Okay, I'm going back to college after break and I was thinking about these three things Main Desktop Rig for Medium-High gaming and Photo-Editing using Photoshop http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dell+-+Studio+XPS+Desktop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i7+Processor+-+Black/9532749.p?id=1218120178969&skuId=9532749 Monitor to go with desktop rig http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236079 Mini-laptop for bringing to college (I commute everyday) and working on word and internet browsing and some youtube http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115656 Total - 1729.97 Thoughts?
Yeah I tried that and it literally set my floor on fire. Literally. So while that might be a great option for most people, I am going to stick with the prebuilt =D lol
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3777 I've been playing PC games on Macs since they made the Intel switch.
Yep, Macs aren't really built for gaming. That desktop rig is not too bad with the powerful i7 processor and the nVidia GTS 240 although I'd also consider a gaming laptop like perhaps an ASUS G51 J instead of the desktop but those usually have very short battery life and are mostly for dekstop replacements without the wires.
I love how Hodapp usually posts once or twice with a sarcastic remark in a thread, but here he's posted thrice about how Mac's are the better computers. This is the most driven and motivated I've seen him yet.
I can't even begin to count the number of people I've seen who go to college with one of two ideas: a) Build a sick gaming rigg, buy the cheapest laptop they can. b) Buy a monstrosity of a gaming laptop. ...Who quickly realize after their first semester what a terrible idea this is. First off, you're going to want a nice laptop because that's what you're going to be spending most of your time using. Every college campus is blanketed in WiFi, and there are going to be much cooler (and often times quieter) places to do school work than your dorm room. Plan A sounds good in theory, but the problem with netbooks and low-end laptops is that they're woefully underpowered. You might think "Well I'l only use this for taking notes and browsing the internet!" ...But you will want to use your laptop for much more than that (like being able to watch flash videos), and even if all you're using it for is notes you will either completely regret your purchase after using the keyboard for an hour, or you'll (my personal favorite) be one of those people with a netbook and a USB keyboard you keep in your bag to be able to type on it with decent speed and accuracy. Also, having two computers creates a file synchronization headache that is a pain to deal with. So you eventually come to your senses and decide, "Well I'm a PC gamer so I need a sick gaming laptop" which leads to scenario B where you buy some 15 pound Alienware monstrosity that has 12 minutes of battery life. You'll regret buying a laptop so huge as you're hauling it around campus, and you'll be annoyed that while you're able to take it around you will either need to constantly hunt for power outlets (and take the massive power brick with you as well) or just settle on only be able to use your computer for a few minutes at a time. Most people seem to do one or the other, then after they're forced to live with their decision for a couple years before they can talk their parents in to buying them another laptop they decide to go the much more reasonable route of a laptop that leans towards portability and battery life, while still having a decent enough GPU to run their favorite games when hooked up to the makeshift docking station back at their dorm with a monitor and USB hub that has a printer, keyboard, mouse, and external drives all ready to roll. Their laptops are seriously phenomenal, and fall perfectly in to that middle ground of powerful yet extremely portable with great battery life... And not being laden with goofy plastic, racing stripes, excessive LED's, 600 media keys, a numpad, and 80GB of preinstalled shitware that seem to be standard on every PC laptop. I've owned and worked with a ridiculous amount of laptops in the past, and the only thing that even came close to the overall build quality of Apple's lineup was the pre-Levono buyout ThinkPad T40 and T41 series of laptops. Of course I don't expect anyone to follow this advice, as this painful lesson it seems most people must learn on their own.
Just curious Hodapp, what's the specs of your mac and what games do you play on and at what settings? Anyway, I saw that HP decided to make a MBP clone and came out with the HP Envy 15, looks very similar and has considerably good battery life and comes with something which is called a 'Battery Slice' where you just slide it on the bottom of the laptop and it gives it more juice, although it has a midrange GPU and doesn't have an optical drive, think it's was quite expensive though.
No need to prove your point to me. I love my MacBook with a passion. I just thought your enthusiasm was kinda funny... meh, I find humor in weird things. And just my two cents here, the reason I got a console instead of a gaming PC is because within 4 months, your entire rig will be obsolete.
Currently my main mobile machine is a 13" MacBook Pro which is capable of running almost anything I throw on it at the maximum resolution of the LCD (1280x800). I don't keep that many games on it because I've got a SSD in it and Windows 7 and Steam take up a lot of room. I'm in the process of phasing out my high-end 15" MacBook Pro with the 512MB 9600M which I've outputed to a 30" monitor and still was able to play most games at decent resolution and settings. Obviously you're not going to be playing Crysis at full settings, but everything runs very well. The 13" form factor is so awesome that I am willing to sacrifice the better GPU.
Pffft, you don't even need Bootcamp- screw Windows installs altogether. There is a program called Crossover that runs within OS X- it is basically a Windows emulator. It can run Windows Games blazing fast. My girlfriend plays Guild Wars on her Macbook Pro, and the game actually gets a better framerate and looks better than her Windows laptop. We are talking millions of polys here. Actual Guild Wars screenshots Crossover isn't free, but my girlfriend got it for about $20. I think it normally costs $79, but they have a constant promotions to get it at $20.
Judging by what you've posted so far, I presume you recommend a Macbook Pro only. I'm going to assume that you recommend the 15" MBP here (The bottom left one) because it is closest to his budget. Looking at the laptop, it doesn't really support a high resolution and it's better to have more pixels when using applications like photoshop. You'd probably won't be able to game on medium-high settings with the 9400M GPU with 256MB of ram, 512 and above is usually recommended. Besides, the OP stated that he prefers Windows although you can install W7 on it later on. 15" MBP specs: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html To the OP, if you just want a single laptop, I'd actually recommend posting here to find out which suits you best: http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16
Yeah, bootcamp. Macbook pro. Oh, if you want a good gadget, wait for the mac tablet a couple of months.
I'd rather have a computer that runs well with good enough specs than one that runs poorly with great specs.
