Best iMac for using with Second Life?

[Pussycat Catnap]

Time to buy a new computer, and because I'm going to be developing apps for iPhone / iPad soon, I've got to 'return' to being a Mac user again (left in 09 when I could not afford a new Mac but had to buy a laptop).

iOS SDK runs on Mac, or perhaps Hackintosh, but that's not exactly legal and would likely limit me elsewhere - so I'm thinking an iMac or a Mac Mani as the Mac Pro desktops are just insanely overpriced.

I do a lot of graphical work - and would love to get back to doing 3D art again, but that's less about having a 3D-graphics board than it is about ram and processor for rendering.

But SL has some harsh graphics requirements at times, and so I'd like to know which Mac, most likely iMac, I can dial it up the most with.

Suggestions?

Will the 21" $1199 one do just as well as the others? I'll be using it dual screen since my old dead PC desktop died only a few months after I'd bought a great 25" Samsung widescreen for it. So for 2 years I've had this amazing monitor sitting unplugged on a cluttered desk above a burnt out PC... O.o

 

And does the cauton thread I see regarding Lion mean I'll be forced into a TPV?

 

 

[Lee Ponzu]

In my opinion, it comes down to GPU as the first issue.  What are the options on the current iMacs and minis?  ((I go look))

 

OK.  Back.

 

Mini, NOT the one with intel graphics, the other one.

iMAc  Any.  the more expensive ones have slightly better GPU.

 

By the way, it is usually very easy to upgrade memory on an iMac yourself, buying memory from, for example, www.crucial.com.  So if you get 4GB but want 8GB, consider doing it yourself.

 

 

[Abigail Raymaker]

I recently bought the entry level $1199 iMac and I'm very happy with it. The two-mid range models have the same basic GPU, it's just higher clocked than the one in the entry level machine. I don't know if the nominal 15% increase in perfomance will actually make a noticeable difference in real life use, especially on Second Life. The high end 27" iMac, however, has a significanlty better GPU and comes with twice as much memory. 

[Mikki Miles]

I'm on a 27" iMac (3,4 GHz i7) for 3 weeks now, and it's great. Viewer 2 is a different thing on a big screen (I worked on a15" MBP before)

though, I have to say it's even better (atm?) when I run the viewer on windows/bootcamp