The 6970m in the iMac has a PassMark - G3D Mark benchmark of 2,635 compared to 3,243 for the 6950 card.http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Nice! I was considering upgrading my 3 year old 8 core 3.2 ghz MacPro for your iMac config but Apple was kind enough to give me a brand new 8 core 2.4 ghz MacPro when my system wouldn't boot up and they couldn't fix the problem. I was 34 months into Apple care when that occurred! Try that with an HP!!! Great to see fellow macheads running FSX! With the rumors of Apple dropping the MP line iMac's will be the new power machines (so it seems for now!!).I run an autonomous Win7 HD in my new MP and FSX runs great!!

does anyone know how much ram is usable in Win7 64bit if I have a 4GB ram in my MacBook Pro? and is it a issue if there is a less-than-3gb memory if I want to run complexed scenery and effects on FSX?

does anyone know how much ram is usable in Win7 64bit if I have a 4GB ram in my MacBook Pro? and is it a issue if there is a less-than-3gb memory if I want to run complexed scenery and effects on FSX?

64bit Windows 7 will use all the ram you can install in the MacBook Pro.Pete Mac PaintPMDG Graphic Designer

ehm, I am sorry guys, but how does a mac with i7 and Radeon 6970 and et cetera differ from a pc with i7 and Radeon 6970 and et cetera?I dont even like the whitey design, even if I dont care much about that part.

ehm, I am sorry guys, but how does a mac with i7 and Radeon 6970 and et cetera differ from a pc with i7 and Radeon 6970 and et cetera?I dont even like the whitey design, even if I dont care much about that part.

Depends on the specific setup.If you're running windows through Parallels (or some other VM) it won't run well at all.If you're running Windows with Boot Camp, it should perform identically to a PC with the same hardware. The major difference being you won't be able to overclock that i7 to 4+ GHz.I run FSX on a PC (as noted in sig).I run everything else (including all my work) on a MBP.

ehm, I am sorry guys, but how does a mac with i7 and Radeon 6970 and et cetera differ from a pc with i7 and Radeon 6970 and et cetera?I dont even like the whitey design, even if I dont care much about that part.

Let's be clear here: The essential parts that make up a Mac are the very same parts that make up any PC, with very few exceptions such as the Intel Core 2 Duo chip in the 2008 Macbook Air for example.It is also often true that if you ordered these components yourself and threw it all together, or bought a similarly spec'ed machine from a regular PC vendor you'd save yourself some of your hard earned cash.BUT if you come to appreciate Apples engineering/design/support/OS and you prefer a Mac over a PC you CAN get yourself a Mac that also handles FSX reasonably well. Not as well as a overclocked gaming machine with the same or better components, but well enough to run the NGX and fly into FSDT LAX with REX, UTraffic on 100%, UTerrain.Cheers,Alex

Alex is exactly right.This is placebo if you think an iMac running Windows 7 in bootcamp is performing "way better" in FSX than a normal PC with the same specs. There is zero difference in the hardware - it's an Intel CPU running on an Intel chipset motherboard, DDR3 RAM, with an AMD/ATI video card (which are subpar in FSX vs. Nvidia ones anyway, especially when involving thick cloud layers, AA quality etc). Having an Apple logo on the front doesn't make that hardware perform differently when running Windows than a normal PC. Macs do not support overclocking (or any kind of tweaking of the hardware settings) either - overclocking has a huge effect in FSX as we all know. You can easily build a custom PC that performs better in FSX for half the cost of any of the high end Macs.