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Rytter

macrumors newbie
Dec 31, 2012
16
0
So I've been playing around now with the macfan and by increasing the rpm from 1200 to 1600 I get lower temps even with OC.

So far by setting the RPM to 2150 I can OC the GPU with +200 and mem with +300 and still not even hitting 80c when I'm playing Borderlands 2.
 

Locke S

macrumors newbie
Jan 7, 2013
8
0
Bf 3 fc 3

Tested both BF 3 and FC 3 with the latest Nvidia driver

BF 3 native ULTRA without AA = 45~50FPS

FC3 native Ultra without AA 35 FPS

The iMac scales incredibly well to 1080P BTW both games will hit >60FPS in 1080p

I can upload videos if people want to see specific settings.
 

Rytter

macrumors newbie
Dec 31, 2012
16
0
I've been playing around even more now and I get a graphics score of 8800 now in 3dmark11.
While OC'd both borderlands 2 and max payne 3 (native at max settings) avoid FPS drops compared to no OC where both games tend to drop to 30 FPS during intensive scenes.

The temp is quite stable around 80c +/- and no artefacts so far.

The only thing thing that concerns me is sort of a buzzing sound, which is a bit higher while OC'd, from the area of the Imac where the harddrive seems to be acc. to the teardown pics.
 

swarleystinson

macrumors regular
Aug 12, 2010
118
35
New York, NY
I've been playing around even more now and I get a graphics score of 8800 now in 3dmark11.
While OC'd both borderlands 2 and max payne 3 (native at max settings) avoid FPS drops compared to no OC where both games tend to drop to 30 FPS during intensive scenes.

The temp is quite stable around 80c +/- and no artefacts so far.

The only thing thing that concerns me is sort of a buzzing sound, which is a bit higher while OC'd, from the area of the Imac where the harddrive seems to be acc. to the teardown pics.

Those were the numbers I was expecting it to hit.

That's a relief to hear about the temps.

What's the max fan speed? What do you get when you run it at max?

:eek: If this is true at a lower rom and you get that baby up to say 4 or 5k rpm, I bet you've got a fair bit more room to OC.

Not sure about that buzzing though. Does it sound like its coming from a fan?

----------

Tested both BF 3 and FC 3 with the latest Nvidia driver

BF 3 native ULTRA without AA = 45~50FPS

FC3 native Ultra without AA 35 FPS

The iMac scales incredibly well to 1080P BTW both games will hit >60FPS in 1080p

I can upload videos if people want to see specific settings.

That's seriously impressive for a mobile card.
How does it look in 1080p graphics-wise?I was curious if somehow it looks better on nvidia hardware/drivers/new screen than on ATI. I'm thinking I'd rather play at 1080 with everything ramped up than 1440p. But AA IMO is by no means necessary at native resolution. I thought FC3 looked awesome at 1080p.

If I remember right I got half those numbers on the 6970m benchmarks at 1440p.
 

torana355

macrumors 68040
Dec 8, 2009
3,609
2,676
Sydney, Australia
I'm thinking I'd rather play at 1080 with everything ramped up than 1440p. But AA IMO is by no means necessary at native resolution. I thought FC3 looked awesome at 1080p.

If I remember right I got half those numbers on the 6970m benchmarks at 1440p.

IMO with Far cry 3 as an example i much prefer 1440p with settings turned down then 1080p with everything on ultra. Also as you said no AA is needed at 1440p.
 

Spoon On Guitar

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2013
2
0
Tested both BF 3 and FC 3 with the latest Nvidia driver

BF 3 native ULTRA without AA = 45~50FPS

FC3 native Ultra without AA 35 FPS

The iMac scales incredibly well to 1080P BTW both games will hit >60FPS in 1080p

I can upload videos if people want to see specific settings.


Very yes, take some video evidence of this. :)
 

Rytter

macrumors newbie
Dec 31, 2012
16
0
Those were the numbers I was expecting it to hit.

That's a relief to hear about the temps.

What's the max fan speed? What do you get when you run it at max?

:eek: If this is true at a lower rom and you get that baby up to say 4 or 5k rpm, I bet you've got a fair bit more room to OC.

Not sure about that buzzing though. Does it sound like its coming from a fan?

Sounds like the buzzing comes from the area near the hard drive. Anyone else had that?

The max RPM of the fan is 2700. But doesn't it wear out if running at max for two/three years? :)

The GPU temp in Mountain lion while playing borderlands 2 was maximum 60c. The game does not run as smooth as the bootcamp version.
 

