iMac sufficient enough for gaming?

[leppa]

Hello all,

I've been looking into buying the 2013 iMac 21.5' with the GeForce GT 750M. My question is, will this be sufficient enough for my gaming needs? I'm not going to be a hardcore gamer who wants to play Battlefield 4 at max settings or anything like that, but I'm wondering how it handles games like Civilization 5, World of Warcraft, The Sims 3, Fallout New Vegas, Day Z, Skyrim, BioShock Infinite and Mass Effect 3. I know the typical response to questions like these are that buying a gaming PC would probably be cheaper, but I wish to stick with an Apple machine even if it means sacrificing playing games at their maximum graphical potential, and I'm not very intrigued by the size of the 27' iMac or the price of the Mac Pro.

 

[yjchua95]

Hello all,

I've been looking into buying the 2013 iMac 21.5' with the GeForce GT 750M. My question is, will this be sufficient enough for my gaming needs? I'm not going to be a hardcore gamer who wants to play Battlefield 4 at max settings or anything like that, but I'm wondering how it handles games like Civilization 5, World of Warcraft, The Sims 3, Fallout New Vegas, Day Z, Skyrim, BioShock Infinite and Mass Effect 3. I know the typical response to questions like these are that buying a gaming PC would probably be cheaper, but I wish to stick with an Apple machine even if it means sacrificing playing games at their maximum graphical potential, and I'm not very intrigued by the size of the 27' iMac or the price of the Mac Pro.

The GT750M used in the iMac is the GDDR5 variant and according to notebookcheck, the GDDR5 variant of the GT750M outperforms the GTX660M and is only around 5-10% below the GT755M (which is only available in the GDDR5 form).

So it should be enough.

 

[MartinAppleGuy]

Hello all,

I've been looking into buying the 2013 iMac 21.5' with the GeForce GT 750M. My question is, will this be sufficient enough for my gaming needs? I'm not going to be a hardcore gamer who wants to play Battlefield 4 at max settings or anything like that, but I'm wondering how it handles games like Civilization 5, World of Warcraft, The Sims 3, Fallout New Vegas, Day Z, Skyrim, BioShock Infinite and Mass Effect 3. I know the typical response to questions like these are that buying a gaming PC would probably be cheaper, but I wish to stick with an Apple machine even if it means sacrificing playing games at their maximum graphical potential, and I'm not very intrigued by the size of the 27' iMac or the price of the Mac Pro.

I have the late 2013 iMac with the GT 750m and I must say it is great! I haven't tried many games on it but I was able to get around 70fps on Dirt 2 on max settings when played at 1920x1080. Bioshock Infinite and Civilization 5 should run fine in OSX (from the App Store) but I would recommend getting the Sims on Windows as EA done a horrible job at porting it(haven't played it but have heard many bad things about the OSX version).

And just to let you know, never buy a Mac Pro for gaming. I wouldn't be surprised if the GT 750m got you the same fps as it does. If you want to spend 2 grand, you would get the GTX 780m with the 27-inch!

I'd say the 750m is great though, you should be fine.

 

[leppa]

Thanks for the responses. It seems like the 21.5 iMac is the way to go . Do you guys know if opting to upgrade from the base i5 to the i7 or from the base 8 GB of Ram to the 16 GB would be beneficial for what I'm looking for gaming wise?

 

[Macman45]

I have the previous model ( with the 2GB 680M in it) and as far as games go, I only really fly X-Plane which is probably one of the most demanding Apps a Mac could get thrown at it.

It' run's very well, and I've no doubt that if you opt for the 4GB card in your new iMac, that your gaming experience should be fine.

I do have the maxed out model though.

Specs for reference:

Imac 27"
I7 3.4 GHZ CPU
2GB 680M GPU
32GB RAM
3TB Fusion Drive.

Things I'd change if buying now:

Take the video card to 4GB
Dump the Fusion Drive and go for the 768 SSD ( not an option when I bought this one)
Buy the stock 8GB of RAM and upgrade it yourself later...DON'T pay Apples insane RAM prices...It's an easy five min. DIY job. and Crucial, NewEgg, etc etc are all way cheaper than buying from Apple at purchase time.

 

[MartinAppleGuy]

Thanks for the responses. It seems like the 21.5 iMac is the way to go . Do you guys know if opting to upgrade from the base i5 to the i7 or from the base 8 GB of Ram to the 16 GB would be beneficial for what I'm looking for gaming wise?

8Gb of RAM will last you 5+ years for OSX (as long as you are not someone that loves VM's and always wanting to play the latest games). For Windows, I have seen tests when there is almost no difference in frame rates between 8Gb of RAM and 16Gb. If you want to game for 5+ years I'd maybe go for the 16Gb of RAM.

As for the i5/i7, I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make. For the £160 it costs for the upgrade, I don't think that you would be getting that much more out of it (in terms of fps as well as time until you can't run the latest games). It would be a valid upgrade if games take advantage of hyperthreading, but with my knowledge they don't. In X years time when the i5 can no longer run the games you want, would the i7 got you much further?

I'd say that either upgrade is not a must. I have found the base 2.9Ghz-3.6Ghz great for gaming and in the end it is the GPU that will limit you to the games you can play in X years time. And seeing as the GPU can't be upgraded, I don't see there being much point in upgrading the CPU or RAM either as the GPU is the limiting factor.

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Thanks for the responses. It seems like the 21.5 iMac is the way to go . Do you guys know if opting to upgrade from the base i5 to the i7 or from the base 8 GB of Ram to the 16 GB would be beneficial for what I'm looking for gaming wise?

Games don't take up a lot of RAM either (at least in Windows). And because you play them in full screen, you wont be multitasking so there is not much point in the 16Gb upgrade. You could concidered the i7 but even that may not be all that valid.