[mosselman]

I am a developer and I prefer developing on my macbook by FAR over windows and I prefer it a lot over Ubuntu et al. Right now I still have my desktop PC taking up space and clutering my desk just so that I can play a few games. I'd rather sell it and for less than what I get for the whole thing buy a thunderbolt GPU and game that way.

Your argument is invalid and only considered from a 'I want to game' point of view, not from a "I prefer a Mac and would like to play PC games without a 'proper gaming machine'" point of view.

[mosselman]

@bryanlarsen and @infinita740

I don't agree and I think you lack imagination. My computer case is still a lot bigger than such a setup would be.

I do agree to an extent with Bryan, saying that one could get a small case and put a computer in there, but then I'd have 2 things to keep up to date (and pay for). My Macbook has 16GB of memory and an i5 processor. My Desktop has an i5 as well and 8GB of memory plus some hard drives, dvd, drive, etc, etc and the GPU. The GPU is the one thing my Mac lacks. So with $250 (according to the article) I can upgrade something that I will have no matter what, my Macbook, since I use it to work on, and get rid of something that I am now forced to have (hobbying aside).

@infinita I already have a 'proper' 24inch screen on my desk at home and some Logitech Z5500 speakers and a gaming mouse. I can game using my Macbook's keyboard easily. This will all be there even if I'd get rid of my Desktop.

With this 'new' setup I can have just the GPU on my desk, or build some custom casing (cables and adapters be gone) and attach it behind my monitor. I then just plugin the Macbook and boom, instant gaming pleasure. Besides, when companies start building these setups they would grow smaller and more practical.

As for windows, that is nothing a small thunderbolt (or USB3) harddrive won't solve. Granted it might be a bit slower than SATA (is that true for thunderbolt as well?), but hard drives are not the main bottleneck in gaming anyway, the GPU, CPU and RAM are still more important. I for one don't even use RAID in my current PC.

It is not all ideal, but it still is a lot more ideal than maintaining and upgrading 2 machines and have this huge case standing around just for some GTA V.

[glogla]

While both laptop and desktop may have i5, the desktop i5 should be about 50 % faster on single threaded tasks, and almost three times faster on multi threaded tasks. Of course, you won't notice that when browsing or doing similar light tasks, but otherwise, three times difference is huge. It means waiting 20 minutes for video to transcode instead of hour, for example. When doing data crunching or building big software, desktops are really useful.

[infinita740]

I don't think it's a really great idea, games take a lot of disk space and you must have a windows partition. The macbook air storage is a bit small imo.

Plus you don't want to play on a 13 inches screen, let's be realistic.

Not to mention that "clutering" desk with a full keyboard, a good mouse and a bigger screen will still be needed.

[bryanlarsen]

With this solution you have a PC power supply + a GPU + a bunch of adapters and cables. This probably takes up as much space as a small case would.

This solution also only works in Windows. So you still have to set up and maintain a separate "gaming machine", aka a Windows partition on your Mac.