AndiS.

macrumors regular
Dec 16, 2012
181
0
IMO with Far cry 3 as an example i much prefer 1440p with settings turned down then 1080p with everything on ultra. Also as you said no AA is needed at 1440p.

Same here, the higher resolution gives me a lot more, depending on the game. Metro for example looks a lot better to me (subjectively speaking) in native and high settings (or even with normal settings), than 1080p with ultra.
 

swarleystinson

macrumors regular
Aug 12, 2010
118
35
New York, NY
The max RPM of the fan is 2700. But doesn't it wear out if running at max for two/three years?

The GPU temp in Mountain lion while playing borderlands 2 was maximum 60c. The game does not run as smooth as the bootcamp version.

Interesting. I've been wondering if some of these elevated temperatures on the GPU at stock clock are only because there's a problem with Boot Camp recognizing appropriate speeds for Mac on windows. If that's true even after extensive gaming, we may want to be even more cautious with the OC.

As far as fan speeds, I've heard that, but I've heard the opposite. To me it doesn't make sense. If you buy a floor fan, do you never turn it on high for fear it will go out? I'm sure it will shorten the lifespan some, but I doubt it'll go bad in 2-3 yrs. plus, you're not gaming 24/7. Your fans will only be high for the period of time that you are. Just my .02.

----------

Sounds like the buzzing comes from the area near the hard drive. Anyone else had that?

I just read this in a description of an iMac tear down.


* A rubbery housing is lightly adhered to the edges of the hard drive beneath the upper and lower hard plastic bezels. This design is far different from what we’ve seen before. Since the internal components are more tightly packed than before, small vibrations may carry through more components. The rubber housing dampens the vibrations from the spinning hard drive so they are not perpetuated throughout the device.

Maybe this explains it? If it's that bad I would call apple.
 

Razorhog

macrumors 65816
Sep 16, 2006
1,148
116
Arkansas
Currently playing Crysis 2. Doesn't run as well as Far Cry 3. All options are maxed but I have to run at 1600x1200 to get decent frame rates. Anyone playing Assassin's Creed 3? Thinking about playing that next and wonder if it runs ok.
 

MasterHowl

macrumors 65816
Oct 3, 2010
1,056
167
North of England
I'm going to be getting a new iMac this summer, which will replace my mid-2009 MBP. I literally get butterfly's when I think about how excited I am for this performance boost I'm gonna see :p
 

Ryan.Tanner

macrumors regular
Jan 31, 2008
131
0
McKinney, TX
anyone tried guild wars2? (I'm mostly interested in the OSX client)
I installed the Beta Mac Client and played Guild Wars 2 last week. I only played in the starter zones and got to level 5. My settings were maxed at 2560x1440 and I got 35-45fps while running around questing. Not too bad, but not superb. Then again, I could probably tweak the settings a little and it would run great.

When I would go to the major cities were hundreds of other people were, it would dip down to 20-25fps.
 
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Rytter

macrumors newbie
Dec 31, 2012
16
0
As far as fan speeds, I've heard that, but I've heard the opposite. To me it doesn't make sense. If you buy a floor fan, do you never turn it on high for fear it will go out? I'm sure it will shorten the lifespan some, but I doubt it'll go bad in 2-3 yrs. plus, you're not gaming 24/7. Your fans will only be high for the period of time that you are. Just my .02.

I guess you're right here, I'm gonna get a care pack just in case. I hope that will cover any eventual damage :)
Do you think the apple support knows the acceptable temps for the GPU?

I just read this in a description of an iMac tear down.


* A rubbery housing is lightly adhered to the edges of the hard drive beneath the upper and lower hard plastic bezels. This design is far different from what we’ve seen before. Since the internal components are more tightly packed than before, small vibrations may carry through more components. The rubber housing dampens the vibrations from the spinning hard drive so they are not perpetuated throughout the device.

Maybe this explains it? If it's that bad I would call apple.

Yeah it could be, it sounds like it's either coming from the harddrive or the gpu fan. I can hear the sound both OC'd and without but as soon as i tab out to windows it goes away. I've checked all the graphs in EVGA precision and the card behaves the same with or w/o OC except for GPU clock and memory clock.

