2009 iMac 24" Buying Dilemma/ Graphics advice..

[austriker27]

Hello,



I have a dilemma and I am seeking guidance from you smart apple people. I am looking at either acquiring my father's 24" iMac or buying one used on ebay and I am not very familiar with graphics cards.



So I want a 24". Not only because I think its the perfect size but because I get a discount at work of 20% if the monitor is 24 inchs or less. I do mostly photo editing and processing along with web browsing. I also like playing videogames but have not done much of this on my 2007 macbook 13" (black). Basically the games I am looking to run would be like cod4, cod4 mw2 or bf3 on mac (if released) or windows partition via bootcamp. This is where I am unsure of which graphics card to get, I am not to familiar with the cards and would like to get an imac that would last me many years down the road.



So here are the stats from my dads older (early 2009) iMac 24": Nvidia GeForece 9400 256MB, 2.66 Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB DDR3, 640 GB HD



Would that be sufficient for those games or should I go for something used with the top graphics card from 2009 (24inch) models?



For example I found some 24inch models that meet my other criteria (640+ GB HD, 4+ RAM) on ebay with these cards for about $1000, plus or minus $300.

•NVIDIA Geforce GT 130 512 MB VRAM

Ati Radeon HD 4850 video card




I have gone to these links below here to check out reviews and fps tests and it seems my dads imac's graphics card probably wont be very useful for cod gaming..
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9400M-G.11949.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-130M.13789.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-4850.13975.0.html

Thanks for the advice!!

 

[Blue Sun]

If you want to game, do NOT get an iMac with the integrated 9400m graphics chip. It might be ok for notebooks, but when powering a 1920x1200 display it lacks any kind of grunt.

 

[austriker27]

Hmmm.. okay, thanks for the heads up. Even for a casual gamer (a few times a month); I do have a 360 but like to try my hat at fps with a mouse/keyboard..

 

[topmounter]

I gave up trying to game on my 2009 24" iMac (it's the top-end, last-gen model). It was much easier to just build a budget Win7 gaming rig. My iMac is still great for everything else though.

 

[austriker27]

I gave up trying to game on my 2009 24" iMac (it's the top-end, last-gen model). It was much easier to just build a budget Win7 gaming rig. My iMac is still great for everything else though.

shooooot.. okay. What games did you try? Do you think cod4 would work? Or by chance any of the newer cod or battlefield games?

Thing is, I am not serious enough or have enough cash/space in my place to build another desktop just for gaming..

Thanks for your help!

 

[topmounter]

It wasn't that games wouldn't run, it was just that they didn't run as well as they would on a PC. It's probably gotten better since then. I also got tired of shutting down all my other stuff to help boost performance.

 

[andydckent]

I imagine those games should run on the 24" with 512mb GPU. Not sure how well though.

For reference my old top spec 24" 2008 with 512mb card ran BF BC2 pretty well on bootcamp.

 

[leman]

The iMac with the 4850m is your best bet, but don't expect any wonders from it. It can probably run most modern games at 1080p (low settings) or 720p (high settings) though.

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By the way, why won't you simply get a new 21.5" iMac? Its the same price and its much faster than the 24" models and spots the same resolution with better screen and faster graphics.