computers
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Macs are high end PC equipment, with Apple branding and an Apple OS.
diablothe2nd
actually macs are very good for gaming. you're just paying a much higher price for the apple branding -
BRooNiE
Macs are high end PC equipment, with Apple branding and an Apple OS.
High end X86 hardware with a Unix/linux-ish based operating system plastered with apple logos and a higher pricetag
it was justified pricing with the likes of the G5's etc. but not now with standard PC hardware.
i'm not knocking it though. If i could afford one I'd get one as I'm a Linux/Unix fan and loathe anything Microsoft. I'm only using win7 now until I get better support for my tri screen setup and wheel/pedals
on a side note, I still boot up my Amiga A1200 with Blizzard 060 Accelerator card at least every month. Cant beat the 1.25 second boot up times to useable web browsing. Ah it may be 20 year old tech, but it's still faster and less buggy than today's crap I miss the old macs too... Motorola Processors FTW!
anyway i'm going off subject now
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itsme
what makes gaming fast on macs/pcs? Like the processors, RAM, that kind of thing. And what iMac would also be best for me? My budget is £1400 for an iMac at the most
well, I look at it like this. at the top, for 3d gaming your graphics card is the be all and end all. if you have a slow or underpowered graphics card, your cpu will need to do more work which could be better used on other things like controlling other hardware.
CPU speed in my opinion mostly affects the time it takes for games/software to load (also dependant on HD speeds but more on that later). This though is also dependant on how much ram you have.
The more ram you have, the less it needs to keep accessing the hard disk. when you run out of ram your pc will start using Swap space, which will grind your harddrive and slow things down considerably. bare in mind that ram is 1000's times faster to access than a hard drive. so the more your pc can use it's ram, the better.
when you double click to launch a game, the first thing that will happen is the computer will read the data from the hard drive and place it in ram. the cpu will then use what is stored in ram and then pass functions to other parts of your pc, the sound card, graphics card etc. and then you start to see/hear the game. once the game is running though, provided it has enough ram it'll run as fast as it possibly can. if it's hindered by having to read from the hard drive, lag, long loading times, frame rate drops will happen.
so really, to take the weight off the hard drive and cpu, ram is the thing to not scrimp on as well as your graphics card. the difference between an i5 2.5 and a i5 2.7 will be barely noticeable at all.
if you're fine with waiting a few seconds longer for loading things, but want a smooth gaming experience once it's running stick with that line of thought.
if you want blazingly fast loading times, going SSD will help, going SSD in a raid array will help even more, but your starting to add more serious dosh to the mix at that point. -
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Mulan
You can make a very capable machine for about £500-750.
yes you can. all those specs of mine are from a £600 budget and that'll last me at least 5 years before i start dropping to the min specs of games. -
if you're pretty pc savvy though itsme or at least have a tech/mac savvy friend close by that can come around to help you in physical form, it's worth considering a Hackintosh. Basically you build a PC using off the shelf parts that are compatible with MacOSX and go from there. This is a very grey area though as the EULA for MacOSX doen't allow this, so you'll be sacrificing on tech support, but you'll eseentially be getting a powerful mac for less than half the price. I've considered doing this myself actually. but this option is really for hardcore enthusiasts that really know what they're doing.
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This is what im currently running:
Intel Celeron D 2.0 Single Core Processor
1GB DDR2 Ram
Intel GMA995 integrated graphics
Come at me bro
Seriously but, 5 days until my birthday then i'm building a rig
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I have a 2007 macbook. Yeah.
Technical specs:
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 1.83 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 2 MB
Memory: 2 GB -
I've looked into Hackintoshes, diablo, and it looks pretty hardcore to make.
I also kinda forgot to mention also that minecraft classic/beta demo will be the best I'll Play as a 'game' on my iMac,
Plus, I can use full screen on os x lion, so minecraft on a big 21/27 inch screen all the way baby! -
Itsme, if you're only buying a mac to play minecraft on, that's one expensive way to play it!