Don't know if I should call apple since the sound is louder only while the GPU is OC'd :)
 

pigoz

macrumors member
Aug 24, 2007
85
0
Milan, Italy
I installed the Beta Mac Client and played Guild Wars 2 last week. I only played in the starter zones and got to level 5. My settings were maxed at 2560x1440 and I got 35-45fps while running around questing. Not too bad, but not superb. Then again, I could probably tweak the settings a little and it would run great.

When I would go to the major cities were hundreds of other people were, it would dip down to 20-25fps.

Great! I'll be playing windowed at 1080p (need wiki and stuff when playing gw). I think I should be able to max out the details!
 

JamietheMac

macrumors member
Sep 5, 2010
54
1
Scotland
So I gave Metro 2033 a spin with my 27" i5, 1 TB fusion, Win7, 16GB, using 310.90 drivers.

I didn't actually play the game, just ran the included benchmark tool.

DX: 11
Resolution: 1920x1080
Quality: Very High
Antialiasing: AAA
Texture filtering: AF 4X
Enabled advanced PhysX

Average FPS: 43

Official max and min were 114 and 12 respectively, but it never stayed below 20. The most intense bit was at around 22 fps, and didn't look that great, but on the whole it definitely looked playable. Tried changing from DX11 to 10, but it didn't have much of an effet on the fps.
Turning the AA up to MSA 4X and using AF 16X averaged at 32 FPS, and didn't seem as playable. At native res, and AA & TF cranked up, my iMac kneeled down to an average of 21 FPS.

Let me know if I should change anythin.

On a side note, I'm playing Skyrim at native res, with everything maxed out and using all sorts of gfx-mods, and it looks absolutely stunning on this screen!



I think thats a very good score for metro 2033 by what i can remember
 

Rytter

macrumors newbie
Dec 31, 2012
16
0
I guess you're right here, I'm gonna get a care pack just in case. I hope that will cover any eventual damage :)
Do you think the apple support knows the acceptable temps for the GPU?



Yeah it could be, it sounds like it's either coming from the harddrive or the gpu fan. I can hear the sound both OC'd and without but as soon as i tab out to windows it goes away. I've checked all the graphs in EVGA precision and the card behaves the same with or w/o OC except for GPU clock and memory clock.

Don't know if I should call apple since the sound is louder only while the GPU is OC'd :)

I just spoke with the apple support and they ensure that temps around 90c for the GPU is normal and that the card is designed for that. He also told me that my noise came from the fan and should'nt be anything to be worried about!
 

luffytubby

macrumors 6502a
Jan 22, 2008
684
0
Still planning on OCing tongiht and seeing how far I can push the card, but I tried GW2 out this morning.

2560x1440, every setting on high/ultra except no FXAA (don't like what it does to trees/foliage), vsync on: 60fps capped. That's in Frostforge Gorge running around and fighting random things. Didn't drop below.

For reference, my RMBP w/ 650m struggled with the game. ~45fps if I was lucky on a variety of low settings at 1680x1050. This also caused a ridiculous amount of heat and 5,000+ RPM fans and severe throttling after playing for a while.

Very substantial upgrade for me :)

Fynd, on both the iMac and rMBP, were you using Bootcamp or Mac OSX client? It sounds like an extreme difference. That your rMBP was throttling? And it was not a SMC reset issue?
 

AndiS.

macrumors regular
Dec 16, 2012
181
0
Are i5-680 vs i7-680 benchmarks available somewhere?

can't give you a link, but if you go back in this thread there are some comparisons. In games and the Heaven Benchmark, there doesn't seem to be a difference.
 

Locke S

macrumors newbie
Jan 7, 2013
8
0
As promised, FC3 will come.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZWg9m4_sM4


http://youtu.be/PLD3Uwk1wv0

----------

Those were the numbers I was expecting it to hit.

That's a relief to hear about the temps.

What's the max fan speed? What do you get when you run it at max?

:eek: If this is true at a lower rom and you get that baby up to say 4 or 5k rpm, I bet you've got a fair bit more room to OC.

Not sure about that buzzing though. Does it sound like its coming from a fan?

----------



That's seriously impressive for a mobile card.
How does it look in 1080p graphics-wise?I was curious if somehow it looks better on nvidia hardware/drivers/new screen than on ATI. I'm thinking I'd rather play at 1080 with everything ramped up than 1440p. But AA IMO is by no means necessary at native resolution. I thought FC3 looked awesome at 1080p.

If I remember right I got half those numbers on the 6970m benchmarks at 1440p.
s promised, FC3 will come.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZWg9m4_sM4


http://youtu.be/PLD3Uwk1wv0
 
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