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Dual iMac 27" side-by-side, one as a second screen, under Bootcamp question

F

feszty

macrumors member
Original poster
May 26, 2009
34
0
Hi,

I need some help as nobody at the Apple Store seem to know the answer. my company needs a computer with dual 27-30" monitors for its new product and I was thinking that for various reasons, the new iMac would work really good for us. The problem is that our product requires windows and I am not sure if boot camp supports the second Mac to be an external monitor. My boss approved the iMac purchase, but I need to make sure it will support this configuration under windows.

Your help is much appreciated.
 
feszty said:
Hi,

I need some help as nobody at the Apple Store seem to know the answer. my company needs a computer with dual 27-30" monitors for its new product and I was thinking that for various reasons, the new iMac would work really good for us. The problem is that our product requires windows and I am not sure if boot camp supports the second Mac to be an external monitor. My boss approved the iMac purchase, but I need to make sure it will support this configuration under windows.

Your help is much appreciated.
Click to expand...

It should work just fine. The second mac just acts as a display when in that mode. As such it just appears as a second display to the primary iMac, whether it is running OS X or Windows. If you need to have the second iMac run Windows at the same time then that might be an issue but it sounds like you wouldn't be doing that.
 
So you want to buy an iMac to "only" run Windows? You can get nice 27-30 displays and a Windows box much cheaper...

I can rationalize almost any Mac purchase, but to only run it in Windows makes it a purchase solely based on hardware, not on OS X.
 
Grimace said:
So you want to buy an iMac to "only" run Windows? You can get nice 27-30 displays and a Windows box much cheaper...

I can rationalize almost any Mac purchase, but to only run it in Windows makes it a purchase solely based on hardware, not on OS X.
Click to expand...

Not really. You can't buy 27-30" displays of the same calibre right now. The only LED backlit 30" displays cost a serious fortune, probably close to two 27" iMacs. As far as I'm aware there aren't any 27" LED backlit displays either and certainly no 27" displays with 2560x1440 resolution. These iMacs are probably the best 27" displays on the market right now - they just happen to come with a computer attached too.
 
Spanky Deluxe said:
Not really. You can't buy 27-30" displays of the same calibre right now.
Click to expand...

Almost every 30" display you can get on the market today is at least equal to the 27" iMac display.

There is nothing special about that display, beside it's backlight and personally I would not overestimate it.
I compared both the iMac and a 30" Cinema side by side in a local Apple store and of course colours do look 'better' on the iMac due to it's glossy display. Everything else is equal to my eyes, besides the 30" is a little brighter.


I would not buy two iMacs just to run Windows, especially not because it's not clear if there are issues with the display mode using Windows. Even with OS X the display mode does not work properly.
Get 2 decent 30" screens and a nice Windows workstation. They will definitely do the job better than those iMacs.
 
Transporteur said:
Almost every 30" display you can get on the market today is at least equal to the 27" iMac display.
Click to expand...

No they're not. They don't have LED backlights. Adding LED backlights to a display significantly increases the cost. 30" displays with LED backlights cost an absolute fortune right now. If I could swap my 30" ACD for a 30" LED backlight display without having to shell out $$$$s, I would do so in a heartbeat.
 
Of course they don't have LED backlights and I know that 30" LEDs are expensive, but what do you think makes a LED backlit display better than a CCFL one?
 
You can strike out the point with the colour accuracy. :)
The glossy iMac screen absolutely overdrives colours. I like it because I don't need accurate colours, but for some people it's just not applicable.

Anyway, to my mind the real deal with LED backlit displays is the fact that they don't consume that much power, but in case of the iMac that does not matter. (iMac 300W, 30" CCFL 150W).
 
I don't know if Boot Camp would support the second iMac as an external monitor, but Parallels or Fusion certainly should. Stuff a bunch of RAM into the primary machine and run your Windows needs inside a virtual machine. Makes a lot more sense to me than running an iMac on Windows full time, too. :)
 
Thank you for the help. For our application, we need an all in one (it's a Seismic Recording System mounted into a truck). Looked at the HP, but since we don't need thouchscreen, we decided against it. And it is more expensive and smaller screen too.
 
Two Dell 3007WFP-HCs will cost about the same or even less than one 27" iMac. Then for the price of the other 27" you could build a very powerful computer.
 
Dual Imac 27, One with windows, one with Mac

I am too looking at using two imacs with dual screens.
I am a windows software developer trying to make the switch to mac.
Here is my goal.

Two 27 inch Imacs on my desk.
One running Windows (Boot)
One running osx

I want the following,
I dont understand if i need a KVM, or special cable or if this is possible.

When running windows 7, I want the second Imac to act as a 2nd screen.
When running OSx, i want the first Imac to to act as 2nd screen.
I want to be able to toggle mac and windows, while retaining both screens.
It would be killer if I only have to use one mouse and one keyboard.

How can this be done before I go out and spend 6k worth of Imacs.
Thanks in advance

Frank:eek:
 
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