pushing more pixels around on the 27"

[Bargle]

Do all the upgrades available in a top of the line 27" really add any power over a top of the line 21.5"? As I hear often, the bigger computer needs to "push more pixels" around.

I'm asking specifically about games like skyrim at native resolution.

 

[Stetrain]

The top of the line 27" does have a better graphics chip than the top of the line 21.5".

The high end 21.5" has an AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 512MB of video memory and the high end 27" has an AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 1GB of video memory. The 6970M is a higher performance graphics card and the extra video memory should help with the resolution. If you look around you should be able to find benchmarks for both of those graphics cards. There's also an option upgrade to 2GB of video memory, I don't know how much of a real difference that makes with games though.

Another thing to consider is that you don't have to run games at the full resolution of the 27" screen. If a particular game has trouble at 2560x1440, you could try running it at something like 1920x1200.

 

[Puevlo]

Pixels are rarely pushed. They tend to stay on the same location on the iMac display throughout its lifetime.