Question from a new apple convert

[pepto]

Hi guys, I am a soon to be switcher who is looking for some advice from the macrumors collective brain. I have an old as the hills Pentium III desktop and after using an iMac at work over the last year and saving my pennies I think I am now ready to buy a mac. I was going to buy an iMac last year but buying an xbox 360 derailed my plans a bit...

My choices at the moment are either a new 2.4 ghz 20 inch imac or a white 2ghz 17 inch C2D imac that is at my local store for $950.

The new iMac would be great because of the larger screen and faster processor etc but I don't find the 1.83ghz CD iMac at work slow at all. If I buy the 17 inch then with the money I save I can buy a separate moniitor (22- 24 inch) that I could use for extra desktop real estate when needed and would also double up as an HD display for the Xbox.

My main concern is with the graphics because I do dab in a bit of gaming (hence the 360) and I would like to play some of the PC exclusives that don't make it on to consoles. I know that the graphics cards in both the iMacs (x1600 and HD2600) aren't really up to much but will there be huge difference in performance?

This is pivotal in my decision and if the games that don't run on the 17 inch won't really be much better on the 20 inch then I think I would go with the cheaper option.

So what do you guys think?
Will I see a big difference in gaming and general performance if I go for the 20 inch or will the 17 inch suffice for my needs (some gaming, web surfing, movies etc.)?

 

[Denali9]

Gaming on iMac

Hi,
If you want to run any new or future games on the iMac, you need to go with the model with the HD2600. It's not a great card but it is a decent one but it start at 1499$US. Now if you go with the older model, make sure you get an iMac with the ATI Radeon X1600 with 128MB GDDR3 SDRAM. There is a model with the gma 950 and that is bad for gaming.

Apple is not using good GPU when you like gaming and you will not be able to play new games for very long with an Imac (old or new) but for everything else it is a great all in one computer.

If gaming on your computer is important, you may want to consider staying with a window PC, you will get a better gpu for your money.

 

[pepto]

Thanks for the reply.

I know that gaming isn't the main focus of the iMac and it isn't the main reason for buying one, that is why I have the xbox. I will mainly be using the iMac for web, email, movies and the gaming will be a bonus. There are a lot of older games that I would love to play (Half Life, System Shock 2) and most of the newer games I will be able to play on my 360 anyways. I know that neither will be able to run games like Cysis but it would be nice if I could enjoy playing Lost Coast and FEAR (both of which are not new games) every now and again.

I'm just wondering if the difference in performance (both for gaming and in general) between the two iMacs is really worth it or if I should spend the extra cash on a large display.