Im planning to build a gaming pc for use with my imac 27 inch as a monitor. Im no expert - is the 5970 the very best one to get for the best possible performance at native res on the imac screen via WIN7? Any advice on best GPUs for PC/imac monitor combo much appreciated, thanks
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The Gaming Benchmarks Thread
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Im planning to build a gaming pc for use with my imac 27 inch as a monitor. Im no expert - is the 5970 the very best one to get for the best possible performance at native res on the imac screen via WIN7? Any advice on best GPUs for PC/imac monitor combo much appreciated, thanks
the 5970 is the best card out there right now yes. Its very expensive though. The 5970 is actually two cards in one. And its LOOONG, dont expect a standard tower to fit it. After using it for 6 months i think its a little overkill, and its also been plagued with driver problems.
Hopefully with the 6 series all the cards work with the imac, not just the high end.
Also please remember, that with such a powerful card, your CPU will likely bottleneck your system
5970 on the top
5870
5850
Hopefully with the 6 series all the cards work with the imac, not just the high end.
Also please remember, that with such a powerful card, your CPU will likely bottleneck your system
Im looking at the GTX460 for use with the imac display, but wonder if (even with very good CPU, RAM, etc in the PC) the performance would be very much better than with using the iMac in bootcamp with WIN7. I have a nagging thought that there might be some (complex and hard to define) issue with using the imac display with the PC that somehow affects the performance that would not be the case with the imac AIO. Basically, Im wondering if I go to the expense and effort of building a PC for gaming using the imac display (say spending $800 on PC), would I REALLY see a wow -thats amazing difference compared to an overclocked 4850 or 5750 in bootcamp. Any thoughts very much appreciated. Would it depend on the game?
Also please remember, that with such a powerful card, your CPU will likely bottleneck your system
Im looking at the GTX460 for use with the imac display, but wonder if (even with very good CPU, RAM, etc in the PC) the performance would be very much better than with using the iMac in bootcamp with WIN7. I have a nagging thought that there might be some (complex and hard to define) issue with using the imac display with the PC that somehow affects the performance that would not be the case with the imac AIO. Basically, Im wondering if I go to the expense and effort of building a PC for gaming using the imac display (say spending $800 on PC), would I REALLY see a wow -thats amazing difference compared to an overclocked 4850 or 5750 in bootcamp. Any thoughts very much appreciated. Would it depend on the game?
Does Starcraft have a "timedemo" you can run and collect average frame rates? Or does it just display frame rates? Or is there an addon like Titan Performance Addon for WoW that you can use?
I used FRAPS for Windows 7. For OSX, it's guesswork, but I know my frames.
There is no time demo that I know of, but it would be nice!
New benchmark: Left 4 Dead 2 using Boot Camp.
Everything turned up to max except for AA, which was off, and set to native resolution.
I played the entire campaign of... whatever the hell the one with the clowns is called. Anyhow, it ran flawless, and the lowest it dipped was 54 frames during a boomer explosion, a crap ton of zombies, and a spitter spitting acid on the ground. Once again, very impressive, especially since the game ran flawlessly at a much higher resolution that I used to run on my 8800GTX.
Everything turned up to max except for AA, which was off, and set to native resolution.
I played the entire campaign of... whatever the hell the one with the clowns is called. Anyhow, it ran flawless, and the lowest it dipped was 54 frames during a boomer explosion, a crap ton of zombies, and a spitter spitting acid on the ground. Once again, very impressive, especially since the game ran flawlessly at a much higher resolution that I used to run on my 8800GTX.
If you're wanting to know how maxed out sc2 looks like at 27 inch iMac's native resolution, I did take this xfire vid a while back during beta:
http://www.xfire.com/video/2a9f3c/
The actual fps in that vid is only around 15 I think, because the capture software really hurts the framerate. The actual thing was around 30fps, so if you can imagine it, it'd be like that, but twice as smooth.
If you want anything else, like using an external camera to record, or another xfire vid, but with different race, part of the story, etc, I can do that.
http://www.xfire.com/video/2a9f3c/
The actual fps in that vid is only around 15 I think, because the capture software really hurts the framerate. The actual thing was around 30fps, so if you can imagine it, it'd be like that, but twice as smooth.
If you want anything else, like using an external camera to record, or another xfire vid, but with different race, part of the story, etc, I can do that.
I will be happy with either of them. Maybe OSX, so that we can see the "worst" part of both.
I'd like to see SC2 running on Ultra in boot camp, with a HUGE battle going on. I do a lot of 4v4 and it kills my fps.
Hmm... I'll see what I can do.
