Has anyone tried the 6970m with 2gb for gaming yet?

[hipnotizer]

Ordered my i7 with 2gb 6970m last week. Wondering if anyone has received there's yet and how it is for gaming so far at native resolution.

[Lord Appleseed]

In before Mobility GPU haters!

On Topic: I have ordered it last week, so it should come end of this week, or latest beginning of the next. I too am very excited.

[archer75]

Yes, I have it here now. Only played Civ5, Sims 3 and WoW on it so far. But not enough to really say if it works well or not.

[Badger^2]

How Much RAM Does Your Graphics Card Really Need?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...4870,2428.html


http://barefeats.com/imac11b.html

Though the top 3.4GHz iMac with the Radeon HD 6970M has the optional 2GB of video memory, it scores no faster than the 3.1GHz iMac with the same GPU but 1GB of video memory.

[Lord Appleseed]

Originally Posted by Badger^2

How Much RAM Does Your Graphics Card Really Need?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...4870,2428.html


http://barefeats.com/imac11b.html

Though the top 3.4GHz iMac with the Radeon HD 6970M has the optional 2GB of video memory, it scores no faster than the 3.1GHz iMac with the same GPU but 1GB of video memory.

And here we go. I was expecting something like this sooner or later.
We have enough threads that discuss if 2gb is necessary or not, this is about real life experience.
I think you are quite right though, it wont help much, but games with huge Distant-LoDs could profit from the additional VRAM.

[hipnotizer]

I do find it interesting that they stated portal 2 used up to 96% of the vram in the 1gb model though. I can forsee in the future the 2gb model paying off.

[Lord Appleseed]

Originally Posted by hipnotizer

I do find it interesting that they stated portal 2 used up to 96% of the vram in the 1gb model though. I can forsee in the future the 2gb model paying off.

Yes, me too. But only in the not too far future...

[archer75]

Portal 1 isn't a demanding game. So I wouldn't expect to see high hardware use out of it.

However from the barefeats article:

"Though our tests didn't, there are some apps that will use up all the 1GB. For example, when we were running Portal 2 tests (which we will soon post), we saw as high as 96% use of the 1G of VRAM."

Portal 2 isn't that demanding either.

I'm attempting to use the same atMonitor they used for their tests but so far can't get it to log anything.

[TallManNY]

I'm leaning toward the 2Gb version myself. The GPU has always been the iMac's Achilles' Heel and even this 6970m will be bested by improved mobile cards before the end of this year and obviously can't stack up to current high-end desktop cards. Since we will want to game in native resolution and that was where they sometimes saw differences between 2gb and 1gb card, this might be the BTO upgrade for a casual gamer like me.

[5piN]

This should help a lot of people sitting on the fence....

http://en.expreview.com/2010/08/08/e...on/9041.html/8

http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles...ALYSIS/P1.html

6970 is not really gonna handle 8xAA at native...

[archer75]

Well atmontior doesn't work, I contected the devs and they are aware of the issue.

Any other utility out there that can measure vram?

[panzer06]

Originally Posted by Lord Appleseed

And here we go. I was expecting something like this sooner or later.
We have enough threads that discuss if 2gb is necessary or not, this is about real life experience.
I think you are quite right though, it wont help much, but games with huge Distant-LoDs could profit from the additional VRAM.

Also, as expensive as the top end iMac is, does an extra $100 matter? If you can afford $2000, $2100 is probably not an issue. I'm too cheap to buy the top end but if I wasn't I'd go with the top GPU and while I'm at it I might get the 2TB + SSD option to really top it off.

Cheers,

[Toadette]

Originally Posted by panzer06

Also, as expensive as the top end iMac is, does an extra $100 matter? If you can afford $2000, $2100 is probably not an issue. I'm too cheap to buy the top end but if I wasn't I'd go with the top GPU and while I'm at it I might get the 2TB + SSD option to really top it off.

Cheers,

I added the VRAm because it is the only thing that could't be upgraded later in my view, the RAM is better to do yourself, I think with TB we'll be seeing SSD storage at full SATA speeds in the near future.

And the only roper game I have is Portal....

[sonarghost]

Originally Posted by hipnotizer

I do find it interesting that they stated portal 2 used up to 96% of the vram in the 1gb model though. I can forsee in the future the 2gb model paying off.

Originally Posted by Lord Appleseed

Yes, me too. But only in the not too far future...

