Can an iMac run WoW on Ultra?

[Deleted]

So I decided that I want to switch from Windows to Mac.

The iMac that I'm probably going to buy has a 2,7GHz i5 CPU with Intel Iris Pro integrated graphics, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.

Would I be able to run WoW and League of Legends on the highest settings?

[QwertySham]

In 08 I bought a 27 inch iMac quad core i5. It didnt play wow on ultra with any reasonable framerate. Downside to an iMac is that you can't swap out the GPU that comes with it. and I'm fairly sure they don't use normal GPUs, they use the portable (mobile) ones that go in laptops and iPads. I payed 2200 bucks for my iMac, and now built my own PC for 1.9k and it is 10x better than my iMac.

If you must go with Mac, grab a Mac pro. But even then I'd wait until the new Mac pros come out in December. The new generation ones that look like a trash can, are going to be beast. (here's to hoping you can swap out the graphics cards they put in them)

[zachie]

So I decided that I want to switch from Windows to Mac.

The iMac that I'm probably going to buy has a 2,7GHz i5 CPU with Intel Iris Pro integrated graphics, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.

Would I be able to run WoW and League of Legends on the highest settings?

Why are you switching from pc to mac?

[Cyanotical]

even taking into consideration OS, i don't think an imac is gonna play wow on ultra very well, certainly not at 2560x1440, it's still too weak on the CPU, a mac pro certainly would be able to, but not a mac mini, imac or macbook

Why are you switching from pc to mac?

maybe because he felt like it?

[anon5123]

Why are you switching from pc to mac?

TBH, even though I'm a long time Windows user, I still like OSX better. If Mac's didn't have such horrible specs for the price you pay, I'd certainly buy one.

[Cyanotical]

TBH, even though I'm a long time Windows user, I still like OSX better. If Mac's didn't have such horrible specs for the price you pay, I'd certainly buy one.

the specs are really only bad from a gaming standpoint, for consumer equipment they are fine, the imac is nothing more than a mac mini and a cinema display, you're not going to get anything cheaper with Dell, a basic tower and u2713h ($1500-1700, but at least the monitor is good)

[Deleted]

<Snip>

Please do not recommend piracy or breaking TOS.

Wasn't piracy nor was it breaking TOS, it was an EULA infringement which depending on where you live might not matter at all.

[The Dwarf]

I play WoW on my MacBook Air on medium - high settings. By iMac I'm assuming you meant MacBook Pro? You'll be able to play on high probably, but you'll have to drop the resolution.

[Terracresta]

Why would he mean macbook pro if he wrote imac? Oo

[The Dwarf]

Why would he mean macbook pro if he wrote imac? Oo

Oops, I hadn't realized they'd been updated to include SSDs in the configuration options. It looks like there is an option that comes with an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M. I'd save a bit longer and go with that model if you plan on playing games.

[amiotcqss]

They'll be rather crumby gaming computers.

[Fierae]

In concurrence with the others, no it probably won't do. I am indifferent to Macs/PCs debate, but I do know that per £ (or whatever currency) spent, you will get much, much better gaming from a PC, unless you go hackintosh of course.

[Biged781]

If your goal is to play Warcraft, then a Mac isn't the best choice: even with "all of the money" on a top-tier Mac Pro, you still won't match the performance of a $1500 gaming PC.

In my experience, this is true. I own a few macs and WoW simply doesn't run as well under OpenGL. If you want a mac for other legitimate reasons then go ahead and get one, you'll be ok. If you primarily want a gaming rig, go Windows, spend half as much, get 2x+ the performance.

[Cyanotical]

They'll be rather crumby gaming computers.

apple doesn't make gaming computers

[QwertySham]

They'll be pretty nice workstations for people that sit in front of Final Cut Studio or something that makes use of GCD. They'll be rather crumby gaming computers. CPU performance is roughly comperable to the one I was running (I had the top-spec'd mac pro) and the GPUs are effectively 7970 GHz. Mac OS X has no concept of SLI or CrossFire so the additional GPU power is only going to be leveraged by things that make use of the concurrency frame works in OS X. That might make solid-works perform better but your games will run no better than if you had a single GPU.

Worse, while the old cards were just consumer/gamer cards with "pro" drivers on Mac OS X (drivers are the only thing that really separate a Quadro from a gtx 680 or firepro from a 7970) the new cards are actually firepro devices. A mac owner could reboot into windows, install the standard gamer oriented catalyst/geforce drivers and see a performance improvement in Windows. The new mac pros will use the professional-series drivers which means you'll gain access to 'pro features' (10-bit color, validation for autocad, etc) but not the performance enhancements that make consumer GPUs perform better with each new driver patch.

Further, the new 12-core Xeon isn't drastically quicker than the ones that were in mine - and at stock speeds an i7 with turbo-boost will provide better performance in warcraft because multi-core performance doesn't help games the way it does help professional applications.

A mac pro will run on ultra and get you reasonable performance - but once you've shelled out $4500 for a well equiped system you're still going to be getting worse performance than a $2500 iMac + $2000 gaming PC. Mac in general just aren't well positioned for gaming enthusiasts.


You can't. Look at the exploded view: every part of the new mac pro is a custom/one-off component. You're not adding anything to those except maybe some extra ram.

Yeah I'll be honest the last time I looked at it was when it was first announced on the apple website. There wasn't a lot of in depth information. Just remember a vague 'dual gpu setup' with no information on which cards they planned on putting in them. Apple pisses me off, why make this awesome new design with pretty awesome specs and not use regular GPUs so we can swap them out.

Now that FCP X is out and a piece of shit and everyone is using Premiere now I have no need for an Apple computer. Thank god for my new PC.

[Horrid Crow]

I play WoW on ultra on a 27" iMac.
Not sure why everyone keeps saying it won't do, because it does.

I've been playing WoW on Mac without any problems whatsoever since 2008.

[QwertySham]

I play WoW on ultra on a 27" iMac.
Not sure why everyone keeps saying it won't do, because it does.

I've been playing WoW on Mac without any problems whatsoever since 2008.

I have my 27" iMac quad core i5 sitting right next to the PC I'm typing this to you on, and I can tell you that it does NOT run full Ultra setting on anything more than about 5-10 FPS in any place that displays spell effects. Just bank standing I maybe could get 20-30 but that's a maximum.

By chance, do you have the i7?

[Horrid Crow]

I have my 27" iMac quad core i5 sitting right next to the PC I'm typing this to you on, and I can tell you that it does NOT run full Ultra setting on anything more than about 5-10 FPS in any place that displays spell effects. Just bank standing I maybe could get 20-30 but that's a maximum.

By chance, do you have the i7?

No, I have the i5 as well. Doesn't run at 30 fps in a raid for example, but still in the 20 bracket.
Everywhere else it runs at 30. Don't know how you could be getting 5-10 FPS.

[Cyanotical]

Apple pisses me off, why make this awesome new design with pretty awesome specs and not use regular GPUs so we can swap them out.

you can't have your cake and eat it too

if you look at the design on the new mac pro, the design is entirely proprietary, there is no way they can fit off the shelf parts into that design, so you can either have the cool small mac pro design or an ATX variant tower

sure, they could have kept the old mac pro atx design (i think it looks better) but the reality is that very few people swap parts, so why make a modular design if only 5% of your users are going to take advantage of it? thats a complete waste of resources, similar to the retina macs, compared to the total number of laptops out there, almost nobody upgrades ram and storage, so while you may upset the 2-3% of people who would want to upgrade at some point, the rest of the market doesn't care

[ro9ue]

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs/
https://us.battle.net/support/en/art...m-requirements

I'm gonna say yeah for the higher end one.