Gaming Rigs

It’s been a long time since I really cared about gaming hardware. Indeed, I got into console gaming and Macs partly to get out of the eternal upgrade cycle that comes with PC gaming. But then I got hooked into Lord of the Rings Online, and discovered that my iMac is a decent low/mid-range gaming machine.

I’ve been puttering along for over 12 months, and with a few exceptions, I have been quite satisfied with the performance I’ve gotten. And then, E3 came along with all its demos (which I have been ignoring), but I couldn’t quite pass up news of the Riders of Rohan update for LOTRO. Massively had this to say:

What really shined was how the character was able to roam the rolling fields of Rohan freely. Wherever the character walked, grass, weeds, and flowers reacted and gave way. When the character stepped into the Fangorn Forest, the light shining through the trees was very dynamic. It’s clear there was a strong graphical upgrade from previous versions.

Now, it’s a given that any update to a 5 year old game is going to seem miraculous, but it got me thinking: my iMac is two years old. For most tasks, it’s fine; the most strenuous non-gaming activity I put it through is basic photo work, and it’s more than adequate at that. Also, the ATI HD4670 is getting a little long in the tooth: it doesn’t support DirectX 11, and was kind of old and cheap when I bought the iMac (which was a recent model).

So I asked myself, “Assuming that I have the finances and will, what are my options?”

iMac 15-inch: 2.3 GHz Retina display

First, there’s the Apple route. As mentioned above, Mac hardware is actually not sub par for gaming anymore. They put decent graphics cards into their machines, especially when you start looking at the high-end models. So let’s do that…

Ooo! Shiny! There are those Retina-display Macbooks with these new Intel Ivybridge processors! Getting one of these will definitely put me at the cutting edge of Mac hardware. Let’s spec a gaming laptop on the Apple Store. Actually, this stock configuration looks pretty good:

2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
8GB 1600MHz memory
256GB SSD
Intel HD Graphics 4000
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory

And it plays Diablo 3 pretty well. (Incidentally, have I been out of the game so long that I missed the pronunciation of “FPS” as “fips”? Also, every time the reviewer says “luscious”, I feel like I’m listening to a marketer). But bejeezus the price! $2499 is a bit steep for a gaming rig. Maybe it would be worth it if I sold my iMac, but we’ll have to see.

Alienware M14x Gaming Laptop

P is an avid gamer, which is why I recommended that she get an Alienware when she started looking at upgrading. I’ve been impressed by what I’ve seen of it (which is not much because she hogs it so much. So let’s see what the latest from Dell’s premium range looks like.

2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz
8GB 1600MHz memory
256GB SSD
Intel HD Graphics 4000
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory

So, slightly less awesome specs for $2,308.59. And it’ll be chunkier and heavier. And no awesome Retina display. And not a Mac when I need it to be. Not really feeling it here.

Out of curiousity, I looked at the X51 desktop ($1400 for something vaguely mid-range) and the Aurora tower (starts at $2700 and just skyrockets from there), and wasn’t particularly impressed. Of course, you get a professional to put your tower together, and the warranty and support, but I’m not sure I need that in a desktop. I can handle that myself when the machine is user serviceable.

Build Your Own

Which brings me to my final option. I can buy the pieces and put my gaming machine together myself. It’s been almost 10 years, but I have been down this rabbit hole before. In some ways, life was much simpler then. You only had to know about 3 models of GPU, and you didn’t overclock your RAM, but I’m willing to learn. And I know it’ll be cheaper. And more fun.

Next time, we’ll look at choosing components for a moderately-priced, decently-performing gaming rig.

Are you a PC gamer? Have you broken the habit? What would it take to get you back in the game?

Cover photo by Jerry Wong [flickr]