That's what I am not understanding from many people that say that the card is "overkill". We are talking about a CURRENT game taking 96% ram of the 1gb (virtually maxed out). I agree with what the other 2 posters were saying and am wondering if I am just missing some details of why some don't see us using much more vram in just games around the corner? BF3 maybe? At the rapid speed that games evolve with graphics intensity isn't it worth to do a $100.00 upgrade?

[archer75]

I spent some more time with wow and these are my results, I am running at native resolution, most settings are on ultra. The rest are on high mostly because that's as high as they go.
AF is at 8x and AA is at 2x. V-Sync off.

I'm getting 45-100+ FPS depending on where I am. It's pretty smooth. I ran around deepholm, zangermarsh, Dun Murough and stormwind so I got a variety of areas. Old world areas are almost constantly 100+ FPS along with any indoor areas. Deepholm and stormwind bring me down to 45-55fps.

It does get quite hot though. GPU was at 83c while playing and the top right corner of the imac is very hot to the touch. I'm worried about temps like that damaging the screen. But i'm sure apple had to take that into account when they designed them.

I have the 27" imac and I upgraded the 6970m to 2gb and the cpu is a i7 3.4ghz. Also running the stock 4gb of ram.

Fans are barely audible even at the higher temps.

[stigzy]

Ahh... I so admire you for having you're iMac now to play with. Mine doesn't delivers before may.18

[rittchard]

I decided to "play it safe" and go with 2gb as well. Haven't had time to do any significant testing though. I read Dragon Age 2 - with DX11 and high-res textures required a minimum of 1GB of RAM to run well, so with that in mind, I thought I'd rather be safe than sorry, particularly with more "big" RPGs like Witcher 2 and Skyrim coming out this year.

[MythicFrost]

Originally Posted by Badger^2

How Much RAM Does Your Graphics Card Really Need?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...4870,2428.html


http://barefeats.com/imac11b.html

Though the top 3.4GHz iMac with the Radeon HD 6970M has the optional 2GB of video memory, it scores no faster than the 3.1GHz iMac with the same GPU but 1GB of video memory.

Have a look at barefeat's Portal 2 results. Look at that 5870 that is being bottlenecked by its 1GB VRAM. These results are under Snow Leopard, too. Windows performance should be even better. Here: link

EDIT: There was a patch released for Portal 2 that increased performance with MSAA enabled. The 5870 is now beating the 6970M in that same test, so it may not have been bottlenecked by the VRAM. I still recommend 2GB though.

Originally Posted by 5piN

This should help a lot of people sitting on the fence....

http://en.expreview.com/2010/08/08/e...on/9041.html/8

http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles...ALYSIS/P1.html

6970 is not really gonna handle 8xAA at native...

It should be able to in some games, like Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, etc., especially under Windows.

Originally Posted by archer75

I spent some more time with wow and these are my results, I am running at native resolution, most settings are on ultra. The rest are on high mostly because that's as high as they go.
AF is at 8x and AA is at 2x. V-Sync off.

I'm getting 45-100+ FPS depending on where I am. It's pretty smooth. I ran around deepholm, zangermarsh, Dun Murough and stormwind so I got a variety of areas. Old world areas are almost constantly 100+ FPS along with any indoor areas. Deepholm and stormwind bring me down to 45-55fps.

It does get quite hot though. GPU was at 83c while playing and the top right corner of the imac is very hot to the touch. I'm worried about temps like that damaging the screen. But i'm sure apple had to take that into account when they designed them.

I have the 27" imac and I upgraded the 6970m to 2gb and the cpu is a i7 3.4ghz. Also running the stock 4gb of ram.

Fans are barely audible even at the higher temps.

I'm curious? Are you running in OS X or Windows? I'm guessing the former.

[archer75]

Originally Posted by MythicFrost

I'm curious? Are you running in OS X or Windows? I'm guessing the former.

This is in OSX. Haven't installed windows yet. But I will.

[iSayuSay]

Sorry for hijacking .. I have some question regarding gaming on OSX vs Bootcamp Windows

1. It is said Windows is much better for gaming. What does it mean by better?
Let´s talk about games which exist on both OS

Does in Windows using the same Mac, we can tweak graphic settings further? Or we get better FPS count even using identical settings on OSX?

