pc to mac

hello,

I am going to transfer from my old pc (amd sempron 3000+) to a mac.
I can buy a new mac mini (i already have a flat panel) the low end model
1.83ghz core 2 duo and 1 gig ram. or a used Imac 17 1.83ghz dual core g5.
my question is which one is the best for me?
I want to play some classic games like halo, and half life 2 (I saw on youtube that it runs on a macbook very well and it uses the same graphics card)
I also want to use it for browsing the web and for mediacentre on my tv.
I also want to dualboot between mac osx and xp (not for hard programs)

OK, well some things.

The Mac Mini isn't great for 3D games, period. I have played Halo on my MacBook, and you have to have the settings on the lowest possible to get a playable framerate. I can only imagine that Half Life 2 will be similar.

If you want to dual boot into Windows, then you have to get the Intel. The iMac G5 cannot do this, although you could use Virtual PC if you're only using it for very light processes. All things being equal though, you'd be much better of running it native on Intel.

So, I'd get the Mini, but really don't expect it to run games all that well. Those YouTube videos are deceiving because they're so small, you cannot see that they're running in 640*480 resolution with all the shaders and shadows off. Get the Mini, and get an Xbox or PS3 to play games...

Or you could get a lower-end iMac and use your extra flat panel to run extended desktop.

I recently gave my mom my old iMac and hooked up her old flat panel. Extended desktop looks and works great.

There will be no problems with dual booting using bootcamp and browsing. But about gaming I am not so sure. Personaly I am using my iMac almost the same as your mantioned MacMini (spec. are near my avatar) and my iMac has GMA 950 integrated graphic card too. I played HL2 with all low setings with some "teleportations", but quite good Hallo 2 doesn't even started for me MacMini isn't for gaming. But I played new Tomb Rider, counter strike 1.6, sim city 4. Some older games are working perfectly on my Mac.