Check the "Special Deals" section of store.apple.com - you'll see refurbished Mac Pros there pretty often. You might be able to compromise that way and get a newer model for close to the price of a previous generation one.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
The prices I found where the best I could muster - Apple refurbs or not. (although it never hurts to double-check 
)
I'm more concerned with what the actual performance of the various types of chips. How much faster is a 2.66 Xeon vs a 2.16 2core duo vs a 3.6 i5 processor, etc? And how much will it impact my game v the graphics card choices?
Pound for Pound, the Amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
The processor isn't upgradable, but the video is - so you're better off getting the most powerful processor you can.
First I should say processors became really complicated at some point. There's a balance of multiple cores (Quad Core or Dual Core) and rated speed.
The "i" series (i3, i5, i7) processors are focused for consumer desktops - so they're focused on power efficiency via variable speeds. That means they don't run at the full rated speed all the time. They come in Quad-Core (4 processors in one) and Dual Core (2 processors in one) - the dual-core seems to be rated at a higher speed, but they perform about the same.
Xenon is server/workhorse focused model, which runs at full speed nearly all the time, power requirements are less relevant. I've only seen Quad-Core models of these, so the speeds can be compared directly with each other.
Probably a slower rated Xenon would outrun a speedier Core i5 but it's hard to tell, and it would probably be very close.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Did not know the processor wasn't upgradable. (Miss my old beige box Frankenmac now....)
Thank you! That is exactly what I was wondering about - all the new processors get me confused - no longer apples to apples comparisons.
Makes me think more about option 3 again - I like to keep my computers for a long time the more powerful the start point, the longer it takes for them to become useless. The $900 dollar price difference still hurts a bit though. I'll definately nose around a bit more for deals.
Pound for Pound, the Amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
Also check ebay - your existing Mac might be worth something, you might get some of the money you spent on the new one back.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Buy the 27 inch. i7. With the best Gpu you can.
Big screen to enjoy CoX on.
Good luck getting the Mac version to run without crashing though.
Azrael_9
OP - why a mac? Just curious...
if your trying for a high-end puter running in ultra mode CoH i don't think you can achieve that in mac. i'm extremely against mac and just checked out this forum to see whats going on.
if your ever interested in looking at a pc you can get a good gaming rig @ newegg.com - they sell pretty much everything (macs too i believe...) at a cheaper price and very fast shipping. been shopping there for years. also building a puter is much cheaper and more beneficial as you can get your desired wants for everything.
you can get a sick gaming rig for $1000 that will blow a mac away performance wise... =)
pc ftw
Hit-and-run posts are always fun.
A warning for the benefit of everyone else, though:
I have a Macbook Pro, but I also built my own gaming PC. It's a *lot* of work, and while assembly really isn't that difficult you have to know what you're doing, be unafraid, and also know the quality of the parts you're ordering. Even I don't know that last one for sure - I find out by asking around. And even then, I sometimes have to deal with epic hardware failures on the PC. The point is, it's very easy for your custom gaming rig to turn into a nightmare; you can't just throw parts into a box and achieve perfection. In fact, it's getting harder to build a decent PC yourself due to established component makers switching to cheaper manufacturing methods that sacrifice quality and reliability to become more price competitive.
This is why I say prices are *comparable* between PC and Mac for gaming. Most people don't bother with all that, they let the brand-names do the assembly and reliability testing, and get a nice warranty with the purchase. I prefer Apple computers because they've proven, in my case, to be reliable and have very good warranty/service coverage. And they have to be, because every tiny failure by Apple is broadcast on every news outlet in the world for weeks. So you as a customer may as well take advantage of that.
That said, I don't want to tell people what to like. If you're comfortable with one particular platform, stick with it. If you like to build your own PC, have fun. I only know what I like, and I don't mind helping anyone who's willing to give it a try.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
I think you summed that up perfectly, Cuppa.
I use a mac partly because it is what I have always used at home. At work we have PC's. I prefer my mac. Your mileage may vary.
Ended up going with Option 3, btw. Learning that you can't update the processor made me decide to go big.
Just set it up last night - Ultra mode is gorgeous!
(Now I just have to tweak settings and figure out why my sound is all screwed up - hence my current trip to this forum!)
