jackdawsson

Cougar, on 02 May 2013 - 03:51 PM, said:

True enough that we soon get left behind, but that's usually the case.  As soon as new consoles are released, they offer some of the most powerful hardware available for gamers not willing to spend a fortune on high-end gaming PCs.  But over the lifetime of any console, that advantage soon ebbs away.  Then there's the games & for RTS gamers, et al, PC/Mac will always be the gaming platform of choice, on top of all the other reasons we buy Macs for.

On a brighter note, if each new generation of Macs continues to see an incremental increase in GPU power (regrettably, there are always a few exceptions with Apple, for eg. both 2011's high-end Mini & entry level iMac saw a slight downgrade in 2012), it still considerably increases the Mac games pool for gaming at optimal settings.   Even most new games will already run on lower-end Macs at acceptable medium settings.

Also, with PC sales well down, I suspect it's in very few interests these days to make the sort of games that only a minority of computers can run at playable levels.   The great thing for developers like Feral is that there are still a good number of older games to be ported over to Intel Macs.   By the time more demanding titles like Rome 2: Total War come over to Mac (PC release date scheduled for circa December 2013), I think it's likely that even a modern Mini will be able to run that at close to medium settings, if not easily at medium.

None of this changes my views about why I'd prefer to be able to buy an upgradable "xMac".

edddeduck, on 02 May 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:

Valid point re the potential of Haswell drivers improving over time.   Thus, if the initial Haswell Mac benchmarks are decent enough, even better!  Though as SS says, we may not see anything on a par with 650M as some reports claim, but for the Mini I'd hope for at least a significant enhancement on the 2011's HD 6630M.  

Also useful is being able to optimize up to 1GB VRAM on Macs with 8GB RAM, as happens with current HD 4000 Macs.  Even though it's much slower DDR3 type, every little bit helps.

Frost, on 02 May 2013 - 03:10 PM, said:

That's my guarded assumption.  However, if Haswell disappoints & the overall gains on the older HD 6630M are too slight, I'll most likely pass until Haswell's successor.  Besides which, I've A/C warranty for my Mini until the end of October 2014.  Waiting until at least late 2104, maybe later, for the superior Skylake chipset would then be my most likely decision.

Snake, as much as I hope otherwise, being realistic, I'm strongly inclined to agree with you.  Maybe we'll see a 650M gaming performance with the chipset that succeeds Haswell, but that's some way off.

Sneaky Snake, on 01 May 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

Agreed!  Interestingly enough, the 630M you mention is ranked at 163 in my linked benchmarks.  Significantly higher than the HD 6630M GPU in the 2011 Mini.  However, the Haswell link I posted in this thread on the 28th April has that chipset as being on a par with the 650M.  The 650M is of course ranked much higher at a relatively impressive 71.

This suggests that Haswell, if it lives up to the hype & if a future Mini gets it (I'm taking nothing for granted), propels the Mini onto a whole different level gaming-wise.  If this plays out, I'd certainly upgrade my current model.

edddeduck, on 01 May 2013 - 03:27 AM, said:

Much agree about the Mini's general computing capabilities!  Also thanks for the illustration.  Point taken within context.  I certainly can't claim to know of every mobile card that can, or can't, fit inside the current Mini's design.  The little I do know is that even the HD 6630M GPU inside the 2011 Mini is ranked a relatively lowly 181 in a recent laptop GPUs benchmark list (linked):

http://www.notebookc...List.844.0.html

I find it hard to imagine that Apple couldn't have significantly improved on the HD 6630M in the 2011 Mini, despite its (to me) ridiculous space limitations.  I'm more inclined to accept the general view that Apple's unique position of being sole legitimate provider of OS X, simply affords them holding the assumption that those needing a better GPU will automatically buy an iMac.  But in many cases, mine included, that doesn't necessarily play out.