IMac and PS5 , some questions

Hi to all ,


At home, I have a Macbook Air M3 16/512, iPhone 16 Pro, AW10 and other Apple products. I wanted to buy an iMac for home, but I have a small problem: my desk has a 32'' LG monitor for the PS5. My question is whether I can use the iMac with the PS5 as a monitor only when I use the console... I don't think so, but I'm asking for information.


Thanks

Posted on Nov 5, 2025 1:45 AM

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Posted on Nov 5, 2025 2:25 AM

No.


You cannot use any recent iMac as a cabled monitor for any other device. Some old Macs made between 2009 and mid 2014 had a feature called Target Display Mode, but it went away in Late 2014 when the first 27" 5K Retina iMac came out, and never returned.


If the LG monitor has multiple video inputs, you may be able to connect it both to the PS5 and to a new Mac (iMac, Mac mini, etc.). I'm guessing that this LG monitor is a 4K one and doesn't have the same Retina pixel density as a 24" M4 iMac, a 27" Apple 5K Studio Display, or a 32" Apple 6K Pro Display XDR. But there are Mac users who are using Mac minis in combination with 32" 4K monitors and like that arrangement.


A M4 Mac mini or M4 Pro Mac mini is very small and so likely would be easy to fit on the desk next to existing stuff, and ones with M4 Pro chips are higher-end than the M4 iMacs as far as the GPU goes. Just throwing that out – in case the issue is that you want a desktop Mac, but there's not enough room on the desk both for that 32" LG, and for a 24" iMac.

4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 5, 2025 2:25 AM in response to Birkhoff92

No.


You cannot use any recent iMac as a cabled monitor for any other device. Some old Macs made between 2009 and mid 2014 had a feature called Target Display Mode, but it went away in Late 2014 when the first 27" 5K Retina iMac came out, and never returned.


If the LG monitor has multiple video inputs, you may be able to connect it both to the PS5 and to a new Mac (iMac, Mac mini, etc.). I'm guessing that this LG monitor is a 4K one and doesn't have the same Retina pixel density as a 24" M4 iMac, a 27" Apple 5K Studio Display, or a 32" Apple 6K Pro Display XDR. But there are Mac users who are using Mac minis in combination with 32" 4K monitors and like that arrangement.


A M4 Mac mini or M4 Pro Mac mini is very small and so likely would be easy to fit on the desk next to existing stuff, and ones with M4 Pro chips are higher-end than the M4 iMacs as far as the GPU goes. Just throwing that out – in case the issue is that you want a desktop Mac, but there's not enough room on the desk both for that 32" LG, and for a 24" iMac.

Nov 5, 2025 9:37 AM in response to Birkhoff92

I agree with Servant of Cats in that the Mini would be your best choice. If the monitor doesn't have two video/data inputs then a KVM switch would be you best solution. With it you can easily switch between the PS5 and the Mini.


As for the Mini, I recommend the 16 GB RAM, 10 core model with a 1 TB SSD. It will run $999 US.


I just got one and paired it with an LG 4K 32" monitor. It runs rings around my Intel Mac. No matter which way you go, i.e. two video port on the monitor or just one be sure to get a high quality video/data cable for the Mini to monitor.


IMac and PS5 , some questions

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