2. How about GPU temp when gaming? Does the GPU get cooler for gaming on Windows compared to OSX?

3. On my local reseller, I tried to play NFS Carbon (yeah ol´ skool game) on iMac 27¨ i3 with Radeon 5670.

I played it on OSX, and dang ... there were many graphic settings which locked and can´t be improved further. Even ¨motion blur¨ is unavailable to be set up. Even worse, with that mediocre setting, the game was noticeably lagged, not comfort to be played. I´d say it´s about 20fps

Seriously, that was 6 years old game, which exist even before Playstation 3 . Does the 5670 really that suck? or OSX not support certain graphic setting? I´m actually concerned about 6970M on new iMac

Maybe is it because terrible DirectX support on OS X?

[archer75]

Originally Posted by iSayuSay

So, folks .. I have some question regarding gaming on OSX vs Bootcamp Windows

1. It is said Windows is much better for gaming. What does it mean by better?
Let´s talk about games which exist on both

Does in Windows using the same Mac, we can tweak graphic settings further? Or we get better FPS count even using identical tweak while on OSX?

2. How about GPU temp when gaming? Does the GPU get cooler for gaming on Windows compared to OSX?

3. On my local reseller, I tried to play NFS Carbon (yeah ol´ skool game) on iMac 27¨ i3 with Radeon 5670.

I played it on OSX, and dang ... there were many graphic settings which locked and can´t be improved further. Even ¨motion blur¨ is unavailable to be set up. And even with that mediocre setting, the game was noticeably lagged, not comfort to be played. I´d say it´s about 20fps

Seriously, that was 6 years old game, does the 5670 really that suck? or OSX not support certain graphic setting? I´m actually concerned about 6970M on new iMac

Windows = Directx
Mac = OpenGL

Games tend to run better in Directx. Most games are coded for Directx. A number of mac games are just cider wrapped such as games from EA and not true ports. And thus they perform worse.

[5piN]

Another good face off... Other then in Lost Planet 2 .... I'm not sure its worth the $100/£80 .... this was on the higher end 5870 the difference on the 6970m will be even less considering the GPU is a lot weaker causing a bottleneck.

http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles...%202GB/P1.html

[Lord Appleseed]

Originally Posted by sonarghost

That's what I am not understanding from many people that say that the card is "overkill". We are talking about a CURRENT game taking 96% ram of the 1gb (virtually maxed out). I agree with what the other 2 posters were saying and am wondering if I am just missing some details of why some don't see us using much more vram in just games around the corner? BF3 maybe? At the rapid speed that games evolve with graphics intensity isn't it worth to do a $100.00 upgrade?

Of course it is. No one knows, everyone is just relying on a few benchmark tests of a handful games that everyone knows. I am sure that games like the upcoming Witcher 2 could very well profit from additional VRAM

[Jazwire]

Originally Posted by panzer06

Also, as expensive as the top end iMac is, does an extra $100 matter? If you can afford $2000, $2100 is probably not an issue. I'm too cheap to buy the top end but if I wasn't I'd go with the top GPU and while I'm at it I might get the 2TB + SSD option to really top it off.

Cheers,

This was my thought process when I ordered mine.
I would of bought the SSD also if it wasn't for the long wait.

Debating on just putting in my own SSD and putting the current HD in an ext. firewire enclosure. I dont want to remove the motherboard to get to the sata cable.

[MythicFrost]

Originally Posted by archer75

This is in OSX. Haven't installed windows yet. But I will.

Ah, good to know!

Originally Posted by iSayuSay

Sorry for hijacking .. I have some question regarding gaming on OSX vs Bootcamp Windows

1. It is said Windows is much better for gaming. What does it mean by better?
Let´s talk about games which exist on both OS

Does in Windows using the same Mac, we can tweak graphic settings further? Or we get better FPS count even using identical settings on OSX?

2. How about GPU temp when gaming? Does the GPU get cooler for gaming on Windows compared to OSX?

3. On my local reseller, I tried to play NFS Carbon (yeah ol´ skool game) on iMac 27¨ i3 with Radeon 5670.

I played it on OSX, and dang ... there were many graphic settings which locked and can´t be improved further. Even ¨motion blur¨ is unavailable to be set up. Even worse, with that mediocre setting, the game was noticeably lagged, not comfort to be played. I´d say it´s about 20fps

Seriously, that was 6 years old game, which exist even before Playstation 3 . Does the 5670 really that suck? or OSX not support certain graphic setting? I´m actually concerned about 6970M on new iMac

Maybe is it because terrible DirectX support on OS X?

1) Higher FPS with the same settings
2) Possibly hotter due to better performance, I don't know for sure.