GeForce GT 640M vs. 650M

[Asgorath]

Originally Posted by HurtinMinorKey

I'm not sure i completely understand this, but nonetheless it scares the **** out of me. Are you saying Macs don't support DirectX 11, even if the GPUs do?

Right, Mac OS X supports OpenGL 2.1 (which is comparable to DX9) and 3.2 via the core profile (which is comparable to DX10). Macs do not support OpenGL 4.x (which is comparable to DX11) even though the GPUs have for at least the last ~2 years -- for example, all the AMD GPUs from the 2011 Macs support DX11, but the Apple software does not. Same for the NVIDIA 2012 models, even the Quadro 4000 card supports DX11 in hardware.

[Serban]

I will get an imac 21.5" with fusion drive in about 2-3 months.
I look for the imac beside the design i will have a more practical desktop without any cables(except the power one).
I do not play any games anymore, only starcraft 2/diablo 3/dota.
For the full hd i mean 1920*1080 witch will be more than i play in present (1280x1024) on my 19" monitor, will be any visual difference? Can those kind of games play smoothly on high settings? when i mean smoothly i mean over 30fsp right ?

I think im getting the 640m because the big difference between 640m and 650m is the fps on low resolutions.
At high and ultra the differences are around 5-10fps

[sapam]

Originally Posted by Serban

I think im getting the 640m because the big difference between 640m and 650m is the fps on low resolutions.
At high and ultra the differences are around 5-10fps

At lower fps .. even this 5-10 fps gain or lost makes the difference between playable and unplayable.

So, even for casual gaming i honestly believe 650M is a lot wiser choice than 640M. FusionDrive or SSD HDD will never be able to have any impact on gaming FPS.

I personally have went full Circle deciding what to get. I currently got 2010 13" macBookPro and wanted to get a iMac. was a bit disappointed with the 2012 iMac when it got released. Price Hike was one of the reason. Everything is at least 1.3x expensive in my country (India). I work with Photo/Video editing and graphics 2D/3D. And I do some Gaming ( only Simulation of car, Plane, Space genre).
So, I went to look out for building a windows PC and for the same price of a entry level iMac 21.5 2012, I could get the following config:
CPU: Intel i7 3770k
Mobo: ASRock Extreme 4 z77
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 670 2GB DDR5
RAM: 16GB 1600
Corsair PSU, Coolermaster Cabinet, 1GB HDD etc...

And this is one beast powerhouse. But on further scrutiny of my need and the pro and cons I had finally settled to get the iMac 21.5" 2.9Ghz 650M instead.

There were many reasons why i went for this, some being:
- iMac runs Cooler a lot cooler than the PC. Ambient temp at my city runs about 30-40 C or 86-104 F in summer.
- iMac consumes less electricity. Electric is expensive here. and i normally run my computer 24x7
- iMac Great LED backlit Screen.
- 75% of the Applications I already bought/purchased and use is Mac App.

Obviously, I am going to miss the Musclepower of the PC but with an i5 and 650M the iMac is not a weak Computer either. Its pretty decent and could handle the work i do comfortably.

Thats my Two cents.

[Serban]

i just preordered two days ago a 21.5" iMac at 2.9 Ghz quad core i5, 8 Gb ram, 1 T fusion drive, 650M. They say will last 4 weeks until arrives

[2Turbo]

Originally Posted by kaellar

Anyone talking about 30% performance difference between 640m and 650m doesn't consider the fact that DDR3 vs GDDR5 is what makes 20-25% of that difference. Since Apple uses both 640m and 650m with GDDR5 (which I'm sure even have the same memory chips with identical working freqs), both will OC to the same point. If you use Bootcamp for gaming (and I don't know anyone who doesn't), the difference between these two GPUs can be easily eliminated.

Has anyone confirmed this is possible? If so, I'm getting the 640m instead of 650m.

[forty2j]

Originally Posted by 2Turbo

Has anyone confirmed this is possible? If so, I'm getting the 640m instead of 650m.

The facts check out - they're both GK107 chips with the same number of shaders, and Apple's given them both the same VRAM. So it's theoretically possible. Of course, the way this normally plays out is that the 640m is reject chips that didn't quite pass the test to qualify as 650ms, so you have to pretty lucky to snag one without stability issues when you overclock.

[2Turbo]

Originally Posted by forty2j

The facts check out - they're both GK107 chips with the same number of shaders, and Apple's given them both the same VRAM. So it's theoretically possible. Of course, the way this normally plays out is that the 640m is reject chips that didn't quite pass the test to qualify as 650ms, so you have to pretty lucky to snag one without stability issues when you overclock.

Dang... Not sure if the performance diff (stock) is worth it tho.

I only need it to play Call of Duty MW3. Wonder if 650m can handle 1080p high settings?

[historyteacher]

I know this is a little simple minded for all you over clocking gaming gurus, but what about imovie. That is one of my primary uses. Lags horrible on the old 2008 MacBook. Going to be a getting a new 21.5 iMac. Probably 16gb ram and fusion. Should I go 640 or 650?

Thanks!

[2Turbo]

I'm so mad Apple gave us only 512 vram. sucks this time!!!!

[kaellar]

Originally Posted by 2Turbo

Has anyone confirmed this is possible? If so, I'm getting the 640m instead of 650m.

Dude, DON'T GO with 640m iMac if you plan gaming on it. Since the time I posted that quoted message, it turned out that 640m in iMac uses 64-bit gddr5, unlike the other gk107 chips with 128-bit bus. The impact is really huge. In fact, baseline 2012 iMac doesn't provide ANY extra GPU performance over the 2011 ones with 6750m/6770m. Be aware of it.