Yeah, if you're not interested in the Mac toys, there's not much reason to switch - the OS being awesome-sauce probably isn't enough of a tipping point unless you are a tech geek like me. But as a hard core gamer also, my next desktop is likely to be a Mac Pro. I'll Boot Camp for PC only games and have Mac OSX for all other apps.
Not that I would expect a serious PC gamer to switch, but the video performance on the new MacBook in Windows is quite impressive. Compared to the previous MacBook using Intel Integrated Graphics it's about a 7x improvement.
With the last MacBook you couldn't even install Crysis. With the current one it runs and is playable with all settings at medium.
See, there's the nasty word that REALLY turns me off for Macs; INTEGRATED. I really don't like the idea that I'd be stuck with the specs that someone else decided were appropriate for my computer. I much prefer being able to crack that baby open and modify her to what I WANT. I like to tinker. I've heard that some Mac desktops are getting better about that, but they're still not up to the same level as PC's for customization.
Also, I'm on a limited enough budget that I couldn't afford a Mac, even if I wanted one! :)
Oh, I agree... discrete graphics is always preferrable but it's not like laptop video can generally be upgraded even when it is discrete. For what it's worth, only the MacBooks and the Mac Mini use integrated graphics. Everything else is discrete graphics, but only the MacPro is really upgradable... which maps to PCs as well: laptop and all-in-one video generally can't be upgraded, and towers can be.
The current Mac tower allows (physically) for the video cards to be changed almost as easily as a PC. The problem is you need to make sure that said replacement card a) supports EFI instead of or in addition to BIOS, and b) has Mac drivers. That's only if you expect the card to support the Mac OS of course. If all you care about is Windows (via Boot Camp), it'll just work.
I suspect the EFI support issue will become less and less of an issue as Vista (or Windows 7 down the road) becomes more common, because MS is supporting EFI as of Vista SP1.
Disclaimer: What I do for a living is make Windows run on Apple hardware.
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carisma_sensei
no subject
Date: 2008-10-15 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-15 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-15 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-16 12:07 am (UTC)With the last MacBook you couldn't even install Crysis. With the current one it runs and is playable with all settings at medium.
Quite impressive for integrated graphics.
Quite impressive for integrated graphics.
Date: 2008-10-16 12:34 am (UTC)Also, I'm on a limited enough budget that I couldn't afford a Mac, even if I wanted one! :)
Re: Quite impressive for integrated graphics.
Date: 2008-10-16 12:47 am (UTC)The current Mac tower allows (physically) for the video cards to be changed almost as easily as a PC. The problem is you need to make sure that said replacement card a) supports EFI instead of or in addition to BIOS, and b) has Mac drivers. That's only if you expect the card to support the Mac OS of course. If all you care about is Windows (via Boot Camp), it'll just work.
I suspect the EFI support issue will become less and less of an issue as Vista (or Windows 7 down the road) becomes more common, because MS is supporting EFI as of Vista SP1.
Disclaimer: What I do for a living is make Windows run on Apple hardware.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-15 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-16 12:47 am (UTC)