iMac video input question (pre-Thunderbolt)

[mixduptransisto]

I've got a 27" iMac (Late 2009). I'm building a PC (blasphemous, I know) for gaming and I want to use my iMac's video input functionality, mainly because it's a great display, I want to keep using my iMac for everyday computing (email, web browsing, etc), and it will be a pretty elegant solution.

My question is, though, can I just use an Apple Mini-DP to DVI adapter to go in reverse, IE: from the DVI output of the PC's video card into the Mini-DP input on the iMac? There are active DVI or HDMI to Mini-DisplayPort boxes, but I'm curious if that's really necessary (they seem geared towards home-theater type use cases and do things like put the audio onto the cable or get the audio out of the cable)

 

[omvs]

Pretty sure you can't run those adapters backwards succesfully for what you're trying to do.

If you're building a new PC, can you just get a card with displayport output? Then a $5 DP -> miniDP cable will do the trick.