04-04-2011, 11:01 PM

Hey there everyone, I've been working on setting up Windows 7 on my new Imac to play games via Parallels Desktop, but I was wondering if it is possible to upgrade the graphics card of an Imac? I know you can't really get into it the Imac to swap them, but I was curious as to if you could upgrade your graphics via a USB connected graphics card? I was also wondering if it would work via Parallels desktop, because my imac won't let me set up bootcamp without wiping my computer and starting fresh. thanks!

04-04-2011, 11:26 PM

Originally Posted by Paradethejared

Hey there everyone, I've been working on setting up Windows 7 on my new Imac to play games via Parallels Desktop,

Let me stop you there. While it is technically possible to run games via virtualization product like Parallels, it's not the best way to do so. Parallels and VMWare Fusion have some limited support for 3D acceleration, but you will not get the same experience that you would running Windows under Boot Camp.

but I was wondering if it is possible to upgrade the graphics card of an Imac?

Possible? Yes. Practical? No. The graphics card on some iMac models is a daughterboard, and theoretically it could be upgraded, but the availability and cost of such a part, as well as the installation, would easily outweigh the cost of buying a desktop PC with equivalent processing and graphics power.

I know you can't really get into it the Imac to swap them, but I was curious as to if you could upgrade your graphics via a USB connected graphics card?

The USB 2.0 bus has a peak bandwidth of 480Mb/s. The PCIe bus that most graphics cards operate on is several orders of magnitude faster than that. Although USB graphics cards exist, they are mostly geared toward adding more monitors and have little or no graphics processing power.

I was also wondering if it would work via Parallels desktop, because my imac won't let me set up bootcamp without wiping my computer and starting fresh. thanks!

Sounds like another problem for a different thread, but it's unlikely that you'd need to do a full wipe. This issue has been addressed elsewhere here and there are many methods for doing it.