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Hello, I want to ask you is the new iMac good for video games. By video games I mean games with very good graphics like Far Cry 4, GTA 5, CoD AW, Dying Light and other like them or I should get a cheeper gaming pc? Please, answer me if you can.
iMac with Retina 5K display
The only way to play high games with high response times on an IMac is to get an IMac with high end specs and that'll make it a very expensive gaming machine.
You need to check the sites for the games you play for the nominal (average) hardware specs as well as the higher end hardware specs.
None of the 21 inch screen IMacs will hack it for high end gaming as their GPUs top out at 1 GB VRAM and the i7 CPUs are NOT the fastest available.
The only 5K retina iMac is the 27 inch screen model that starts at $2500 U.S.D. and the 27 inch screen models are the only models to get all of the bells and whistles needed like maybe a top of the line i7 CPU(for games the i7 CPU is really needed over the more common i5 CPUs), top of the line GPU (or see if you can get away with the base (2 GB VRAM GPUs) and faster 7200 RPM hard drives (the 21 inch screen iMacs only come now with laptop standard 5400 RPM hard drives, now) or faster/larger Fusion or SSD/Flash based drives.
You'll be close to the $3000 mark or more if you go with both the fastest CPU (4.0 Ghz) AND the 4 GB VRAM GPU.
If you are trying to compare an iMac gaming machine to a cheap PC for gaming, it sounds as if to me you do not have the budget for a $2500 IMac???
Even the non-retina 27 inch iMacs will set you back, at least $2000 U.S.D. for the higher spec'd. model.
If you are really considering the cheap PC route (which won't be as cheap as you think for a comparable PC with good gaming hardware specs), maybe just stick to your PC for gaming.
It seems to me that the budget is not there or realistic for a IMac with the specs you are going to need.
Good Luck!
The only way to play high games with high response times on an IMac is to get an IMac with high end specs and that'll make it a very expensive gaming machine.
You need to check the sites for the games you play for the nominal (average) hardware specs as well as the higher end hardware specs.
None of the 21 inch screen IMacs will hack it for high end gaming as their GPUs top out at 1 GB VRAM and the i7 CPUs are NOT the fastest available.
The only 5K retina iMac is the 27 inch screen model that starts at $2500 U.S.D. and the 27 inch screen models are the only models to get all of the bells and whistles needed like maybe a top of the line i7 CPU(for games the i7 CPU is really needed over the more common i5 CPUs), top of the line GPU (or see if you can get away with the base (2 GB VRAM GPUs) and faster 7200 RPM hard drives (the 21 inch screen iMacs only come now with laptop standard 5400 RPM hard drives, now) or faster/larger Fusion or SSD/Flash based drives.
You'll be close to the $3000 mark or more if you go with both the fastest CPU (4.0 Ghz) AND the 4 GB VRAM GPU.
If you are trying to compare an iMac gaming machine to a cheap PC for gaming, it sounds as if to me you do not have the budget for a $2500 IMac???
Even the non-retina 27 inch iMacs will set you back, at least $2000 U.S.D. for the higher spec'd. model.
If you are really considering the cheap PC route (which won't be as cheap as you think for a comparable PC with good gaming hardware specs), maybe just stick to your PC for gaming.
It seems to me that the budget is not there or realistic for a IMac with the specs you are going to need.
Good Luck!
Thanks, I will keep that in mind. 🙂
few games can run in the native 5k resolution without being pretty low fps on any computer
that being said you can only run games made for OS X on the mac unless you buy a copy of windows and install it in bootcamp and restart the computer and booting up as windows rather then OS X
Ok, thanks
I'm a huge gamer and considering most 4k screens can't even run at 30fps with the latest top end graphics cards this 5k one certainly can't! I have the base iMac 5k and I've installed some basic graphic adventure titles like Broken Age and stuff like that and they run find, anything more demanding certainly isn't recommended.
By itself the 5k iMac isn't the best for gaming. It's really not what its intended use is. Which is a shame because that display is gorgeous.
However, I recently picked one up and did some tinkering to get it to run with my gaming PC.
The iMac doesn't support target display mode so you can't simply use it as an external display so what I did is
1) Use Nvidia control panel on my PC and turn on DSR (that simulates a 4k environment on a 1080p display)
2) Use a crossover cable to connect my PC to my iMac
3) Set up a secondary network as a LAN for my PC and Mac to communicate (wifi isn't strong enough to handle the stream)
4) Download Steam on both computers (you can import any games to your steam library so it doesn't matter how you got them)
5) Use Steam's in home sharing between your PC and Mac
This solution gives you the option to simply use the power of a gaming pc and have a beautiful 5k display
plus I much rather use my Mac for my everyday computing.
Well several months back I got the base 27 model and I must say I was surprised at how well it ran everything. Right now i have Elite Dangerous, Guild Wars 2, Deus Ex 2 and others on OSX side and other games like SWTOR, Dead Space 1,2,3 and all of these run fine on 2560 * 1440. Right now I am running DS3 on 4k res and that runs fine. At some point I will put extra RAM in but all runs great for moderate habitual gaming.
Is iMac 5K good for games !?
