No offense, lJoSquaredl, but you must be the world's worst shopper.
Let me guess. When you compared prices, it probably went like this:
- You upgraded parts (e.g., storage) at Dell.com rather than quickly check the prices at Newegg, Amazon, etc.
- You didn't take a minute to find a deal at Dell Outlet.
- You didn't take a few seconds to get one of the many readily-available Dell Outlet coupons.
- You didn't wait for Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend like many hardware enthusiasts do.
I own an iMac and it's my primary computer, but it's overpriced hardware. Period. The Precision workstations with Xeon processors that I bought last Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend from Dell Outlet cost me under $600 after discounts. My iMac is a blatant rip-off in comparison.
To give you an idea of the kind of deals that are available to people who know what they're doing, I recently bought the following TV from Dell for around $40 after discounts and rebates. Seriously.
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=a7851809
That being said, I wish to express my gratitude to all the people who pay retail price at Apple.com and Dell.com. You guys subsidize people like me. Thank you!
OP, don't bother with an iMac for gaming. Use a PC for gaming and maybe get a Mac mini for everything else. You can use the same keyboard, mouse, and monitor for multiple computers using a KVM switch.
Also, you can diversify you computer portfolio further by getting a single-board computer (e.g., Raspberry Pi), installing a hardened Linux distro, and using it as a dedicated banking computer. Gotta protect those brokerage accounts!