How to Make a Mac Killer

Core spec

Now we get into an area where our PC can start to throw its weight around. The iMac’s all-in-one casing limits it to using laptop components (it has a 3.5in hard disk), thanks to space and heat dissipation issues. When it comes to graphics, the iMac’s GeForce GT 120 is no match for our Mac Killer’s Sapphire 1GB HD 4870 Vapor-X.

It’s a superior product in every way, as it’s much more powerful for games. While the iMac supports a second screen via D-SUB or DVI (with an adaptor), it isn’t HDCP-compliant, unlike our graphics card. Our card also has the benefit of a ViVo port.

When it comes to CPUs, the two machines are more closely matched. Both have 45nm dual-core Intel CPUs, although our Mac Killer’s chip is clocked at 3GHz compared to 2.93GHz for the Mac. This is at stock speed, though, and we’ve used a full ATX motherboard and water-cooling, so we’ve overclocked the Core 2 Duo E8400 in our Mac Killer to 4GHz.

The iMac has a slight advantage when it comes to memory, with 1,066MHz DDR3; with our overclock, we used a divider and dropped the speed of our memory to 888MHz. That said, the winner in this area is as clear as the winner in the looks department: our PC’s CPU and graphics card are much quicker.

Display

Both the iMac and the Mac Killer have 24in screens with 16:10 aspect ratio panels and native resolutions of 1,920 x 1,200. Having just completed a Labs test on 24in TFT displays for Custom PC magazine, it was a no-brainer to select the winner, HP’s LP2475w, for our build (review online soon), and also to use similar testing methods for both screens. You can read about the tests in full on p68, but in brief, it comprises synthetic technical tests from Lagom, in addition to real-world app, movie and games tests.

We began with HD video – the 1080p QuickTime trailer for the movie ‘Serenity’. The blacks produced by the iMac’s screen were respectable and much better than those on many of the budget displays we saw in the Labs. The shadowy parts of the trailer weren’t as grey as on some of the cheaper displays, but they weren’t as rich or varied as on the HP. There was also some minor colour banding on the iMac, and it struggled to produce even blends of colour in some areas.

Another problem we had with the iMac display was its reflectivity. The sheet of glass over the iMac’s panel adds to the its premium feel and intensifies colours and black. However, in direct light it turns into a mirror, and you end up looking at your own face rather than what’s on the screen. With bright colours, the backlight of the iMac’s display appears even, but switching to a white background (such as that of a word processing document) shows some uneven areas.

The document we used to test whites also showed inconsistency in the way the iMac displayed text. Some characters were slightly fainter than others, while some were fuzzy at the edges. In contrast, the HP display produced brighter, clearer whites and more consistent rows of identical digits, making it easier on the eye when running word processing apps.

When we tested Crysis on the HP for our Labs test, we were awed by the lush variety of colours produced in the game’s exotic jungle landscapes. Playing games on the HP was a pleasure. With that visual feast of a gaming experience fresh in our minds, firing up Crysis on the iMac was disappointing. Compared with the HP, the foliage was washed-out and monotone, which was made worse by being able to see your reflection clearly in the jet black of the assault rifle. From a practicality standpoint, the HP also benefits from useful extras such as an adjustable height stand, and an on-screen display that allows control over image settings. Macs are often touted as great for digital images, but the superior quality of our screen makes it better for editing and displaying photos.