Which to choose?

[iLikeMySelf]

Hello,
I want to buy an iMac for gaming.
My options are either the base model (will it run the current and future games properly?), the 27 i3 model or the i7 Refurbished.
Which will run games better? What is the difference between the current i3 and the past i7 model in gaming?

 

[3lionsbecks]

Finally a post about which iMac to choose! I've seriously been waiting for one of these so we can all know what to get.

thanks for not bothering to use a search function or even bothering to scroll down the page a bit to see if there are any (or 10) other topics EXACTLY like this one.

Why Not.

 

[iLikeMySelf]

Well I did search but I am about to buy something that is worth around 3K in my country and I want to be really sure I will buy something that is worth it. If you do not feel like helping, do not even waste your time reading this thread. That is the smartest choice for you.

 

[Tigerman82]

Well I did search but I am about to buy something that is worth around 3K in my country and I want to be really sure I will buy something that is worth it. If you do not feel like helping, do not even waste your time reading this thread. That is the smartest choice for you.

OT: It's not good to have an attitude about this. There is a reason why people hate new members who start identical threads to those that have been started way before. Think about it from another person's perspective. They come here to find information on which model to get and find several short threads here and there. Wouldn't it be easier if everyone posted on the same thread? Wouldn't this make things more clear and make more people share their knowledge?

From the new ones the base model is said to be the sweet spot. There's a clip in Youtube of a guy playing Crysis with the high-end 21.5" iMac i3 (the difference being the GPU with double the memory). The frame rates were a little lagging but the guy did use all settings high except shadows. From a new review, I read that you can play Half Life 2: Episode II nicely using medium settings with the base model.

From all the iMacs, probably the sweetest deal right now is the refurbished 27" iMac i5 Quad Core. Some go for the i7 but sometimes I wonder if this is just because they want every possible option to be maxed out (too much money I guess).

One thing to think about is that for many the 27" screen is way too big and takes up too much space (you better have a big desk only for the iMac). Also, you most likely cannot play anything with its native resolution so you have scale down -- and everyone knows that the more you scale the worse the picture is.

 

[iLikeMySelf]

Hello,
Thank you for the help. Using my current iMac I have 60cm of distance between the screen and my eyes, is that enough for the 27"?
Do you know if the refurbished iMacs come with the retail box now that they are the previous models?
Do games look bad when played at 1920x1080 in the 27" screen?
Thank you again!