Mac Pro 2Ghz vs. 20-inch iMac Core 2 Duo/2.16 GHz [Archive]

jrk07

Sep 9, 2006, 02:21 PM

Even with comparable performance, I have a hard time settling with an iMac as a gaming system. I have had an iMac G5 for about 2 years now and I am more than ready to replace it with something that is a bit more suited for games.

The problem I have with replacing it is just that, replacing a perfectly good system with a beautiful monitor that simply can't be upgraded. I'd much prefer the oppurtunity to upgrade my iMac to hold me over a bit longer, but that option just isn't there.

The Mac Pro on the other hand is expensive but upgradeable. I'm sure you can configure it down to a reasonable price, but it is still not as much of a "value" as the iMac. The prospects of upgrading the cpu and graphics card down the road are invaluable though. Some will say that the Mac Pro is simply overkill for a gaming system, but I still think it would be a killer setup, even if it is overkill.

The future aside, the benchmarks between the 2 are very comparable. The iMac really holds its own and I see it as a great value for those who aren't as worried about upgrading down the road. I would have liked them to use a more graphically intensive game such as Quake 4 to do the benchmarks rather than the years old UT 2k4 as I think that there would be a bigger performance difference between the systems.

For me, I'd love to pick up a Mac Pro soon. Sure, the prospects of the 24" iMac having an upgradable video card is nice, but I just don't see that format of video card becoming widely available like PCI-Express video cards are. So put me in the Mac Pro being the superior gaming system mainly because of future upgrades and the potential to perform way better than the iMac with a card like the Radeon x1900.