When I read about the new iMac I was pretty interested at the news on the GPU. But someone help me out...
I'm currently running a late-2009 21.5inch iMac (3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4670 256 MB) and I use it for the usual (internet, aperture, photoshop, work stuff) and it is more than adequate. However, where I'm feeling let down is for gaming. At weekends I love to boot into Windoze and play MW3 or Black Ops - and these run at acceptable quality and speed. But newer titles like Black Ops II or Battlefield 3 run like treacle in winter (i.e. very slowly!).
So the question is: how much of a step up would be a new iMac with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX, 2 GB? It seems a pretty big step up to me. What are the opinions on whether this set-up will see me set for another 3 - 4 years of gaming?
Thanks!
Andrew
The 680MX will be a vast improvement, as you already suspected yourself. I get around 53 FPS in Heaven Unigine @ native resolution and with default settings in Windows. The GPU runs Far Cry 3, Witcher 2 and Metro 2033 in native resolution and with high details - given that you don't activate stuff like Ubersampling and the likes, but those are features that even slow down high end desktop GPUs. Aside from getting an incredibly faster GPU with 8x more graphics memory, you will also gain a faster quadcore CPU, which will help out with gaming as well. Also, think about the beautiful 27 inch screen ; )
I don't know what will be in 3-4 years, but from what I understand the iMac had never before been equipped with the best available mobile GPU, so it should last a longer time.