Sad :(

[localzuk]

[quote="torledo"]I found an interesting article comparing the 8600GT with the radeon 2600 and the older ATI X1950 pro. I would plump for the X1950 over the other two for the same reasons listed in the article. Sure, more DX10 games will be released but a lot of what is being accomplished with DX10 can still be done with DX9 - so a lot of what the DX10 offers is marketing hype. The perfect way to sell Vista don't you think ? A feature that Microsoft won't make available in the more popular XP even though they could, therefore if you want to play the latest DX10 games you have no choice but to upgrade to Vista. Genius!![/torledo]

In MS's defense, Vista is a more secure OS and as such *should* be cheaper for them to maintain compared to XP. Therefore, it makes complete business sense to reduce support for the old OS and push the new one as much as possible. Some may even say that it would be a legal requirement for them to do this, in order to maximise profits.

Also Crysis can be run in DX9 mode and should be perfectly playable using the X1950.

Having seen side by side comparisons of the graphics in DX9 and DX10, the latter is *much* higher quality.

I think if you are looking to buy a really good grafx card better to plump for the 8800GTX than the cheaper 8600GT.

Except the price goes from £80 up to £285... That is a bit of a jump!

And leave the first person shooters to the xbox.

FPS's are much nicer to play on a computer in my experience - controlling the many features via a controller is annoying. Same goes for strategy.

[PEO]

i have a geforce4 mx 440, think its 128mb card. it plays windows good enough. i dont have time for games so no need for anything silly

[gwendes]

I still have a 6800GT - plays Half-Life 2 beautifully...

I'll upgrade when I move... DX10 is essential for the next card

[torledo]

[quote="localzuk"]

I found an interesting article comparing the 8600GT with the radeon 2600 and the older ATI X1950 pro. I would plump for the X1950 over the other two for the same reasons listed in the article. Sure, more DX10 games will be released but a lot of what is being accomplished with DX10 can still be done with DX9 - so a lot of what the DX10 offers is marketing hype. The perfect way to sell Vista don't you think ? A feature that Microsoft won't make available in the more popular XP even though they could, therefore if you want to play the latest DX10 games you have no choice but to upgrade to Vista. Genius!![/torledo]

In MS's defense, Vista is a more secure OS and as such *should* be cheaper for them to maintain compared to XP. Therefore, it makes complete business sense to reduce support for the old OS and push the new one as much as possible. Some may even say that it would be a legal requirement for them to do this, in order to maximise profits.

Also Crysis can be run in DX9 mode and should be perfectly playable using the X1950.

Having seen side by side comparisons of the graphics in DX9 and DX10, the latter is *much* higher quality.

I think if you are looking to buy a really good grafx card better to plump for the 8800GTX than the cheaper 8600GT.

Except the price goes from £80 up to £285... That is a bit of a jump!

And leave the first person shooters to the xbox.

FPS's are much nicer to play on a computer in my experience - controlling the many features via a controller is annoying. Same goes for strategy.

Thing is games developers are going to need to continue to develop for XP (thus DX9) due to the huge installed base, Microsoft support or not, which is presumably part of the reason for the rather sedate amble towards DX10 from all parties involved than the dash Microsoft and games fans had been hoping for. It's like XP is the elephant in the room Microsoft would rather ignore - that's why they're in no rush to release SP3 anytime soon. I've always taken a wait and see approach to new hardware and software, so you're right it's probably best to wait for the 8800's to come down or wait for a more cost effective DX10 upgrade for high-end performance when it eventually comes along.

What do you think about the imac as a low to mid range gaming pc ? If only they'd give us a 512MB nvidia DX10 option. That would bump it firmly into the midrange. Not sure if that would have serious cooling and form factor issues..but here's hoping they can do something. ATi seem to have lost the battle completely with their new cards and grafx options

Legal requirement to maximise profits ? Wow, Bill Gates would love it if that were true ? LOL

[Geoff]

Also bear in mind a lot of games are Xbox 360/PC cross platform. Last time I checked the Xbox 360 was only capable of DirectX9.

[ZeroHour]

Last time I checked the Xbox 360 was only capable of DirectX9.