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Diablo, minecraft won't be the only thing I do on my iMac! I mean as in probably the only proper GAME I play on my mac! I do use my mac, for other stuff, like YouTube, Facebook, general safari stuff, and all sorts of other things.
The main reason I'm going mac, diablo, is the big processor, (ie i5, i7) and the graphics chip, like radeon. As well as a big screen and the fact it is an all-in-one computer, so none of this 'kilometres of wire' stuff as well!
And diablo, I think you should get a job in tech or something, cos of all this computer knowledge that you know about can get you serious money! -
^^ Oh dear... You do realise you can build a PC with an i7 2600k, gtx 580 SLi and watercooling for less than you can buy a mac with an i7 and some crappy GFX card? And miles of wire takes about 5-10 minutes to make it look awesome. As so:
http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z478/Shayper/IMG_0076.jpg
http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z478/Shayper/IMG_0079.jpg
Show me a mac as awesome as that for the money
Oh and macs can't overclock. Like this anyway...
[Image removed due to it being too large]
Mod note: "Please resize large images if posted directly into a thread." -
Shayper, what you dont realise is that I don't know much about PCS and macs as much as you guys do!
Anyway, with your help and my careful thinking and I've decided i might get an all-in-pc, or a powerful 17-inch laptop.
Just looked around the dell website, and I've seen 2 I like:
Dell xps 17
Processor 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i5-2540M processor 2.60 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.30 GHz
Operating System English Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Display 17.3"(44 cm) HD+ WLED True-Life (1600x900) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
Memory* 6GB* Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz
Hard Drive 750GB* SATA hard drive (7200RPM)
EDIT: a 1GB Dedicated graphics card with no name :S
Then there is the dell all-in-one:
Processor
AMD® Athlon™ II X2 245e
Operating System
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit
Memory*
Up to 4GB* Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333Mhz - 2 DIMMS
Hard Drive
Up to 500GB* hard drive
Optical Drive
8X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW), write to CD/DVD
Video Card
512MB ATI® Mobility Radeon™ HD 5470 Graphics
I could get a tower pc and monitor, but my dad won't let me have one since there are 'too many wires' involved in it, unless you guys say different. -
Just buy parts and build it you're self!
If you do it right there will be pretty much "No wires" showing
Btw shayper you build is amazing -
Well Joe I don't know how to build one! I find it too complicated to build one really and is it really tru that there are 'too many wires' when unvolves tower pcs?
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itsme, for the love of god, please never ever go for a dell pc
Look on Novatech for a barebones bundle, all you need to do is add a hard drive and a cd drive and you're good to go, you can get some decent mid-spec barebones bundles for around £150-£200 -
Meh, just went best buy near lakeside yesterday. Had a look in there. I already know what laptop I'm getting. It's a big 17.3 inch hp with a core i3 proccessor and 4th of RAM (which I will upgrade to 8!) and a BIG 640gb harddrive!
EDIT: I've looked into novatech, and they are not for me. They do tower pc bundles, but not laptop ones. Anyway ive made my my mind up. -
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Ryona4
Building is the best way to save a buck and get maximum efficiency.
Like I said before, the only pc kits out there are for building tower pcs!
If there is a laptop building kit, then tell me, but as I'm also aware they are too complicated to build! -
there are barebones laptop kits out there, but they're not really cost effective.
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Meh I'm gonna just go for mac., like I originally did. Whether it will play minecraft or not. Minecraft won't be the only thing I do on there as well.
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Mulan
You can make a very capable machine for about £500-750.
Thats the price bracket that I'm going for, however, have you included the OS and Office Software, because when I've been looking around that has jumped the price up massively for me, and so not sure if i can afford a decent computer, when choosing my own componants
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Mulan
You can make a very capable machine for about £500-750.
Thats the price bracket that I'm going for, however, have you included the OS and Office Software, because when I've been looking around that has jumped the price up massively for me, and so not sure if i can afford a decent computer, when choosing my own componants
ninjanpirate
look on pcspecialist.co.uk and go onto 'mini pcs' i managed to make a combo coming to £845. and thats with a monitor.
ill give you a link to it. its below
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-top-spec-mini-pc/
tell me if it doesnt work.
