What i will be using my imac 27' for... would like some opinions on that

[neonkru]

Hi! I need a new computer, and i'm moving on for mac. i own 3 pcs:

1. Desktop 5 year old p4 2,4ghz and 2gb of ddr1 at 333mgh (this may be a crime) i can't do anything with it other than downloading 24/7 and web surfing for my family.
2. notebook 4 year old tsunami with 1,86ghz centrino (don't really remember the frontsidebus) and 1gb of ddr1 at 533mghz
3. netbook eeepc asus 1000he (recently purchased just for its portability and cheap price. not doing anything on it other than internet and watching movies in trip)

so after reading all these reviews and issues i will order my imac 27 base in the first week of december in hope that some possible hardware issues may be solved by that time.

4.

i will be using this new imac mostly for websurfing, itunes, watching movies and playing magic online the gathering. this is where the problem is, magic online from wizards of the cost hasn't been released for mac yet and i don't think it will ever be or at least so soon. so i will have to use a virtual machine in order to play magic online in this imac. i don't really want to run only windows via bootcamp, that's the worst case if it has to be. so how would this machine hold up running windows in virtual machine while playing magic online at the same time for messenger web surfing and itunes? i won't be watching movies at the same time while playing. i guess i will miss windows live from windows but i can live with that.

this magic online game doesn't require too much of graphics and runs great on my tsunami notebook with just 1 gb of ram running on windows 7. so i guess i could expect a good performance on the new imac? im not familiar with current computers performance so i will be waiting to hear your opinion.

maybe an upgrade later to 6gb of ram would make things better?

i also don't think i will ever need the i5 or i7, what i'm really missing right now for what i do i guess it's ram memory

5.

also what windows would get better performance in the imac? win xp or win 7? i have license for both so it won't be a problem i only need it for that game, won't be using for anything else. well i want to try burnout paradise ultimate box but that's another story, i'm not a gamer other than magic online in my free time. like 4 hours a day in weekends and 2 hours a day in regular days of the week
thank you

 

[Badger^2]

it will do all you want and more

with one hand tied behind its back

you are over thinking it

if you think there will be "updated" imacs in Dec with "new" hardware, you are just lying to yourself -- its not gonna happen

if you want it now, buy it now

 

[neonkru]

with one hand tied behind its back

you are over thinking it

if you think there will be "updated" imacs in Dec with "new" hardware, you are just lying to yourself -- its not gonna happen

if you want it now, buy it now

i'm pretty sure that most of the issues are drivers and os related. i hope i don't get a defective imac in the display with yellow tinge or some pitched noise

 

[neonkru]

i guess im not lucky with my post=P

 

[Shivetya]

The base 27 inch model will more than suit your needs.

To run Magic without bootcamp get vmware, perhaps parallels 5 will work. you should be able to search their community forums for solutions.

The base 4gb of memory will be more than enough for anything you stated you do.

As for XP or Windows 7. Apple will officially support Windows 7 before the end of the year through bootcamp.

 

[mac-ho]

The base 27" is too much computer for about 95% of us waiting for the Quad. Yes, me to!!

 

[neonkru]

well i guess that answers it cleary, i guess i will be ordering my imac 27 next week and use windows 7 as secondary os thank you for your opinion

 

[andyOSX]

Either VMware Fusion 3 or Parallels Desktop 5 should run Magic pretty well, but make sure you get THOSE versions, version 3 and 5 respectively, as they both offer a lot more support for graphics as well as Windows 7.

 

[SimD]

Just one quick tip.

Install Windows via Bootcamp and then point your VM (Fusion or Parralels) to the bootcamp drive. This way, if you ever need to boot natively into Windows, you still have the option.

 

[neonkru]

Just one quick tip.

Install Windows via Bootcamp and then point your VM (Fusion or Parralels) to the bootcamp drive. This way, if you ever need to boot natively into Windows, you still have the option.

thanks for those tips in the versions, thats a good feature running in vm fusion from the bootcamp partition nice

 

[fruitpunch.ben]

The base 27" is too much computer for about 95% of us waiting for the Quad. Yes, me to!!

lol so true.
The most intensive stuff I'll do on my i7 will be occasional 2 yr old games, and occasional HD video editing from my camcorder.
Any of that will work on the low end 27" with 4850.
Ah well, longterm thinking ahead is what i call it.
I won't have the funds/wife won't let me buy another computer for 3+ years, so may as well max this one out while i can!

OP: you'll be fine doing that stuff! I'd recommend bootcamp for gaming though, running windows natively is much quicker than virtually. If you really want to run it virtually, the more RAM the better. If you pay $90 and for 4GB RAM from 3rd party you will be able to assign the virtual OS 4GB of RAM as well as leaving 4GB for OS X and that will help.