The problem is that when I record video, it makes the game slow down, so what I'm thinking of doing is possibly setting it to 4v4 cpu, watching them go at it, and recording it with a digital cam video. It won't look great, but it should at least show you how the game runs with everything at Ultra at 1900x1200.
To be honest the game doesn't slow down that much with huge battles. The biggest slowdown the game gets is when you're looking at a bunch of zerg structures. Most of the battles are handled by the cpu-- which is very strong.
I'll see if I can get a video of 2560x1440 resolution with everything maxed during a large battle as well.
Just recorded a 4v4 with all AI, and it's a very good replay. Will record with camera and upload later on.
I'll see if I can get a video of 2560x1440 resolution with everything maxed during a large battle as well.
Just recorded a 4v4 with all AI, and it's a very good replay. Will record with camera and upload later on.
Just recieved my new 27" 2.93 i7 last night and gave SC2 a try. Had all of the settings on ultra apart from shadows and reflections which I turned down to medium. At 2560 x 1440 the game ran completely smoothly....even while loading 5000 + photos into aperture and while iTunes organised my library
For me on the i5 2010 27" iMac it is usually 20fps or lower when playing SC 2 in full native res in ultra. I find the best way to play it is in windowed mode as you can adjust the screen size and keep the frame rate above 30 even in ultra mode.
My quad i5 has just shipped and arrives Thursday. I just returned a 1 week old refurb i7 and had to pay a little bit more for the difference as a result. As I will only be using this machine for gaming the 5750 was a must. Will be installing Win7 home and will hopefully OC to 5870 mobile levels. I'm not a FPS nut, I play a range of games.
A couple of questions:
1) In summary am I right in assuming that the quad i5 and i7 perform exactely the same in games?
2) Does the SSD drive make any difference apart from in loading times?
3) Any difference between 4gb and 8gb ram?
Thanks
A couple of questions:
1) In summary am I right in assuming that the quad i5 and i7 perform exactely the same in games?
2) Does the SSD drive make any difference apart from in loading times?
3) Any difference between 4gb and 8gb ram?
Thanks
Good questions, I m not sure but i would say:
1) Currently yes but no in 1 or 2 years
=> I would take it (future proof)
2) No
=> I would not take it for gaming
3) Currently no but yes in 1 or 2 years
=> I would not take it for gaming (easy to upgrade later if needed)
Well, as far as question one goes, most games do not even have quad core support yet, so I do not see hyper-threading being used in most games for some time to come. Even two years down the road, I'm not so sure they'll even bother with it.
Does Crysis 2 even support HT?
Does Crysis 2 even support HT?
Some teaser images. This is with sc2 under bootcamp with native resolution and everything to ultra on an overclocked mobility 4850 that's clocked like a desktop 4850. Mobility 5850 should perform a tiny bit better than dektop 4850.
It is a 4v4 on toxic waste, and shows a couple base shots and battle shots. The lowest the fps dipped was around 22, when there was a really, really large amount of units on screen. Second lowest was around 23-24 for viewing zerg main base. Note that the fps is actually higher (26) when there's a bunch of units destroying a zerg base. Fps when viewing other parts of the map and terran/protoss mains are around 28-40. I did a frap benchmark test for the whole match, and the average fps was around 30.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/SC2-2010-08-03-00-15-39-57.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/SC2-2010-08-03-00-19-13-81.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/SC2-2010-08-03-00-23-38-86.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/SC2-2010-08-03-00-18-23-20.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/SC2-2010-08-03-00-17-31-62.jpg
It is a 4v4 on toxic waste, and shows a couple base shots and battle shots. The lowest the fps dipped was around 22, when there was a really, really large amount of units on screen. Second lowest was around 23-24 for viewing zerg main base. Note that the fps is actually higher (26) when there's a bunch of units destroying a zerg base. Fps when viewing other parts of the map and terran/protoss mains are around 28-40. I did a frap benchmark test for the whole match, and the average fps was around 30.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/SC2-2010-08-03-00-15-39-57.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/SC2-2010-08-03-00-19-13-81.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/SC2-2010-08-03-00-23-38-86.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/SC2-2010-08-03-00-18-23-20.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c104/twisted_metal_2/SC2-2010-08-03-00-17-31-62.jpg
Please attach the hawt screenshot <3
Macrumors seemed to have deleted my attachments
Anyways, I have edited the post with photobucket pics.
I'll try to get a vid of it possibly, some time down the line. As well as another choppy xfire recording.
Macrumors seemed to have deleted my attachments
Anyways, I have edited the post with photobucket pics.
I'll try to get a vid of it possibly, some time down the line. As well as another choppy xfire recording.
So i reckon 1080p with ultra settings is the way to go?