I'm considering buy an iMac, maybe tomorrow. I want to get the 21.5" for $1199 it comes w/ 2.5GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 1920 x 1080 resolution 4GB (two 2GB) memory 500GB hard drive1 AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 512MB the $1499 21.5" is barely different except its: 2.7ghz 1TB hard drive1 AMD Radeon HD 6770M What kind of performance difference is there between 2.5 to 2.7 or 3.1 ghz? And how is the 6750 Radeon versus 6770 or 6970? Is it worth the extra $300 for 2.7 & Radeon 6770? I'm sure 4gb RAM is enough, could always upgrade it cheaply. I'm not very computer savvy when it comes to the tech specs. I want to be able to play Diablo 3 at relatively high settings as well as use photoshop and some other things. I know, I know, a PC would be cheaper if all I wanted was to run D3 at max settings but i like macs & use all the other mac devices so it just makes sense to stay consistent.
The video card will be the most important part to play games. If you cannot upgrade the cards yourself then get the more expensive one. The higher clock speed on the CPU will also help in games. Maybe in the future you can then upgrade the card if need be An extra $300 for the slight increase in performance seems a little steep though. Find out if you can upgrade the card on your own,because better cards can be had for $160. Not exactly sure how that works on mac desktops.
On the Macs, you have to buy a graphics card that has the firmware flashed to work with them specifically. Some cards that worked on the older Macs would not work on newer Mac Pros.
Get the 2.7ghz if you game, it has a way better graphics chip, if you don't play graphically intense games don't bother and get the 2.5ghz because .2hz is nothing.
i don't think you can upgrade the gpu in an imac... but i am pretty sure the gpu shares ram memory, so doing a simple ram upgrade could help with video performance. get the 2.5 and upgrade the ram to 8gb.
The integrated graphics on those CPUs will not run diablo 3. It will need a discrete card, which both of those computers listed have. $1500 is absurd for those specs.
They expensive media players Not only would a pc be cheaper but it would also do the job much better.
QFT. $1500 can get you: 3.7GHz i5 Sandy Bridge Nvidia GTX560 2GB 8GB DDR3 2666 RAM 600GB 10,000RPM Velociraptor HDD 750W PSU Liquid Cooling 23" Monitor +All necessary internals (nic card, audio card, motherboard, etc.) All at Newegg.com, shipped. You just have to put it together and it'll run any game on max for a while coming.
If you were to go amd / ati you'd get even more bang for your buck. You'd sacrifice some of the fancy Intel / nvidia technologies but if you're on a budget you can save some cash and still get a pretty badass rig. Also, ati cards are better for bitcoin mining in case you ever wanted to do that.
Bitcoin mining is dead and AMD is better then Nvidia, Nvidia cards run so hot and fry themselves over time, and the Intel runs so hot in Macbooks, plus the hardware and insides are so crammed..
Been running NVIDIA cards for a while and never have overheating issues. Got a gtx 560 ti right now and it never goes above 65 c when playing the latest games all laptops run hot, not just intel. Apple wouldn't be putting intel in their $1500 machines if they didn't last, those two mentioned are desktops so it's not really an issue