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Comment by Audiophilip | Hacker News Reader

>There's no Macbook that's good for gaming, because of the OS and the cooling.

I'm not sure what you mean here regarding the OS. You can install Windows on any Mac since Apple transitioned to Intel processors around 2006-2007.

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Of course, you can install Windows on it but then you lose many of the advantages of using a Mac -- for example, trackpad precision and overall energy efficiency. So if the laptop is going to be used for gaming, then it does not make sense to buy a Mac and install Windows on it. (I've got a rMBP, and I'm using Windows on it most of the time because I don't like OSX and I can't replace the laptop at the moment, but I am very much aware of the disadvantages of this setup.)

All right, I get what you mean, but now we're talking about something else. Your original statement that I reacted to was: "There's no Macbook that's good for gaming, because of the OS and the cooling." Your reasoning that because of their OS MacBooks are not good for gaming is simply not true, considering that you can install Windows on them to eliminate the aforementioned graphical performance issues of OS X. If an ASUS ROG laptop was originally shipped with Linux, would you also say that it's not good for gaming because of its OS? See what I mean?

>So if the laptop is going to be used for gaming, then it does not make sense to buy a Mac and install Windows on it.

Are you sure? I think even if you cannot utilize the touchpad and energy efficiency to its fullest capabilities (which are not really relevant in gaming anyway), the build quality of the shell and the quality of the screen and keyboard makes it a strong contestant even among normal Windows laptops. Plus, you have OS X there (or Linux, for that matter) for non-gaming uses.

Of course is a strong contestant against "normal" windows laptops, but if you are willing to pay what Apple asks for a Macbook pro you shouldn't compare it against "normal windows laptops", but with the high end Asus ROG, Alienware or some custom gaming laptop. And if serious gaming is the driving motivation behing the buy it isn't really a contest.

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