gaming mac - a project too far?

[233]

quite fancy building a gaming mac, well just for the heck of it,


been mooting this project on and off for a while and whilst not the cheapest system i reckon i should be able to build a bit of a powerhouse especially for games that are heavily multithreaded.


fastest i can go cpu wise would be a brace of 6 core xeon at circa 3.5ghz (i dont believe theres anything available faster for a mac pro. gpu wise i can go 1080ti and 1333 ram




stupid, yes
expensive, very
gaming on osx at higher FPS than the pc gaming masterrace . priceless


still at a very early planning stage before i start shopping and building and its going to be a slow burn in between a Mitx build for a media centre.


watch this space for lots of questions and lots of stupidity

 

[Deleted member 77746]

As nice as it sounds not sure you can talk about custom Mac builds.

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/please-read-before-posting-in-this-forum.17980915/

 

[233]

not going to be a hackintosh (again) (never ever again )

it will be a mac pro 5.1 with a cpu/gpu upgrade.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

not going to be a hackintosh (again) (never ever again )

it will be a mac pro 5.1 with a cpu/gpu upgrade.

Ah then in that case nice! Limited by games though. What’s the best intense game you can buy for the Mac?

 

[233]

Ah then in that case nice! Limited by games though. What’s the best intense game you can buy for the Mac?

These days quite a decent selection just open steam and select osx for a full list


But far cry 5 would bring most Macs to a stop

 

[shiver]

Have you considered a recent Mac mini + eGPU setup instead?

 

[Bluecube]

Regarding the eGPU idea (which I think is a very good option for the OP), I’m sure I read somewhere that Apple have dropped driver support for Nvidia cards. Nvidia may provide their own though.

 

[Hades]

Obviously dual booting into Windows would be the best bet for game availability. But are you trying to stay entirely within MacOS?

If dual booting is an option but you don't want to buy Windows, then Linux is becoming strong for games due to Steams Proton (a large number of Windows games will run under Linux using Wine and DXVK with simply a few clicks in Steam).

But I am assuming you want to stay within MacOS only. So I think the eGPU idea is good too. I don't know too much about the drivers but considering Apple have a tie up with Blackmagic for a Vega 56 based GPU accelerator/eGPU then would a Vega 64 be a better option?

Finally although Steam Proton doesn't work with MacOS (because Apple no longer supports OpenGL or Vulkan), I did hear that there is a compatibility layer being worked on which translates Vulkan calls to Metal. So again you might be able to use Steam Proton to run DX3D games into Vulkan with DXVK and then translate those into Metal. I can't remember what that final translation layer is.

Overall, dual booting into Windows or perhaps Linux would increase your range of games considerably with little effort but I guess you are trying to stay only within MacOS?

 

[233]

I've already got a win10gaming rig


Butjust like the idea of something different
Only problem I see with a beefy GPU will be powering it in a Mac Pro
And the eyewatering price of 10 year old macs Macs amazes me

But dual CPU Mac here we come

 

[NickK]

Regarding the eGPU idea (which I think is a very good option for the OP), I’m sure I read somewhere that Apple have dropped driver support for Nvidia cards. Nvidia may provide their own though.

Also with the next version of OSX they are deprecating (last OSX to use it) OpenCL/GL support in preference to their own bespoke libraries.. which sucks from a game support perspective.

 

[ic1male]

Also with the next version of OSX they are deprecating (last OSX to use it) OpenCL/GL support in preference to their own bespoke libraries.. which sucks from a game support perspective.

Not only that, ending support for 32-bit apps. Potentially meaning they won't run at all. The Steam client is still 32-bit and so is 90% of the Mac game library I guess?

 

[Bluecube]

Blame the developers for that one. 32bit apps have been deprecated for years on both Windows and MacOS.

 

[233]

still on the hunt for a reasonably priced dual cpu mac pro

prices seem utterly bonkers for 10 year old hardware but i've commited so the ebay and gumtree trawl is on

spec wise pretty settled that i'm after something like this

Apple Mac Pro (5,1)
3.46Ghz 12 Core Intel Xeon
64GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM
GPU TBC most likely one of the current amd lineup
500GB PCIe NVMe SSD

 

[Ollie83]

still on the hunt for a reasonably priced dual cpu mac pro

prices seem utterly bonkers for 10 year old hardware but i've commited so the ebay and gumtree trawl is on

spec wise pretty settled that i'm after something like this

Apple Mac Pro (5,1)
3.46Ghz 12 Core Intel Xeon
64GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM
GPU TBC most likely one of the current amd lineup
500GB PCIe NVMe SSD

I think this has to do with the abundance of videos on YouTube showing how to do exactly what you are wanting to do. Ie. it's all the rage. I wanted to do the same but looking at eBay prices you would have to have more money than sense haha. Keep us posted if you manage to find a relative bargain though.

 

[233]

only went and done it eek


picked up a 5.1 6 core (12 thread) 3.33ghz mac yesterday, 24gig of ram in triple channel and a nvidia 680 handling graphics.
next step nvme boot drive and a beastly gpu in there

 

[Bluecube]

Nice one. Keep us updated on how you get on! Regarding the graphics card, are you limited to AMD because of drivers or do Nvidia release drivers for MacOS?

 

[233]

only limited by your wallet



https://www.macstoreuk.com/product/nvidia-gtx-1080ti-by-macvidcards/

 

[233]

its stupid builds like this that inspire me . guy runs dual titan xps

thats a beastly setup in anyones book

 

[Hades]

only went and done it eek


picked up a 5.1 6 core (12 thread) 3.33ghz mac yesterday, 24gig of ram in triple channel and a nvidia 680 handling graphics.
next step nvme boot drive and a beastly gpu in there

Nice. Can it run a Vega 64? I am considering a similar move but would need a good GPU for gaming on Windows.

 

[233]

yes it can,

although personally i'm looking at a 580x 8gb

that and running off nvme should see my quite happy for a few years to come,

although the want is still quite high for a 12 core 3.46ghz model