Intel-IMac 20" Questions?

Sirtovin

Sirtovin

Senior Switcher Tech Guru
The other day I went into the Apple Store here where I live... I was deeply inpressed by the IMac 20"... I was so tempted to buy it on the spot to spend the 2000... (Whoaa... wait... 2000 you said?) Yeah... Tax... and 3year warrenty.. its priced at $1769... without cordless mouse and keyboard...

What impressed me was it seemed to have alot of power.. beauiful display 20"... and it was quiet unlike the current PC yes... I said it.. PC I am using... but don't worry ladies and gentleman.. I do use an Ibook... :)

Here I my questions... Has anyone used the Intel-Imac 20" or brought it? If so how is your experience?

Do you have BootCamp on it? If so How is that experience?

and finally...

Do you have World of Warcraft on the machine and how is that experience?

Please answer ASAP... Even you Fryke!! I value your opinions.

Sincerely wanting to buy this machine... to get rid of my cluttered PC DESK.

Sirtovin
 
I have had the 20 inch imac for a few days now and I can say that so far it's been the best Mac I have ever owned. I have had a few minor issues with it mostly due to the fact that I've had boot issues before updating the firmware. Make sure that's one of the first things you do when you get it and check to see if the firmware is up to date.

The performance is amazing compared to my old Mini and even the G5 iMac. As far as games, I'd say that some games run ok under rosetta and some don't. Halo for example runs OK but really needs the universal upgrade which is not out yet. My advice is find as many games you have that can be updated to intel or buy universal ones.

Hope that helps. BTW, your desk will be so neat it will scare people.
 

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I agree totally with dave. I have a 20" iMac, and it is now the most powerful Mac (and PC!) in the house. It's jaw-droppingly fast. Most applications open in less than one bounce, the big stuff like Aperture, iMovie, and iDVD all open in about 2-3 bounces. The dual-processor will stun you too: you can rip a DVD and do other things at the same time with no slow-down! Windows XP runs absolutely snappy on it. Stuff in Rosetta isn't bad, but get some universal games on there (Like UT2004) and you'll realize this is also a hardcore gaming machine. WOW runs super great (it's universal too). I've been playing Half-Life 2 on there and there's no lag with all settings on high. It is totally worth the price. And it smells great when it's new!
 
New mac smell? That's a new one on me. Anywho, just for an update, I have XP installed now as well. I have to say that A. XP pro takes a while to load and B. OS X is much faster.

Cinebench raytrace scores (Dual CPU):
XP, 534
OS X, 584

PC Zealots, LOOK OUT!
 
New Mac smell really _is_ great. The problem is, I can't have it every day, really. ;)
 
davebz said:
New mac smell? That's a new one on me. Anywho, just for an update, I have XP installed now as well. I have to say that A. XP pro takes a while to load and B. OS X is much faster.

Cinebench raytrace scores (Dual CPU):
XP, 534
OS X, 584

PC Zealots, LOOK OUT!
Click to expand...

Oh, actually, the lower number is better. XP actually runs games much faster than OSX because of the OSX kernel is a bit slower.

So if you had a choice between UT2004 Mac and UT2004 Windows, you might want to get the windows version.
 
Actually, I've played UT2004 on both a Power Mac G5 1.6 and a Power Mac G4 dual 1.42 and the performance was good even on that hardware. On the Windows side, I tested it with an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ with 512 MB of RAM and a 256 MB Sapphire Tech RADEON 9600XT. The performance wasn't much different from the Power Macs which had about the same memory IIRC and had older GeForce cards.

I'm sure it would seem slower running on an Intel Mac since it would probably be running under Rosetta...hopefully they have a UB available for the Intel Macs, but that game has been around for some time and who knows if it's still being supported as well as the newer games.
 
I have one and I'm so happy with it. But I don't use it professionally, I just use it for simple things like changing wallpapers, listening to music, chatting, surfing... so it is quite good in doing so. But I've tried using iDVD and it takes so long to finish encoding (3 hours) so I guess this is not a machine for the pro. But if you use it like me, the 20' iMac is more than enough.
 
Sirtovin said:
The other day I went into the Apple Store here where I live... I was deeply inpressed by the IMac 20"... I was so tempted to buy it on the spot to spend the 2000... (Whoaa... wait... 2000 you said?) Yeah... Tax... and 3year warrenty.. its priced at $1769... without cordless mouse and keyboard...

What impressed me was it seemed to have alot of power.. beauiful display 20"... and it was quiet unlike the current PC yes... I said it.. PC I am using... but don't worry ladies and gentleman.. I do use an Ibook... :)

Here I my questions... Has anyone used the Intel-Imac 20" or brought it? If so how is your experience?

Do you have BootCamp on it? If so How is that experience?

and finally...

Do you have World of Warcraft on the machine and how is that experience?

Please answer ASAP... Even you Fryke!! I value your opinions.

Sincerely wanting to buy this machine... to get rid of my cluttered PC DESK.

Sirtovin
Click to expand...

The 20 inch iMac is a great machine. I prefer it over my dual 1.8 GHz G5. Awesome display. Everything looks beautiful.

UT2k4 has a universal binary, as does WoW. You can play WoW with practically full settings. Check out the WoW mac forum for more details. Currently WoW plays about a little better on the PC but blizzard has noted that they've made some improvements and are waiting for an Apple OS update for OpenGL (probably not 10.4.7).

I love my iMac (at work) but for home, I'm waiting to see what the new MacPros are going to spec out as before I buy.
 
mosx86 said:
I love my iMac (at work) but for home, I'm waiting to see what the new MacPros are going to spec out as before I buy.
Click to expand...

I would think just the way around. Imac for home, Pro at work.
;)
 
I constantly play WOW on my 20" Imac, although I should point out that I am currently running a G5 machine. Now am the proud owner of a Macbook, WOW looks cool on the glossy screen (although looking to purchase a larger display, maybe a cinema screen if the wallet can stand the hit).

Brian
 
i have a 20inch imac, just brought it, all is good, boot camp works good, had trouble with the keyboard, the number pad makes xp crash, but i think its a driver problem. You need a new mouse for xp, but other than that its a good buy, i got mine for 1100 pounds
 
RE: Mac gaming versus Windows gaming

Most of the test results I've seen show the Macs games at _slower_ framerates. The general consensus is that OS X's OpenGL drivers are not optimized as wellas the Windows ones are. Also, the games are designed in the Windows OpenGL environment. They tend to work better there. And since many games are designed for DirectX only, the Mac game porting companies need to use DirectX > OpenGL translation software, further slowing down the games.

That's why I bought an XBox 360. Me. A dyed-in-the-wool Mac user. Using an XBox. <Shiver> Yeah, but it does 1080i!!! And the specs are better than my Power Mac! And I just solved Half-Life 2. FINALLY!!!

Ahem. Carry on.

Doug
 
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