New iMac Buying Help

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hi all, I would appreciate a little advice as I begin preparing to buy a new iMac.



Number one priority on my list is to be able to run Civilization V well enough. I have included the recommended requirements for OS X for convenience's sake.



CPU Processor: Intel Quad Core

CPU Speed: 2.6 GHz

Memory: 4 GB RAM

Video Memory (VRam): 512MB



I understand that the cheapest new iMac meets these recommended requirements. I am, however, curious about the difference that I will (or will not) experience if I buy the second option. (Listed for convenience).



Option 1 (at $1199)



21.5-inch: 2.5GHz

2.5GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5

1920 x 1080 resolution

4GB (two 2GB) memory

500GB hard drive1

AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 512MB





Option 2 (at $1499)



21.5-inch: 2.7GHz

2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5

1920 x 1080 resolution

4GB (two 2GB) memory

1TB hard drive1

AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 512MB



The main differences being with the GHz of the processors, size of hard drive, and the (insignificant?) number of the graphics card. For some reason I do not believe I would see much of a difference with the extra $300, but I could be wrong.



My other option is to buy Option 1, then upgrade its RAM. Apple offers an upgrade to 8 GB for $200 (seems expensive...) that I believe would be better than buying Option 2 with no upgrades.



I will not be using this computer for anything else graphics intensive or anything like that. I'm just a Civ junkie, and I want to have a machine that plays that game well enough. I currently own a 2006 iMac and I love it, but it's time for an upgrade I think.



Thanks for any help!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 1
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by josephgerth View Post


    Hi all, I would appreciate a little advice as I begin preparing to buy a new iMac.



    Number one priority on my list is to be able to run Civilization V well enough. I have included the recommended requirements for OS X for convenience's sake.



    There is a video here of it running on the 6750M Macbook Pro:



    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFiSc1qf_0g



    It seems to be a bit choppy zooming out but if the game streams a lot of data from the HDD, the laptop's 5400RPM drive will have an impact here.



    Plus, you don't have to run it as high as 1680 x 1050. 720p would be sharp enough.



    The 6970M in the highest end iMac is pretty fast - nearly double the 6750M but the 6770M won't be much different - it just has 20% higher clocked processors.



    It shows some improvements in benchmarks but the game benchmarks seem to be pretty close.



    http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Rad...M.43958.0.html

    http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Rad...M.43955.0.html



    I don't think any boost it may offer is worth the $300. If the main goal is to run that game, I wouldn't bother with 8GB RAM either. Civ V doesn't seem to use all that much:



    1.25GB

    http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread...-leak-in-Civ-V

    Under 1.5GB:

    http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread...Humongous-Maps



    I reckon the entry level will do just fine. I wouldn't be put off by the choppiness in the above video. The Windows version looks smoother on the same hardware so either the settings are tweaked or the Mac version is just unoptimised - usually you find that's the case:



    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeNKzxhfbcg
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