What is the best Mac for gaming?

Ok so as the title says, I was wondering what is the best Mac for gaming, I would like to play at least some old games which I have laying around the house when I'm at the airport or whatever. I read that macs are not that good at gaming but they do work at some degree :P
Also I was wondering, me and my friend were arguing why is a Mac not considered a PC. I my arguments where that a PC means it has all that nasty, heavy, big hardware, with all the cards and stuff and that a mac just has the slick monitor with some stuff in it :P and a keyboard/mouse. His arguments were that even if macs only have the stuff mentioned above, it should still be considered a PC since it is afterall a Personal Computer.
Thanks a lot and hopefully you'll settle my argument and aswear my question.

Best computer for gaming is always the one with the highest specs. But generally speaking, a base macbook does ok. The major piece you need to increase FPS on a mac is a video card though, so generally the Pros or iMacs will be a better choice.
Your friend is right, PC = Personal Computer. Mac's run the exact same hardware as a PC, just run different OS's. But its a term that got misplaced with windows in the flame wars of every forum post. P.S. Mac pros are a tower with no screen, just like the traditional windows ones.

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What is the best mac for me? (budget: 1299$)

What is the best mac for me? I will use it for:
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- School research
- Word proccessing
- Presentations
- Programming in Java
- Programming in C++
- Programming Iphone games and Objective-C
- Gaming
So can you tell me as fast as you can, my budget is 1299$

FYI: Macs are not gaming machines.
PERSONAL OPINION: Nothing beats Microsoft (PCs) and/or Sony when it comes to gaming. Macs can play games. However, if you are a gamer, get a PC.

What's the best Mac for running Final Cut Pro X?

Title says it all. What's the best Mac for running Final Cut Pro X? I'm not looking to make a feature length hollywood film. But I'd like to be able to edit video without lag.

Yes. Begin with the fastest processor / graphics card / and as much RAM as you can afford. (As all three will become obsolete over time.)
I started from scratch. I have a 27-inch iMac with a 3.4 G Intel Core i7. (currently the fastest processor for an iMac) I also ordered the best graphics card--AMD Ratheon HD. I ordered 16G of RAM, but recently added more RAM to equal 24G. (OWC makes good after-market RAM for iMACs.)
Last, I ordered a flash drive / SATA hard drive combo. (250G on flash / ITB on SATA). The OS and all of my applications run off the flash drive. (for fast start up!)
I put all of my media and FCP projects onto the SATA hard drive.
Now, I had the option to order a 2TB SATA. But, I realized I can always buy more external storage as I edit more and more projects. ALSO! FCPX is GREAT when it comes to editing projects on external drives! I can segregate an entire project and its media files onto a removeable drive. I simply launch FCPX, plug in the drive and--poof!--I'm ready to edit. It sees the project and the media right away. When I'm done editing, I can then send this drive to another editor (also using FCPX) or attach it to my MacBook if I want to edit the same project in the field.
This has worked for me. I wish you luck.

The Best Mac For Gaming

Hi Everyone. I'm sure this topic has come quite a bit, so I'll try to make as short to the point as I can.
Basically, I have a 2008 black MacBook, and I have recently have gotten into computer gaming. It turns out that my graphic card is horrible for gaming, and I cannot upgrade it.
Of course, I still want to stick with Macs, so I'm thinking about getting an entire new Mac, and I have a few specific questions.
Is it better to get a new Mac, or is there some way to upgrade my current Mac that I do not know about?
If I must get a new one, out of all the Macs, which one is the best for gaming (except the Mac Pro cause that is to expensive)?
Is there speculation of any new Macs coming out in the near future? Basically, should I wait to get a new one?
Currently, I'm thinking about getting the 13' MacBook Pro sometime in the next month or so before the student discount goes out.
Thank you in advance for all your help. I really do appreciate it.

Lamb,
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Currently the best Mac with the exception of the Mac Pro is the i7 iMac. It offers the most processing power and most powerful GPU. That would probably be your best bet as your current machine with the exception of maxing out the RAM and installing a different HD is about all you can do. The i7 iMac once configured is also not upgradeable with the exception of the RAM. If you want upgradeability and power the Mac Pro is the only Mac alternative.
BTW per the Terms of Use in these forums we cannot speculate on new Apple products or their decisions on current products. You can find the TofU directly to your right.
While the 13" MBP is a fine machine it's not really considered the best alternative for gaming, if you want a MBP rather than an iMac then your best bet is probably a i5 15" MBP.
Regards,
Roger

What's the best Mac for Photoshop?