Think of it more like 9+ as it contains more instructions then DX9 to take advantage of the 360's extra hardware on the ati card. Its not a standard ATI dx9 part remember so it can do more then dx9. Also the 360 is not the simplest of ports when taking a game from 360 to pc as several developers have said. Its just easier than rewriting the PS3 games to pc.

[localzuk]

What do you think about the imac as a low to mid range gaming pc ? If only they'd give us a 512MB nvidia DX10 option. That would bump it firmly into the midrange. Not sure if that would have serious cooling and form factor issues..but here's hoping they can do something. ATi seem to have lost the battle completely with their new cards and grafx options

The imac is a capable machine - I used to game on my old one. Nice machines really.

[ZeroHour]

The imac is a capable machine - I used to game on my old one. Nice machines really.

You have no DX support in mac, only opengl I believe. Unless you run emulation software you wont get your games to work which if running will effect performance. Also you could buy vista for it but then the question would be why buy the mac at all if the first thing you do is put vista on it. You can buy cheaper hardware for pc then buying a imac.
Capable is not the word I would use, it works, with some games, is more like it.

[torledo]

The imac is a capable machine - I used to game on my old one. Nice machines really.

You have no DX support in mac, only opengl I believe. Unless you run emulation software you wont get your games to work which if running will effect performance. Also you could buy vista for it but then the question would be why buy the mac at all if the first thing you do is put vista on it. You can buy cheaper hardware for pc then buying a imac.
Capable is not the word I would use, it works, with some games, is more like it.

Sorry, I was referring to Vista on the imac not running games in os x.

Also, yes there are cheaper computers for running Vista - but you wouldn't be paying the slight premium for just running Vista. Vista would run at native speeds *i think* on the mac if bootcamped so you get the best of both worlds. Dual boot Vista and osx 10.5. Plus Vista SP1 will include EFI support so you may be you can take advantage of that when running bootcamped Vista on the imac. Someone correct me if I'm wrong no that.

the imac is a seriously well specced 'Vista PC'... 2.4ghz dual core, glossy 20 or 24inch screen, only one wire going out the back of the thing if using wifi and bluetooth, enough usb and fw connections if required, built in camera.

What's there not to like ? - with the built-in goodies of most pc's the requirements for several PCI or PCIe slots is no longer so important.
The imac still the ONLY all-in-one worth considering for Vista or OS X.

Sure the radeon grafx aren't killer but that was the point of my question, if they could spec it up at the next revision and add HD-DVD to the superdrive could it be a better than good vista gaming computer ? No-ones seriously talking about running games in parallels or on os x.

[ZeroHour]

How much for the 20inch imac?
Having a look on the mac site and the cheapest one is £799.00 (only 2.0ghz conroe) and its not really fit to run vista without some hardware upgrades. 1GB of ram for one is too little for vista + games so another GB is <£20. The graphics card is pants so you would need a 8800GT @ £170 as well. Also you still need to buy your vista license and at full retail thats £162.76 for home basic license. Btw are you allowed to buy OEM? as a OEM copy is for new pc's only and I doubt Bootcamp counts as a new PC but if it does then its cheaper @ £68 odd. Now thats a total of £1057 roughly which is hugely expensive for what you are getting to play DX10 games at decent performance. Remember wifi/bluetooth is only £20 a piece to add to a pc.
A Dell InspironTM 530 (just a random one I picked) is £569 and that has 19" LCD + 500GB of disk + 2GB of ram + pants ATI card + E6550 (2.33ghz) + vista home premium (which is nice)
All you need for that is the 20" for LCD upgrade @ £40 and the graphics card and your set. Total £780 for more power.
Yeh its not so sexy but damn I can buy a lot of "sexy" for £270+ in my pocket. Damn that buys me a xbox as well. Its really is expensive to get the Apple design and OS.
If they updated the line then yeh it could be better value but everytime I look and do the math it just costs too much for the OS and design. Rather like buying a Bang and Olfensen of the PC world (jk )

PCI slots are still very important. I use all of mine on my current gaming PC and using USB alternatives have lag/cpu issues so its not a very good option to get around the limitations.
Just add up a tv tuner, xfi soundcard, physics card (in the future as its part of DX10 now) and thats 3 slots gone already.
Its all about priorities I suppose. If you really want performance/value for gaming at least a pc is still better then a mac according to that math. If you really need something on OS/x and cant get a replacement for windows then it adds the to macs value. If its just for looks then damn you have to much cash to waste

