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Mac replacement

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Smurphy Paw
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Mac replacement

Post by Smurphy Paw »

I am looking to replace an ageing Mac desktop with another desktop computer. Having been with Apple devices for years my instinct is to go for another one of their <overpriced> offerings.

However since having kids Xbox is more of a thing in our house so can anyone advise me what I should purchase so Xbox games can also be played?
Presumably not Apple, but who? And what would I need to spend? What spec? Screen presumably a consideration as well?
Anyone already got any examples that work?

Other usage will not challenge the capability of the desktop as much as gaming.

Thanks in advance
SP

ffstuff
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Re: Mac replacement

Post by ffstuff »

Unsure what you mean by “Xbox” games can also be played
There are plenty of crossover games that can be played on a PC , things like Fortnite , Call Of Duty Warzone etc where you can play online against users on XBox, PS4 etc

I went for an Alienware PC with a very expensive graphics card

ffstuff
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Re: Mac replacement

Post by ffstuff »

Actually just realised you can play XBox games on PC , PlayStation family here so didn’t know :)

But my point still stands in the PC I went for anyway
Mine is a couple of years old now but still plays all the new games fine. Has an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card which is probably a lot cheaper now than when I first got it

I went for a 4K Acer Predator monitor but they don’t’ run at as many FPS as other non 4K gaming monitors but my kids don’t have any issues
Mind you they play their PlayStation linked to a TV so the FPS isn’t great on that

Full model name is

Alienware Aurora R7

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Smurphy Paw
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Re: Mac replacement

Post by Smurphy Paw »

Thanks. I’m on a learning curve!

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Mav3rick
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Re: Mac replacement

Post by Mav3rick »

I'd steer well clear of Alienware personally. It's overpriced and not that good quality either since Dell took over IMO.

If you're inclined, then building your own PC will let you focus on what's important to you (storage, form factor, gaming performance, noise levels, etc) and it's not a difficult job to build a PC (if you can build a moderately complex Lego set you can build a PC).

I've been a subscriber to CustomPC magazine for many years and if you were inclined to self build then their hardware list has formed the basis of my PC builds for well over a decade.

https://custompc.raspberrypi.org/

You can spend anything from £300 to several thousand on a PC so finding the right balance of power and price for your needs is the key. If it's a pure gaming rig, then I find that matching a mid range (or upper mid range) graphics card to your monitor resolution is the first step. That's useful to have in mind even if you do buy an off the shelf machine as at least you only pay for the power that you need.

ffstuff
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Re: Mac replacement

Post by ffstuff »

I’m not sure I’d agree that Alienware is overpriced.
I know when I was looking to buy one , I compared the spec I wanted against a build your own and found the price to be just a few hundred pounds more, but that was a couple of years ago so things may of changed

So yes , slightly more expensive but I had the security of a warranty on it

I had read a lot of horror stories of people building their own and parts turning up damaged in the post and issues with refunds etc
Obviously there may be thousands like maverick who have had no issues

I use Dell at work and the reliability of them has been superb which again is why I went for Alienware, I’ve no idea though of the possible reduction in quality since dell bought them as I hadn’t purchase one prior

Obviously it’s all your own choice

Regarding the spec and graphics card , I found it a minefield and difficult to know what to get , I had no experience of a gaming PC before I bought mine.
I ended up just buying the best I could afford (so probably over spec) rather than perhaps what I needed, but with the advantage that I wouldn’t need to replace the graphics card in a few years as the games required more performance

ffstuff
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Re: Mac replacement

Post by ffstuff »

This was basically my spec.. which is more than fine for what i (and most importantly the kids :) ) need - perhaps click on Mavericks link and price up something similar or perhaps ask Maverick nicely to do it for you as he may know you don't need what i went for below :)


Model: Alienware Aurora R6, Windows 10 Home 64bit (not R7 as i previously had said, that must be a later model)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-7700K Processor (4-Cores, 8MB Cache, Turbo Boost 2.0, Overclocked up to 4.4GHz)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X
Memory: 16GB (1x16GB) HyperX(R) at 2667MHz
Hard Drive: 256GB M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive (+ additional 1TB Sata drive)
Chassis: 850W PSU Liquid Cooled W/Odd


Monitor: Acer Predator XB271HK 27 inch Wide screen Monitor (IPS, 4K, 16:9, ZeroFrame, 4 ms, HDMI, DisplayPort, Speakers, EURO/UK EMEA TCO6.0, Acer EcoDisplay)

I personally wanted a 4K monitor, alot of gamers i suspect would not go for that to get the faster FPS (I may be wrong, but i suspect most desktop MACS these days come with 4K)

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jpk
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Mac replacement

Post by jpk »

There’s a few subscription models where you can rent a gaming spec pc in the cloud. Costs about 15 quid a month, if you have a decent broadband then you will get good gaming environment for fraction of the cost.

The one I’ve got is called shadow PC but there’s a google owned service called Stadia and one from NVidia which have various pros and cons


Can be run from pc, Mac or phone
Last edited by jpk on 13 Jun 2020, 16:02, edited 1 time in total.

ffstuff
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Re: Mac replacement

Post by ffstuff »

jpk wrote: 13 Jun 2020, 16:02 There’s a few subscription models where you can rent a gaming spec pc in the cloud. Costs about 15 quid a month, if you have a decent broadband then you will get good gaming environment for fraction of the cost.

The one I’ve got is called shadow PC but there’s a google owned service called Stadia and one from NVidia which have various pros and cons




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Thats a good point from JPK, the only obvious issues i could see are video compression (much like streaming Netflix etc) and Latency, but it depends on what games you play and if its "just for fun" or a "kill or be killed" attitude. My eldest being the latter, my youngest being the former :)

My kids often stream their playstations to their laptops (because they want to play downstairs in the living room rather than upstairs in the games room) and never complain about latency or video compression although thats just streamed through the local network rather than over the internet

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jpk
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Re: Mac replacement

Post by jpk »

You do sometimes notice a bit of lag but it doesn’t have much impact overall. I’ve been playing rdr2 while in lockdown which basically involves going up hills on a horse and occasionally violently attacking strangers.

Quality is great and very immersive, sometimes I find myself getting funny urges when I’m jogging through the park of a morning

ffstuff
Grumpy Old Man
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Re: Mac replacement

Post by ffstuff »

:)

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