I daily work on layered photoshop files, up to 10 (ten) GB. I currently have a G5 with 8 gb of ram. I finally can afford to upgrade to a faster computer and need to figure out if the 8core 2.93GHZ at $5,899 is the best buy for me. The 8 core 2.26GHZ is $3299. For an additional $2500 I would need to know that I will get at least 15% increase in speed. I remember back in the day when I picked out the fastest g5, when I later compared it to a slower G5, the difference in speed was barely noticeable, and when I upgraded to 8GB of RAM I discovered that photoshop could only take advantage of 2 GB.
Does photoshop benefit from 8core vs 4 core?
Will an 8 core 2.26ghz be faster than a 4 core 2.93GHZ when working in photoshop?
Is there something new coming out, so I would benefit from waiting with my purchase?

I work on big files, tho not that big.
For many of the time-critical things I do in Photoshop seem to be single-processor, so even tho I have an 8-core machine, often only one is being used. This includes things like flatening and saving. So I am not sure that (unless you have other programs running) you would ever see an advantage to more than 4 cores.
What I do notice when I work with big files, is that I keep a copy of Activity Monitor open, and whenever the green sector in memory goes to zero, my computer becomes unusably slow, and I usually reboot. I don't understand memory managment on the Mac, but whatever "inactive" means, it really means "swap yourself to death". So I have 14GB of RAM on my computer, and I usually don't run out even when dealing with big files. But I know that 8GB would not have been enough. Photoshop may not use more than 2GB, but it and the OS can cache materials and when those caches get too big, my computer comes to a halt. With your files, you may find 32GB to be useful.
What I have done is to burn a CD or DVD with one big psd/psb file and walk down to my local Apple Store. The machines there don't have much RAM, but you can get some feeling for 4 cores vs. 8 cores. Reboot them before you do anything.
One thing I would strongly recommend you do not try is what I did with my old G5--install a RAID. It only increased opportunities for losing files, and while it certainly sped up many file operations, I don't think any Photoshop operations were affected at all.
A

What's the best Mac for just photoshop ?

I need to upgrade my last edition PPC tower mac - photoshop is what I use most - and with a view to future-proofing what would be the best of the current crop of mac to get?
Assuming that Photoshop becomes able to use more cores/threads in vCS6 or vCS7

It is still MHz and RAM, and after that some good hard drives.
So if you look around you'll see the 3.33GHz/6-core as most popular.
Then 3 x 8GB if you can.
Worry about CS5 and 64-bit drivers and funky graphic drivers, immature OpenCL and issues in OpenGL for now.
http://macperformanceguide.com/OptimizingPhotoshop-Configuration.html
http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2010/20100630_PhotoshopOpenGL--photoshop.htm l

What's the best Mac for editing HD video

I have a 2009 2.66 quad core Power Mac with the RAM maxed out at 16Gb, 1066MHZ DDR3. The OS is 10.6.8. I edit using FC 7 pro. I am editing HD footage from a Canon Vixia HF G10, which uses AVCHD on the camera and imports files to the computer as Apple ProRes 422 1440 x1080. What I am finding is that final export times of rendered projects take very long. As an example, a hour and a half edited and rendered timeline takes 8+ hours to export as a QuickTime file using the "current" settings option. To export directly from FC to a DVD with the same circumstances takes 15+ hours. I understand that HD has much more data but what can I do to speed this process up?
Thanks

Sorry, shabak. I deleted my previous post because I had addressed it to BDAqua in error.
Here we go again:
You are posting in the Power Mac forum, your post says Power Mac and so does your signature; buy you do NOT have a "Power Mac" nor a "G5". Clearly you have a Mac Intel machine (Mac Pro) or you couldn't run Snow Leopard 10.6.x on your machine.
The aluminum case of the Mac Pro looks a bit like the G5, except the Mac Pro has two optical drive trays in front, while the G5 has only one.
All Power Macs, including the G5, have Power Mac PPC CPUs, not Intel chips. The last Power Mac ever was built almost seven years ago, in August of 2006,
In short, if it's a G5 it cannot run 64-bit applications nor can it run Lion or Mountain Lion OS systems.
Don't worry, this mistake is made often by some. No big deal.
You definitely want to wait for the announced Mac Pro, just hope it does materialize some day.