Thanks again.
Pound for Pound, the Amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
How is it screwed up?
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
I have fixed the sound issue - took your troubleshooting advice and installed the newest version of the game.
But I am still crashing unexpectedly. Turned off Geometry buffers, FSAA, and Ambient Occlusion - still just randomly crashing out of the game with no error message or warning.
And now I can't even get into the game. Crashed, got the patch update, now it says it can't communicate with the servers. (I'm hoping this will right itself with the Tuesday morning maintenance - doesn't help the SG event I'm suppossed to be running Now, but what can you do?)
Pound for Pound, the Amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
The issue you're describing is a Patch Server issue caused by the upcoming patch being published too early on some PS's. They'll fix it eventually.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
I'm still crashing quite regularly.
I turned off Geometry Buffers, FSAA, and Ambient Occlusion.
I downloaded the newest version of the game, and trashed my preferences. I've made sure all of the system software is up to date.
And the game just randomly quits out on me. I don't even get an error message - I'm just no longer playing. This is getting very frustrating - I don't think I've gone longer than 40 minutes without it crashing. And it is random - I've been perfectly stable in huge team battles, yet the last time I crashed I was staring at the levelling window in a fairly inactive bit of Praetoria....
Am I missing something obvious?
Pound for Pound, the Amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
I'm going to try again to build a pattern of Macs that are crashing in an effort to fix as many of these problems at once (or at least help the devs and support track it down). While I do that, make sure to send a Support request at help.ncsoft.com so they can keep parallel tracking of all this.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
One thing you can do is monitor your memory use. Open up "Activity Monitor" from your Applications/Utilities folder, and play windowed so you can watch the memory size as you play. I found on my new 27" i7 iMac (1G ATI Radeon 5750) that I will crash pretty reliably (without visible error) once I get past about 2 G memory used. If you notice the same pattern, /reloadgfx is your friend. It'll knock your memory down again. 40 minutes is about the right time frame for what I see, too.
Quote of the moment: This, too, shall pass.
Justice superteamers: We have a website now, in case the forums get closed early. If you've ever run with us, come visit us again before the curtain falls. We're running bucket list characters--anything you've always wanted to play but never got around to.
So, it is high time for me to get a new mac. I have the cash, and am chomping at the bit. Only problem being I'm not sure which way to go.
I have about 3 options in mind, but am no longer tech savy enough to know the power/performance difference between the various processors out there. So any input would be appreciated.
Things to know - limited desk space, I have my computer linked to my 46"Samsung and AV system, and the current heaviest usage I have is COH. I really want to go nuts in Ultra-mode. And I want to stay with my macs.
Option 1: Tricked out imac 21.5" 3.6ghz i5 Intel Core 8gb ram, 512 mb ATI Radeon HD 5670
Pro - cheapest option
Con - 'weakest' graphics card, and cannot be upgaded.
Option 2: Previous Generation Mac Pro 4 core. 2.66 Quad Core "Nehalem" Xeon processor, 8 gb ram, 1gb ATI Radeon HD 5870
Pro- Less expensive than option 3 (~$500 more than option 1, not counting a small lcd monitor) Best graphics card. Upgradeable in the future.
Cons: 2.66 ghz seems a bit slow (my current imac is a 2.16 ghz Intel 2 core duo). May not come with keyboard or mouse. (Minor issue at worst)
Option 3: Go nuts with a lower/mid end new Mac Pro 4 core. 3.2 ghz Quad Core "Nehalem" Xeon processor, 8 gb ram, 1gb ATI Radeon HD 5870
Pro- Upgadeble. Very powerful setup.
Cons - Really. Damned. Expensive. (About $1400 more than Option 1, not counting a small LCD monitor.)
If anyone knows the real power/performance differences between these machines and the graphics card involved to help me figure out what's going to give me the most 'bang for the buck', it would be greatly appreciated.
(current system is an old imac 2.16 ghz intel 2 duo core processor, 3 gb ram (maxed), 256mb ATI x1600. Blows up if I even think about Ultra mode, and starts to overheat as I play on level 50 steamrolling teams. )
Thanks in advance!
Pound for Pound, the Amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.