For some reasons I may need to get an iMac (the most basic entry here). How is its hardware when it comes to gaming? I am thinking of booting it in Windows 7 using bootcamp.
The only real issue you’ll encounter is which games will run on it in the first place, and that won’t be a problem if you’re dual-booting. Unless, of course, you’re planning on playing whatever is the current bleeding-edge game that requires a video card that won’t be released for two more years, but if you were looking at a game like that, you’d already know what details to go into.
Unless your gaming world consists solely of medium-settings World of Warcraft, you’re not going to be happy gaming on a 21.5" screen using a 256MB 4670 Mobility.
That’s assuming a Win7 driver for an Apple OEM card even exists. You’re DOA if it doesn’t.
I have an early 2006 iMac. I figure anything I can run, you can run 100x better.
Starcraft II is a-ok on my machine. I run it at 1440x900, but with pretty low settings otherwise. It’s absolutely fine.
Civ IV runs fine.
Source games like Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Day of Defeat:Source all barely run on my machine under OS X, but work fine under Windows 7 (which I just discovered thanks to another thread). I guess the Windows drivers are better for my video card; ymmv.
The only real problem you’re going to have is that you can’t upgrade the video card later. Other than that, you shouldn’t have any problems running much of anything, really.