What is the best Router for Gaming?

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http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1166859632665&...
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What is the best Mac for Creative Cloud

I need a new computer. I want to start learning and working with Creative Cloud.
What Mac do you recommend?

The Cloud is a delivery process... you need to check the programs
MINIMUM System requirements for Cloud Programs... check each program
-http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/system-requirements.html
The above are MINIMUMS... check the individual program forums for the programs you are going to use
If you will start at the Forums Index https://forums.adobe.com/welcome
You will be able to select a forum for the specific Adobe product(s) you use
Click the "down arrow" symbol on the right (where it says All communities) to open the drop down list and scroll

What is the best Mac to operate Autocad?

I am getting Autocad software, what is the best Mac for this software?

http://usa.autodesk.com/autocad/system-requirements/ says:
Apple® Mac OS® X v10.6.8, OS X v10.7.2 or later with 64-bit Intel processor
Apple® Mac® Pro 4.1 or later; MacBook® Pro 5.1 or later (MacBook Pro 6.1 or later recommended); iMac® 8.1 or later (iMac 11.1 or later recommended); Mac® mini 3.1 or
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3 GB of RAM (4 GB recommended)
2.5 GB free disk space for download and installation (3 GB recommended)
All graphics cards on supported hardware
1,280 x 800 display with true color (1,600 x 1,200 with true color recommended)
All Mac OS X supported language operating systems
Apple® Mouse, Apple Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, MacBook® Pro trackpad, or Microsoft-compliant mouse.
Mac OS X-compliant printer

What are the best options for running windows on a Mac Pro

what are the best options for running windows on a Mac Pro

For gaming and other CPU intensive stuff: Boot Camp – https://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/
For the rest: any virtualization software (Parallels/Vmware Fusion/VirtualBox)

What's the best Mac Pro config for Fireworks?

What's the best Mac config for Fireworks?
I can pretty much get whatever Mac I want at work... My boss is sick and tired of watching Fireworks crash all the time... I figure a hefty processor and lots of RAM and maybe a SSD will help…
I should get a Mac Pro right? Which processor?
• Two 2.40GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon processors (12 cores)
• Two 2.66GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon processor (12 cores)
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Should I get 24GB RAM?? Or is that overkill?
I'll get a 2TB serial hard drive…
I should get a 512 GB solid state drive offered by Apple right?
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Oh and what about video cards? Or is Apple's default ok? (I'm not doing hard core PhotoShop retouching or anything).

What is the best app for backing up my mac. I do publication work and need to save my work?

what is the best app for backing up my mac. I do publication work and need to save my work?

My answer does not have the black Apple logo but the hardearned black belt of (bad) experience.
There is one problem with TimeMachine. It can get corrupted out of the blue with no warning and it will not want to restore correctly (as an added "bonus" you get to find this out the "hard" way, when you need it most). Plus it takes ages for the data to be copied back, sometimes days. Haven't tried my 600gb backup on Mavericks but Mountain Lion had this knack of breaking Timemachine after a couple of months.
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Acrobat Standard XI, but can only find the CD for windows. I have a mac (I have access to an external CD drive and I have the product keys for windows). What is the best way for me to install it?

Hi, I purchased Acrobat Standard XI, but can only find the CD for windows. I have a mac (I have access to an external CD drive and I have the product keys for windows). I have never installed it anywhere else. What is the best way for me to install it?

Hi lintonm86921521,
I can understand your concern & will guide you through this.
I am so sorry to inform you that Acrobat XI Standard is not available on Mac, you can only use it on your Windows computer.
You can also refer to the system requirements at : System requirements | Acrobat family of products—older versions (XI, X, 9)
In case if you have any further query please let us know, we will be happy to help you.
Regards,
Aadesh

What is the best Mac for gaming?

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