So I think we have established that the 680 is fast, after running a game that pushes the card hard for an hour or so, how is the fan speed/noise?
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680MX Benchmarks please
- Thread starter tacokisses
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I have to admit, if the 680MX GPU is to be an Apple "exclusive" I would be concerned that NVIDIA may not invest so much time and effort developing Windows drivers - why would they? I have the AMD 6970M (2011 iMac) and every couple of months there are new Windows drivers optimised for the latest games and applications.
This is a very good point. It should be very easy making drivers for the 680MX, since it's just a downclocked desktop 680, right? Looking at early benchmarks, I can't help but wonder how much faster it would run with "optimised" drivers. What kind of drivers are you using for the 680MX in Windows 7 so far? (Sorry if this have already been stated.)
You have the option to use Apple's Bootcamp drivers or Nvidia's beta drivers. Nvidia's drivers are not supported but it works. It will also perform much better than Apple's.
^
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This please! also if someone has the answer, would like to know what would likely generate more heat. An i7 processor (as opposed to i5) or a 680MX (pitched against the 675MX).
Essentially trying to decide the set-up I want to buy between
(1) i5/680MX and
(2) i7/675MX
It's all come down to thermals
I used the Guru3D Crysis Benchmark Tool to assist in running the built-in Crysis Timedemo benchmark_gpu. The demo was looped twice and the framerate averaged by the tool. All runs were set on Very High quality at panel native 2560x1440 and run with the 32-bit version from Steam.
Run #1- DX9 AA=2x~~Average FPS:45.73
Run #2- DX9 AA=4x~~Average FPS:41.48
Run #3- DX9 AA=8x~~Average FPS:39.47
Run #4- DX10 AA=2x~~Average FPS:33.14
Run #5- DX10 AA=4x~~Average FPS:31.08
Run #6- DX10 AA=8x~~Average FPS:30.09
I've been playing X-Plane 10 with it last night to test it out a bit, this game will melt a desktop GPU with its settings on max!
The fan noise is about the same level as my previous iMac (late 2009 with a Radeon 4850), but has a higher pitch sound if that makes any sense. Difficult to describe.
One thing I did notice is the heat dissipation is much better. My other iMac would get red hot, whereas this one only gets hot near the opening of the rear fan, but the rest of the computer is slightly warm. The fan seems to work more efficiently since it draws in a lot of air from the vents at the bottom (where the speakers are).
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So...for those of us who are only occasional gamers, is there any reason besides gaming to go with the 680 over the 675? I'm about to put that 27" iMac in my cart, but am waffling on the graphics upgrade.
Reading what I am here, I'm highly tempted to play more games
Reading what I am here, I'm highly tempted to play more games
I'm the same (although my order is already in for the 675 + i7 but I am seriously considering changing it to the 680 + i5). Don't seem to be able to make my mind up and the time to change it is ticking more loudly by the minute.
So...for those of us who are only occasional gamers, is there any reason besides gaming to go with the 680 over the 675? I'm about to put that 27" iMac in my cart, but am waffling on the graphics upgrade.
Reading what I am here, I'm highly tempted to play more games
For $150, I think it is a bargain -- based alone on the fact that the 680 doubles the 3DMark 11 score of the 670 and doubles the video memory. With many pro and entertainment apps using up all or more of 1G VRAM, think of it as "future proofing."
Mine was just delivered at my office this morning. It was scheduled for delivery on Monday the 17th. I'll be bootcamping and installing various benchmarking tools. Hopefully I can report back some results later tonight!
summary of FENN's benchmarks
To save you from scouring the first five pages of this thread,
FENN's 2011 iMac w/ 6970M
Heaven = 26 FPS
LuxMark (OpenCL) = 492 Ksamples/sec
FurMark = 19 FPS
GiMark = 43 FPS
3DMark 11 = 3287 score
FENN's 2012 iMac w/ 680MX
Heaven = 52 FPS
LuxMark (OpenCL) = 430 Ksamples/sec
FurMark = 30 FPS
GiMark = 58 FPS
3DMark 11 = 6883 score
BARE FEATS 2010 Mac Pro w/ 680 Classified
Heaven = 77 FPS
LuxMark (OpenCL) = won't run in GPU only mode
FurMark = 41 FPS
GiMark = 89 FPS
3DMark 11 = 9444 score
All above were run under Windows. Early next week I plan to post results for the first four benchmarks running under OS X on the same three Macs.
If any of you have other models of iMac, please post your results for the first four benchmarks (see procedures earlier in this thread). And if you are running Windows, please use the default "Performance" preset for 3DMark 11 .
To save you from scouring the first five pages of this thread,
FENN's 2011 iMac w/ 6970M
Heaven = 26 FPS
LuxMark (OpenCL) = 492 Ksamples/sec
FurMark = 19 FPS
GiMark = 43 FPS
3DMark 11 = 3287 score
FENN's 2012 iMac w/ 680MX
Heaven = 52 FPS
LuxMark (OpenCL) = 430 Ksamples/sec
FurMark = 30 FPS
GiMark = 58 FPS
3DMark 11 = 6883 score
BARE FEATS 2010 Mac Pro w/ 680 Classified
Heaven = 77 FPS
LuxMark (OpenCL) = won't run in GPU only mode
FurMark = 41 FPS
GiMark = 89 FPS
3DMark 11 = 9444 score
All above were run under Windows. Early next week I plan to post results for the first four benchmarks running under OS X on the same three Macs.
If any of you have other models of iMac, please post your results for the first four benchmarks (see procedures earlier in this thread). And if you are running Windows, please use the default "Performance" preset for 3DMark 11 .
In my opinion, for "part time" gamers the 675 is fine...save the 150 and put it towards the extra RAM....again, just my opinion....
How about for gamers who don't need AA or Shadows cranked, but need to livestream the games they're playing.
Nvidia forum
I wrote a post on Nvidia official forum about the concern with the next windows drivers being not optimized for the 680MX.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/525662/geforce-drivers/680mx-windows-drivers/
Hopefully we will get an official answer.
I wrote a post on Nvidia official forum about the concern with the next windows drivers being not optimized for the 680MX.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/525662/geforce-drivers/680mx-windows-drivers/
Hopefully we will get an official answer.
Thanks! Hopefully more mac users will bug Nvidia about this, until we finally get an answer/proper driver. I hope there's still more performance to be gained with 680MX than we're seeing now, if we get more mature, proper official Nvidia drivers. Quite frankly the performance of 680MX in Windows was a bit disappointing.
I already had an official response from them (previously in this thread).
They will be providing drivers for the 680MX. I was speaking to a representative.
Everybody is talking about Windows drivers... does anyone know if Apple keeps up to date on the drivers for OSX? I'm more of a casual gamer, so I am not going to install Windows just to game.
The OS X drivers will be safe and stable. If you want performance updates, you need to game in Windows.
I guess it depends on the games, but if the games you're going to play are FPS-dependent (like shooters and action games), definately go bootcamp. It's not that much hassle to use bootcamp, although with a fusion drive Windows in bootcamp will generally be much slower than OSX, except for the gaming experience which will be noticably better.
Has anyone tried to run a game in Parallels ? What is the difference in Parallels and Bootcamp?
Thanks
Thanks
All sounds very tasty, need to get on and order mine. Will anyone be benchmarking Dragon Age: Origins, Oblivion, Skrym or Fallout 3? Not that I think any of those actually have proper benchmark tools :/