Gaming on the iMac 5k

Stinky · 4 Nov 2014 at 16:43

Hi all,

I hear that the new iMac Retina may not handle gaming very well at all. Has anyone got first hand thoughts on this.

I am toying with the idea of getting one for work, which i would transport home at weekends, for some light gaming. Id like to get back into battlefield / unreal tournament style games.

Would this be a awful move? Baring in mind i would be upgrading to 32gb Ram, 4ghz CPU and the upgraded GFX.

Tunney · 4 Nov 2014 at 17:04

Gaming at the native 5K resolution is going to be out of the question. Change the resolution of games to 2560x1440 and you'll be fine.

Blackhawk47 · 4 Nov 2014 at 18:41

I couldn't imagine anything worse then lugging a massive iMac home every weekend and then back to work on a monday morning. Surely a well spec'd macbook pro would be a better idea.

Stinky · 4 Nov 2014 at 19:32

i already have a macbook pro retina 13" and a 29" display. maybe ill try that first.....

glenimp617 · 4 Nov 2014 at 21:31

The 5k imac is about on par with a geforce 760 (non ti model). It does have a lot more memory so would cope better with higher resolutions, but I just don't think it has the outright firepower for gaming at that res.

I'd say for the demanding games, you'll have to drop to 1080p

Roughneck · 6 Nov 2014 at 21:07

glen8 said:
The 5k imac is about on par with a geforce 760 (non ti model). It does have a lot more memory so would cope better with higher resolutions, but I just don't think it has the outright firepower for gaming at that res.

I'd say for the demanding games, you'll have to drop to 1080p

Yeah I went and checked on GPU BOSS to check out your statement, and your absolutely right

Fallen god · 6 Nov 2014 at 21:38

They should have used the 980GTX. The AMD cards are crazy power hungry, the 290M(laptop GPU) in the base model actual needs more power then the 980GTX (desktop). It's very much a gen 1 device.

Also wouldn't it be cheaper to just get a PC to game with at home and a normal imac

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danielanthony · 8 Nov 2014 at 12:39

There are some reviews on YouTube about the 5K gaming ability, I've just got mine with the X295M gfx and so far its great. But then, I've only been playing XCOM @ 5K with all the settings at high and had no slow down. The fans do kick in though and are surprisingly loud.

fowler002 · 12 Nov 2014 at 23:58

Just no, get/build a half decent spec gaming PC for the fraction of the cost

danielanthony · 14 Nov 2014 at 09:30

fowler002 said:
Just no, get/build a half decent spec gaming PC for the fraction of the cost

That will sound like a jet plane taking off even when you're not using it.

Fallen god · 14 Nov 2014 at 11:41

danielanthony said:
That will sound like a jet plane taking off even when you're not using it.

Really? desktops these days are pretty quite, much quieter then 5k imac when gaming.

arty · 14 Nov 2014 at 17:29

Got mine a couple of days ago and not heard any fan noise yet. Having said that, the only game played so far is Minecraft

Finding the screen a little laggy / blurry in that but it's not bad enough to be unplayable.