I've been reading Anandtech reviews of new video hardware for over 10 years now, and I've always found them to be informative, impartial and above all useful reviews when making a purchasing decision. However as the years have gone by I've moved from being primarily a PC user to using a Mac Pro as my main computer, in part because the upgrades arms race wore me down, and in part because of a disaffection towards Windows. I do, however, still run Windows on my Mac Pro for gaming purposes only, and the one component that I still do upgrade (or rather, will probably upgrade soon) is the video card.
The problem as I see it is that the range of games used as a performance metric are almost always at the highest end of those on the market. The game I would most like to see in amongst the various other graphs and benchmarks (being the game that this computer is primarily used for) is World of Warcraft. Now, I can imagine the obvious response ? that WoW is a 4 year old game, and doesn't represent the high-end of videogame graphics any more. On the contrary; the game has steadily been improved visually over the years, with increased draw distance and texture resolution, and more complex 3D models used for scenery and players.
The upshot of all this, when the game is played on more modern computers with bigger screens, is that you can't safely assume that a modern high-end graphics card has enough grunt to deal with the game at its highest quality levels. And unfortunately since nobody seems to review graphics hardware with this game in mind, we as players can only speculate as to which piece of hardware would suit us best.
Until quite recently the graphics options for Mac Pro owners were quite limited, but the most recently updated model now has the option of a Radeon HD 4870, and rumours suggest that the GeForce GTX285 will also be available for the Mac Pro soon. Unfortunately I have no performance basis upon which to make a purchase, as none of the benchmarks I've seen include WoW.
So, in summary, it'd be great if Anandtech could start to include games like WoW; I'm sure there are other games in the MMO space which have been progressively improved graphically (EVE Online comes to mind) which also don't get included, and they deserve to be explored too.
The problem as I see it is that the range of games used as a performance metric are almost always at the highest end of those on the market. The game I would most like to see in amongst the various other graphs and benchmarks (being the game that this computer is primarily used for) is World of Warcraft. Now, I can imagine the obvious response ? that WoW is a 4 year old game, and doesn't represent the high-end of videogame graphics any more. On the contrary; the game has steadily been improved visually over the years, with increased draw distance and texture resolution, and more complex 3D models used for scenery and players.
The upshot of all this, when the game is played on more modern computers with bigger screens, is that you can't safely assume that a modern high-end graphics card has enough grunt to deal with the game at its highest quality levels. And unfortunately since nobody seems to review graphics hardware with this game in mind, we as players can only speculate as to which piece of hardware would suit us best.
Until quite recently the graphics options for Mac Pro owners were quite limited, but the most recently updated model now has the option of a Radeon HD 4870, and rumours suggest that the GeForce GTX285 will also be available for the Mac Pro soon. Unfortunately I have no performance basis upon which to make a purchase, as none of the benchmarks I've seen include WoW.
So, in summary, it'd be great if Anandtech could start to include games like WoW; I'm sure there are other games in the MMO space which have been progressively improved graphically (EVE Online comes to mind) which also don't get included, and they deserve to be explored too.
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