it to buy one from Maingear, Falcon, Origin Pc?

 

[DiaSin]

Ok I'll try to answer all your questions (let me know if I've missed anything)...

To start you any get Battlefield in OS X in the first place so you'd have to use boot camp or a virtual window

Secondly, even if you did get your game through bootcamp (or a virtual machine) the Mac Pro would did horribly because like your friend said, it uses workstation graphics, which are a whole different type of graphics cards and not at all for gaming. If you would like to find out more about workstation graphics, please check out the link at the end of this post...

And lastly, Apple has no intentions of updating the iMacs any time soon so you are better off building/buying a PC if your main priority is gaming - yes I know it sucks for us Mac users 🙁

More info about workstation GPUs:

http://www.adris.co.uk/hardware/cad-workstation-guide/workstation-vs-gaming-graphics

I hope this info was what you were looking for...

Thanks for the response, but I dont know how to build a computer and my friend built one and his motherboard broke. Is it worth it to buy one from Maingear, Falcon, Origin Pc?

If you really do not feel comfortable learning to build one, then yes. Just make sure you build it on their site custom instead of buying a prebuilt. You get better components that way.

 

[steven785]

Well the 680mx is a little bit slower than a 660 (non ti) and its pushing a 1440p display. They used two 7990's in crossfire for the BF4 demo.

Did you read the original post? We are talking about a mac. BF4 is console and PC only, as are most games. Also, you are wrong. They used a single 7990.

http://bf4central.com/2013/04/monster-pc-battlefield-4-demo/

He mentioned the imac. I responded with it's current top video card performance and what it's equivalent desktop card would be.

My point is that we really need to hammer in the point that the game is not even made for a mac, most are not. We need to stop him from spending alot of money expecting to game on a mac.

I agree with you on the part about mac's being a poor choice for gaming. But saying i didn't read the article when i was giving him the relative performance of the imac to a pc is abit harsh.

As for building a pc it's fairly simple and there are tons of guides on youtube. Newegg has a great one. Getting a prebuilt computer is more expensive but you do have the waranty from the manufacturer for it which can be easy to deal with if somethings goes wrong. The downside is that you have to send your whole system in opposed to the individual component.

 

[g-unit1111]

Macs aren't good for gaming, period. They are used for work and for graphic design and video editing (because of their HD screens 'retina display') Apple doesn't make their computers for gaming - and you can build a Windows computer to the same specs of a Mac and get it way, way cheaper! I reccomend going with a desktop instead of a Mac.

Agreed - the new Mac Pro is not designed for gaming. It uses server parts and is meant for one purpose and one purpose only and that's multimedia content creation. It's not meant to play games on. You're better off building a PC for that purpose.

 

[Nathaniel Pysklo]

I myself am a MacBook guy and I agree with the statements made. DO NOT buy any type of mac to game, for many reasons:
1) little game selection
2) Okay graphics (depending on specific Mac)
3) price for "okay" specs

 

[onux]

Good luck playing battlefield on a mac. Most games are not made for macs. Battlefield included. As in it will not even open the installer. If you want to game on a computer it has to be a PC, it has very little to do with what GPU they have. The games are made for PC. Quite honestly when I first saw the title of this thread I thought it was going to be a troll post.

Just bootcamp it, the question is relevant in so far as how the hardware will perform under win.

 

[Jozsef Soha]

Well the 680mx is a little bit slower than a 660 (non ti) and its pushing a 1440p display. They used two 7990's in crossfire for the BF4 demo.

Did you read the original post? We are talking about a mac. BF4 is console and PC only, as are most games. Also, you are wrong. They used a single 7990.

http://bf4central.com/2013/04/monster-pc-battlefield-4-demo/

He mentioned the imac. I responded with it's current top video card performance and what it's equivalent desktop card would be.

My point is that we really need to hammer in the point that the game is not even made for a mac, most are not. We need to stop him from spending alot of money expecting to game on a mac.

the new Mac Pro have 2x w9000 fire pro card with 12 gig ram ! just one of the this card can play twitcher 2 on ultra with 250 fps (check on youtube) so the new mac pro can play any game on the next 4-5 year on ultra any time

 

[Jozsef Soha]

Well the 680mx is a little bit slower than a 660 (non ti) and its pushing a 1440p display. They used two 7990's in crossfire for the BF4 demo.

Did you read the original post? We are talking about a mac. BF4 is console and PC only, as are most games. Also, you are wrong. They used a single 7990.

http://bf4central.com/2013/04/monster-pc-battlefield-4-demo/

He mentioned the imac. I responded with it's current top video card performance and what it's equivalent desktop card would be.

My point is that we really need to hammer in the point that the game is not even made for a mac, most are not. We need to stop him from spending alot of money expecting to game on a mac.

I agree with you on the part about mac's being a poor choice for gaming. But saying i didn't read the article when i was giving him the relative performance of the imac to a pc is abit harsh.

As for building a pc it's fairly simple and there are tons of guides on youtube. Newegg has a great one. Getting a prebuilt computer is more expensive but you do have the waranty from the manufacturer for it which can be easy to deal with if somethings goes wrong. The downside is that you have to send your whole system in opposed to the individual component.

mac being a poor choice for gaming ??
my iMac 27 with 680mx on windows with msi after burner (280/515) i play every game on ultra today !!!!!! what not for gaming ?

 

[g-unit1111]

the new Mac Pro have 2x w9000 fire pro card with 12 gig ram ! just one of the this card can play twitcher 2 on ultra with 250 fps (check on youtube) so the new mac pro can play any game on the next 4-5 year on ultra any time

I'm going to call BS here - I find it really hard to believe that a Fire Pro can achieve those numbers.

