Brilliant logic considering multiple people who repair Macs for a living on here have stated that heat issues are the biggest issue with them down the road. Unless you have a specific use case for a GPU that will be running at 200 degrees F at load i'd opt for a cooler running components while saving money.
They both run hot, all iMacs run hot. All macs run hot.
Nobody knows for sure if the m295x will prematurely die, I don't care if these people who "repair Macs for a living" have been doing it all their life. They don't know crap compared to the engineers at Apple about the iMac.
Sure the m295x may die soon, or it may last forever. Maybe in a few months the m290 will develop problems. Nobody knows, but one thing that's for sure is that Apple knows that people will be using this iMac to its potential with such a resolution. Either they know something we don't, or they have a large sack of cash out aside to repair our computers on their dime. And I'm willing to bet that they're smarter than that.
@Imanidiot, you have been saying yourself that you do basic computer things. Probably an 06 iMac will satisfy your needs. But you're complaining about heat and fan noise. For basic computing, the iMac is silent and the heat should be normal. This applies to base and upgraded iMacs.
But should you need that small amount of power during those rare occurences would you not want to have it? Theoretically, the m290x should be under load much more often than the m295x since its weaker. So that means hotter temps and faster fans.
Under normal conditions, my iMac sounds silent. I can't tell if its on sometimes when the screen goes off and my external hard drive is louder, and that is fanless. Under full load, whatever I'm running is making much more noise than the fan is and I have to turn off my speakers in order to hear the fan. And I'm not sure what people used before this iMac and are complaining, but my old tower sounded like the morning garbage truck compared to the iMac.