[torledo]

How much for the 20inch imac?
Having a look on the mac site and the cheapest one is £799.00 (only 2.0ghz conroe) and its not really fit to run vista without some hardware upgrades. 1GB of ram for one is too little for vista + games so another GB is <£20. The graphics card is pants so you would need a 8800GT @ £170 as well. Also you still need to buy your vista license and at full retail thats £162.76 for home basic license. Btw are you allowed to buy OEM? as a OEM copy is for new pc's only and I doubt Bootcamp counts as a new PC but if it does then its cheaper @ £68 odd. Now thats a total of £1057 roughly which is hugely expensive for what you are getting to play DX10 games at decent performance. Remember wifi/bluetooth is only £20 a piece to add to a pc.
A Dell InspironTM 530 (just a random one I picked) is £569 and that has 19" LCD + 500GB of disk + 2GB of ram + pants ATI card + E6550 (2.33ghz) + vista home premium (which is nice)
All you need for that is the 20" for LCD upgrade @ £40 and the graphics card and your set. Total £780 for more power.
Yeh its not so sexy but damn I can buy a lot of "sexy" for £270+ in my pocket. Damn that buys me a xbox as well. Its really is expensive to get the Apple design and OS.
If they updated the line then yeh it could be better value but everytime I look and do the math it just costs too much for the OS and design. Rather like buying a Bang and Olfensen of the PC world (jk )

PCI slots are still very important. I use all of mine on my current gaming PC and using USB alternatives have lag/cpu issues so its not a very good option to get around the limitations.
Just add up a tv tuner, xfi soundcard, physics card (in the future as its part of DX10 now) and thats 3 slots gone already.
Its all about priorities I suppose. If you really want performance/value for gaming at least a pc is still better then a mac according to that math. If you really need something on OS/x and cant get a replacement for windows then it adds the to macs value. If its just for looks then damn you have to much cash to waste

Agree with you about the need for tv tuner, not sure how much you really need the other two. (physics card wtf?!!)

Sure there are better value options, but it's not the looks that make it stand out - it's the ergonomics and form factor. The average spotty teenager or lowly IT technician cannot afford or either don't feel the need for the improved ergonomics and form factor of the imac in their bedroom. But it's great as a front room PC. Where you can stick it on a nice desk, next to the phone and hooked up to a small printer and not worry about trying to conceal a whole bunch of wires.

When hooked up to a printer it's something for all the family to use and good enough for you when you need to push it a little harder. And it would be equally at home as a quiet, speedy machine for web browsing, office apps, dtp, video and with a future revision maybe some decent DX9 gaming. It'll never be a serious gamer but you'll have your xbox or ps3 underneath your 32inch LCD TV for that.

And it's great for when you don't want screws and cases on the carpet anytime you need to plug a pci card in or even just to add memory.

{Merged - Please use the edit button - Z

Forgot to add, the iMac is the BMW 3 series of the computer world. They have traditionally held there value like you wouldn't believe - how much is your inspiron going to be worth in 3 years, you'll probably be lucky to get £150 back on a £780 outlay. The comparatively good residual value should apply to the current generation of imac aswell as the older imacs. You could easily sell your £1000+ imac for £400-£450 on ebay three years down the line if Apple change the design again. With people on the hunt for the current design at reduced price.

[ZeroHour]

The average spotty teenager or lowly IT technician cannot afford or either don't feel the need for the improved ergonomics and form factor of the imac in their bedroom.

Now I am "lowly"
Are you a teacher in disguise?
You do get nice dell units that look good. My parents recently got a dell boy and it look brilliant and its small. The cables are always a pain though.

[greenfieldsupport]

I'd like to pitch my view that nvidia cards are terrible :P (hides)

or at least they were.

I remember having to upgrade my graphics driver to play one game (to let me be able to see the models running around) and then do a driver roll back so that i could play another game (a spaceship one where the ships appeared as giant grey squares) if the driver wasnt rolled back.


oh it annoyed me so much...

and everynow and again the rollback would screw up and id have to do fishing "jackbackstreetvirusfilledautopornpopupsdriverdown loadd.com" to get the old version again :P

hated it!