 

[Jozsef Soha]

the new Mac Pro have 2x w9000 fire pro card with 12 gig ram ! just one of the this card can play twitcher 2 on ultra with 250 fps (check on youtube) so the new mac pro can play any game on the next 4-5 year on ultra any time

I'm going to call BS here - I find it really hard to believe that a Fire Pro can achieve those numbers.

You tube search w9000 gaming

 

[g-unit1111]

You tube search w9000 gaming

The first videos were simulation and rendering programs. The 470 FPS claim? That was cinema playback. Not gaming. The Fire Pros are not gaming cards.

 

[Barlockk]

I suggest that someone offer a direction for this guy to go instead of dismissing his question on principle; I lack the current knowledge to do so, but I'm rather confident someone on here can give some reliable advice. Perhaps elaborate the cons of running bootcamp, and suggest a specific setup to meet his desired performance.

 

[lesferdinand]

(To start of, I'm assuming that the original poster understands that BF4 isn't available for OS X and therefore intends to use Bootcamp to play games on the Mac)

The Mac Pro is an expensive solution if it's meant just for gaming. Like others have been saying, you can get better gaming performance for less money by getting a Windows PC.

However, the statement of your friend that the Mac Pro will not be good for gaming because it has workstation graphics cards is wrong. See this article for example: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/workstation-graphics-card-gaming,3425-15.html

Workstation cards (hardware and their drivers) are not optimized for gaming which means they are not cost efficient for gaming purposes. Again, you can get better performance for less money if you get a gaming card. But this doesn't mean that workstation cards can't game at all or won't still provide decent performance. The GPU's that will be included with the base Mac Pro (the D300) are expected to be custom versions of the W7000 (2GB instead of 4GB RAM). One of which, see the above article, should provide you with pretty decent gaming performance.

It's not really clear at this time if the Mac Pro will support crossfire under Bootcamp. If it does, even the base model can function as a pretty powerful gaming PC. But again, from a cost perspective, it doesn't make much sense to buy it just for that.

 

[Yokoko44]

Well the 680mx is a little bit slower than a 660 (non ti) and its pushing a 1440p display. They used two 7990's in crossfire for the BF4 demo.

Did you read the original post? We are talking about a mac. BF4 is console and PC only, as are most games. Also, you are wrong. They used a single 7990.

Everyone here is wrong. You can play BF4 on a mac. I have a 2011 iMac at home and play it on high. All you need to do is bootcamp the computer, which is really easy... My computer is using a crap graphics card, which gets 1024mb of VRAM. Fully upgraded, the new Mac Pro can get up to 12GB of VRAM, even if it is workstation cards. Along with getting up to a 12 core processor (definitely not needed, you can live with a quad or six core), you will definitely be able to play BF4 ultra with more than 60fps. Some people here assume that Macs cannot play the games, but it simply isn't true. I play BF4, ArmA 3, and planetside 2 on my mac.

 

[Yokoko44]

(To start of, I'm assuming that the original poster understands that BF4 isn't available for OS X and therefore intends to use Bootcamp to play games on the Mac)

The Mac Pro is an expensive solution if it's meant just for gaming. Like others have been saying, you can get better gaming performance for less money by getting a Windows PC.

However, the statement of your friend that the Mac Pro will not be good for gaming because it has workstation graphics cards is wrong. See this article for example: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/workstation-graphics-card-gaming,3425-15.html


Workstation cards (hardware and their drivers) are not optimized for gaming which means they are not cost efficient for gaming purposes. Again, you can get better performance for less money if you get a gaming card. But this doesn't mean that workstation cards can't game at all or won't still provide decent performance. The GPU's that will be included with the base Mac Pro (the D300) are expected to be custom versions of the W7000 (2GB instead of 4GB RAM). One of which, see the above article, should provide you with pretty decent gaming performance.

It's not really clear at this time if the Mac Pro will support crossfire under Bootcamp. If it does, even the base model can function as a pretty powerful gaming PC. But again, from a cost perspective, it doesn't make much sense to buy it just for that.

Very true ^^. As he said, It might not be the cheapest solution, but if you are also a graphic design guy or plan on rendering movies, and you have the money for it ($3,000 base, but for optimized gaming performance, maybe $5,000), then I would definitely recommend getting the new Mac Pro as soon as it comes out.

 

[g-unit1111]

Everyone here is wrong. You can play BF4 on a mac. I have a 2011 iMac at home and play it on high. All you need to do is bootcamp the computer, which is really easy... My computer is using a crap graphics card, which gets 1024mb of VRAM. Fully upgraded, the new Mac Pro can get up to 12GB of VRAM, even if it is workstation cards. Along with getting up to a 12 core processor (definitely not needed, you can live with a quad or six core), you will definitely be able to play BF4 ultra with more than 60fps. Some people here assume that Macs cannot play the games, but it simply isn't true. I play BF4, ArmA 3, and planetside 2 on my mac.

We're talking about the new Mac Pros, not iMacs. You are right that iMacs are made for consumer content - games, media, etc. But the Mac Pro exists for one purpose and one purpose only and that's multimedia content creation. They can render and play back rendering videos - and that's where that bogus 110 FPS claim comes from, but as far as playing games go, the Mac Pros are not made for that purpose.

 

[Charles Manning]

I'm not saying to buy or not buy a Mac for gaming, that's your choice. Most of what people said here is correct, except that they don't think a mac could handle the gaming. Technically, you can now instal almost any GPU on a Mac externally via the Thunderbolt port if it has one. It's been tried and tested.