A cheap gaming box will do no good without Apple drivers for the high end video cards.

Exactly my point. That's one of the technical/cultural issues I alluded to at the end. This would require a 180 degree turnaround in Apple's thinking, which I just don't see happening. It would require Apple to stop being the gatekeeper for graphics drivers and to turn that over to vendors, which is how it works in the Windows marketplace.

Where are all the people who like to say "Who needs a minitower, just buy an iMac"?

All this time I have been getting on the graphics card vendors about not making their cards cross-platform and you never chimed in and brought this point up? Tsk, tsk, Peter. But, if this is the case, then Apple +is+ partly to blame for the lack of graphics cards available for Macs. While I no means have any interest in gaming, let alone Apple specifically selling gaming rigs—I personally believe that gaming consoles for that bill quite nicely—Apple does need to seriously reconsider the way it handles the pro market. One of the things that those people that (actually) need and expandable system want is the ability to update their GPU over the life of their computer, but as of now the market for after market Mac-compatible graphics cards is less than slim pickings. For whatever reason Apple seems to want to refuse to recognize that 1) not all pro users need a full-sized tower (and a non-expandable iMac is not going to suit their needs either) and 2) that they actually need after market cards that they can add to their (expandable) Mac.

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“Cannot run out of time. There is infinite time. You are finite. Zathras is finite. This is wrong tool.” 2.3GHz Power Mac G5/4GB/500GB HDD/OS X 10.4.11/30-inch ACD, 60GB iPod (Color)

how come whenever gaming on a mac comes up, people always say "just buy a console for that". console gaming and pc gaming are two totally different beasts.

All those are nice...but keep in mind that every "good" idea that might have merit usually also have costs and support issues that Apple would have to deal with. It is very easy for those of us on the outside to believe we see the positive aspects, but we usually cannot see too well what the downsides/costs are. And while it might be nice to believe that Apple exists just to please us customers, the reality is that they exist to make money. If don't believe there is enough return on investment of any of those ideas, they just are not gonna do them.

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Member of the "Crazy Mac Users who run Anti-virus on their Macs" club - come join us and you too can be snickered at!

While I also yearn for a mini tower Mac, us 'tinkers' are not completely shut out. Just buy used Mac towers. After all great new computers make great used computers. Sure they won't be as fast as the new stuff, but they are highly customizable and rock solid. Just wait until they hit your price point and buy. That's what I do. And yes I am a gamer. I currently have two Macs networked and as soon as I get some extra $$ I will buy a third Mac now that I have another friend into it (who actually prefers the one-button Apple pro mouse WOOT!) The alternative would be to go my friends house who has two PC's running Windows. Even though he owns similar games as I do we hardly ever play there because his computers are always having problems. Total nightmare, but they got their cheap of the shelf hardware, right?! You may not get the latest games this way, but to me it doesn't matter. The quality of the games doesn't diminish over time. In fact they get better with updates and expansions. It's actually cheaper to buy the 'gold' version that's already patched than separate new purchases that may be full of bugs. Of course this does not diminish the fact that Apple needs to sell a mini-tower. Actually it proves it, because Apple is not directly getting my $$ for my purchases. I even buy my OS's used. As for my vote on Apple hardware or other hardware: I will never buy non-apple computers even if they go generic, because I've seen what cheaper than Apple hardware can do for the user experience. The problem is that most of the people who buy computers for their home doesn't know this, and Microsoft preys on this. I will give Microsoft props for one thing though: They know the value of the gaming market.