Mac user as well. I have an M2 Pro mini on my desk, and a base M2 MacBook Air.
To be fair, you didn’t specify in the OP why you bought the Mac. Their comment is fair, and this is coming from a guy who doesn’t like Windows. It’s also a bad recommendation: you’re not gonna get a good deal on the Mac that would get you a comparative PC. Your best bet would either be a used Switch or a used Xbox Series S, or maybe a PS4 (Xb1 sucks).
That said, you can get a comparable PC for $575, but you won’t get $575 for a $575 Mac selling it secondhand. The fallacy with that suggestion is you’ll get about 2/3 what you paid at best and that’ll put you in a much worse spot. Now you might be able to get a Chinese PC with everything on the chip like the Mac mini is, with 16GB DDR4 and something like an i3 dual core that will do some of the things the Mac will do, but it won’t have a Windows license, you’ll need to pay for that or get Linux. Still a bad idea if your new Mac works and you’re happy with it.
I made my comment entirely based on the picture, which is kinda my bad but I’m leaving it. I read the text after. I blame my autism.
That being said, you didn’t buy the Mac for gaming. If you did that’s on you. Heroic is good for some Steam games. M2 Pro isn’t great for gaming. I suspect you have an M4 base with 16 or 24GB of RAM (doesn’t matter in most cases). That’s a more capable machine. Still not great. Macs are not gaming machines. GeForce Now is a decent way to go if you have Steam games. You only need to pay the $10/month price to get decent game streaming, but only if the latency is good enough based on your location. If it’s not, the $20/month tier isn’t going to help. It’s just better graphics.
jordanlund@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
With current pricing, it’s going to be tough and that’s no joke.
Even the new Steam Machine is being predicted to be around $1,000.
indy100.com/…/steam-machine-price-cost-release-da…
The era of $600 gaming PCs is 1-3 years ago now.
(NGL - I still want a Steam Machine. :)
AnchoriteMagus@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Yeah, that’s unfortunately the conclusion I’m reaching. I was hoping there was an angle I hadn’t considered yet.
Maybe I’ll just give in and do a year sub to GeForce and then reassess prices next Xmas. I definitely can’t afford to build a new machine now, but a lot can happen in a year.
msokiovt@lemmy.today 5 hours ago
With the Mac Mini’s use, that is completely understandable. I tried to find something that fit your price range, and couldn’t find squat. However, you might want to take a look at Cevo, which is a Taiwanese ODM, that many of the Linux computer makers utilize.
AnchoriteMagus@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Good shout with Cevo. One of the few angles I haven’t looked super deeply into is a Linux machine. Time to study.