DISCLAIMER: Do not comment if you are only going to tell me to not get a Mac based on price or your allegiances, I want answers to these questions not your opinion on the merits of the Apple brand.
Ok, I’ll try to be concise. Looking to buy the new 27 inch iMac with Quad Core.
Is it a capable gaming computer? Will the graphics card and 4 gigs of RAM be good enough or do I have to spend more money on top of the 1999 dollars. I have access to many mac compatible games *cough* torrents *cough* and I want to know if I can play them on this thing right out the box.
What is the best way to get HD content on these things when they don’t have a stinkin’ blu ray drive? I know about VLC media player and can get movies the same way I get games but I would like to play official (which is usually better) content on this thing as it will be next to my couch in my living room. The screen resolution on this thing is better than HD yet I don’t know how to play HD on it without hooking it up as a TV and I already got a plasma.
Do Logitech game controllers (USB) work on it? I have one with dual analogs and I would like to keep using it.
Ummmm, oh yeah, and they only show one cord coming out the back of the thing but with a common hookups like external hard drives and printers and stuff, does it look like it’s draped out the bottom and messy or can you hook it up in such a way that keeps a clean minimalist look?
I am Mac literate despite having PC’s my whole life so don’t be afraid to get technical!
Thanks in advance!
Printer Media, Computers & Internet
June 26th, 2011 on 1:25 am
Hello, good to see someone wanting to do the switch to mac. I’ve been a mac user since 2006, and i’ve been pretty pleased with my experience. (Late 2006 Macbook Pro.) I am, in fact, also getting myself ready to purchase a 27" iMac with i5 processor.
In a honest gamer’s opinion, the combination of i5/i7 intel lynnfield processors with the ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB along with 4GB of DDR3 RAM is a capable gaming computer. How capable? Able to run Call of Duty 4 on maximum settings, as bench-markings go…
However, there is one thing you should take note: in the Core 2 Duo with Radeon 4670 iMac that is already being sold, apple under-clocked the processor. The Hardmac link below will tell you more. http://www.hardmac.com/news/2009/10/26/radeon-hd-4670-in-new-imac-is-underclocked
Even with that, the current Core 2 Duo iMacs are still running very good. The main reason why Apple under-clocked the 4670 might be because of temperature issues. So when the i5/i7 (Quad-core) iMacs are released at the start of November, Apple MAY under-clock the 4850 too. It will be good if you wait till benchmarks of the i5/i7 appear to see if the under-clock severely hampers performance.
In my opinion, the under-clocking won’t affect gameplay that much, as the quad core processor more than makes up for that loss of ~20mHz of graphics processing.
You will NOT have to spend more money on top of the $1999. I get my programs and games through file-sharing too. A mac is well known to be useable right out of the box, as was demonstrated by my friend who unboxed his unibody Macbook Pro infront of me and proceeded to play Call of Duty 4 running from an external hard drive with no issues. In any case, if you thirst for games not available for mac, there is always the utility Boot Camp. Boot Camp allows the installation of Windows or another operating system. For me, I have a partition of Windows so that I can play new releases such as Borderlands. Note: Windows Operating Systems and games can all be found through file-sharing sites.
I was also snuffed when the iMac was announced with no blu-ray drive. I am going to get HD content to my iMac by buying a USB blu-ray drive as a solution. Also, the iMac comes with a built in DVD player, that some say can run blu-ray discs, so long as the blu-ray drive is supported. VLC would be the best option, though.
I’m not too sure about your logitech controllers, though. You might want to find out their model numbers and check the apple driver download site to see if its supported.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/drivers/
the iMac will come with wireless mouse and a keyboard. The only thing running out of it is the power cable. If you have a wireless network at home, then you won’t need to plug the computer in. Printers may also be run from the wireless network and work wirelessly. The wireless network wizard works wonders then. On the other hand, I don’t think external drives or printers would affect clutter if the wires are tied neatly in place. Don’t forget that the iMac comes with 1TB of storage.
Hope this helps.