[Pierre B.]

So, now that the 20" iMac is out, could one predict/estimate gaming performance of the machine? The graphics card does not seem powerful enough to allow decent playing at native resolution. Of course that depends on the game. What do your think? How playing in this machine would be for the most popular/known/recent games (RtCW an up)?

[madmacgames]

Another big factor will be the size of the L2 cache, and if the L2 is small, the existance of an L3. I haven't had time to check out the specs yet so I dunno what the L2 is, but last I knew, Apple had been keeping all the i series (iMac, iBook) to the smaller 256k L2, which makes for terrible gameplay on some games even with a good graphic card.

Probably video card + L2 will be the 2 big determining factors... of coarse there are others (RAM, HD space, etc) but if the graphics card and L2 are not up to par, you can forget playing certain newer games. As I recall for example, UT2003 is not officially supported on machines with an L2 of 256k or less and no L3.

[Pierre B.]

Originally posted by madmacgames:
I haven't had time to check out the specs yet so I dunno what the L2 is, but last I knew, Apple had been keeping all the i series (iMac, iBook) to the smaller 256k L2, which makes for terrible gameplay on some games even with a good graphic card.

Right, it is exactly the iMac's case (even in the 20" model): 256KB L2, no L3.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Graphics card not powerful enough? It's the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra....it's no Radeon 9600, but it's no slouch by any means, either.

As was said, the processor is the real limiting factor.

greg