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Infrared

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 28, 2007
1,714
64
COD4 Benchmarks, courtesy of BareFeats:

neh05_cod.gif


2009 Mac Pro with 4870: 60 frames per second
2007 Mac Pro with 4870: 59 frames per second

Stunning! ;)
 

Pressure

macrumors 603
May 30, 2006
5,037
1,377
Denmark
Well, it is limited by the graphic card at that resolution.

I wonder if he disabled v-sync or if the game is capped at 60 FPS.

Still it was know beforehand that Nehalem would not give a major increase in games.
 

jjahshik32

macrumors 603
Sep 4, 2006
5,366
52
Is that under OSX or windows? Either way seems like when a new driver hits (ahem 10.5.7) it should show the bigger performance differences.
 

Umbongo

macrumors 601
Sep 14, 2006
4,934
55
England
This has been known for ages. Nehalem doesn't really offer much for most existing games. There are many, many benchmarks out there showing this.
 

jjahshik32

macrumors 603
Sep 4, 2006
5,366
52
This has been known for ages. Nehalem doesn't really offer much for most existing games. There are many, many benchmarks out there showing this.

Pretty much the GPU is what matters in gaming. Other wise last gen 8 cores or this gen's 8 cores is pretty much negligible when it comes to gaming.

If gaming is your primary concern, forget the mac pro and build an i7 machine with the best cards available at half the price.
 

Infrared

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 28, 2007
1,714
64
Well, it is limited by the graphic card at that resolution.

I wonder if he disabled v-sync or if the game is capped at 60 FPS.

Still it was know beforehand that Nehalem would not give a major increase in games.

Weren't gamers claiming that FB-DIMM latency was a major issue?

I seem to recall that.
 

apfhex

macrumors 68030
Aug 8, 2006
2,670
5
Northern California
You're ignoring the other tests which showed better improvement. :) Plus CoD4 for Mac is a terribly optimized game, and it's even possible that the game limited framerate to 60fps (definitely so if they had Vsync on). GPU will be the limiting factor and since both systems have the same card, there you go. The games aren't going to benefit from 16 virtual cores or whatever else the Nehalem offers. It's probably going to come down to clock speed and also the drivers for the 4870. It'd be interesting to see some Windows game results.
 

Infrared

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 28, 2007
1,714
64
You're ignoring the other tests which showed better improvement. :) Plus CoD4 for Mac is a terribly optimized game, and it's even possible that the game limited framerate to 60fps (definitely so if they had Vsync on). GPU will be the limiting factor and since both systems have the same card, there you go. The games aren't going to benefit from 16 virtual cores or whatever else the Nehalem offers. It's probably going to come down to clock speed and also the drivers for the 4870. It'd be interesting to see some Windows game results.

Yes, I cannot disagree! :)

I wonder about this:

"I make no apologies because, whether you play 3D accelerated
games or not, the state-of-the-art gaming environment stresses
all subsystems of the Mac Pro."

When the GPU is a bottleneck, other parts of the system aren't
going to get stressed enough.

P.S.

I'm slightly disturbed to see links to the Apple Store on the BareFeats
page. While I'm sure Rob-ART is principled and unbiased, the ad might
be seen by some as creating a conflict of interests.
 

tobyg

macrumors 6502a
Aug 31, 2004
528
2
P.S.

I'm slightly disturbed to see links to the Apple Store on the BareFeats
page. While I'm sure Rob-ART is principled and unbiased, the ad might
be seen by some as creating a conflict of interests.

Those are ads that help them pay the bills. I'm not sure why you are disturbed to see them. Show me a page on the 'net now a days that doesn't have ads!

Where is the conflict of interest? If he had links to the ATI store to buy the Apple ATI cards only, and ATI cards were always winning his benchmarks, I'd say there was some sort of conflict of interest. He's testing cards that are sold by Apple. He's linking to Apple. He's not comparing anything other than Apple cards.

I'm really confused as to where or why you would see a conflict of interest.
 

elvisizer

macrumors 6502
May 29, 2003
310
24
San Jose
Weren't gamers claiming that FB-DIMM latency was a major issue?

I seem to recall that.

it IS an issue. I wouldn't call it major, but it will knock your gaming performance in windows down about 10%. in this test, the game is GPU limited, so the RAM subsystem issues aren't shown. If rob had run it at 800x600 instead of 1920xwhatever it might have been more interesting.
 

apfhex

macrumors 68030
Aug 8, 2006
2,670
5
Northern California
Very surprising the 8800GT beat the 4870 in Core Image performance, if only barely. I had always been hearing that the ATI cards performed much better in those cases due to better drivers. And seeing the 3870 beat the 4870 in a few spots, maybe the 4870 drivers really need some tweaking.
 

Infrared

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 28, 2007
1,714
64
Those are ads that help them pay the bills. I'm not sure why you are disturbed to see them. Show me a page on the 'net now a days that doesn't have ads!

Where is the conflict of interest?

Is it not obvious? He's advertising the thing he is reviewing.

If he gets paid for people clicking on that link, saying positive
things about the 2009 Mac Pro may mean he gets paid more.

That is a potential conflict of interests.
 

jjahshik32

macrumors 603
Sep 4, 2006
5,366
52
Very surprising the 8800GT beat the 4870 in Core Image performance, if only barely. I had always been hearing that the ATI cards performed much better in those cases due to better drivers. And seeing the 3870 beat the 4870 in a few spots, maybe the 4870 drivers really need some tweaking.

Your just going to have to wait until 10.5.7 is released to make the final judgement on the ATI cards though.
 

jjahshik32

macrumors 603
Sep 4, 2006
5,366
52
Is it not obvious? He's advertising the thing he is reviewing.

If he gets paid for people clicking on that link, saying positive
things about the 2009 Mac Pro may mean he gets paid more.

That is a potential conflict of interests.

While I agree to some degree, I dont think its a conflict of interest. If you notice he also added macmall.com, owc, Transintl and other vendors that sell macs and mac parts.

I'd understand if they only showed Apple.com then I'd find it a conflict of interest. This guy is just purely trying to help the mac community in benches and trying to get all the money that he can to run his site and make a little something on the side.
 

MacsRgr8

macrumors G3
Sep 8, 2002
8,283
1,752
The Netherlands
Very surprising the 8800GT beat the 4870 in Core Image performance, if only barely. I had always been hearing that the ATI cards performed much better in those cases due to better drivers. And seeing the 3870 beat the 4870 in a few spots, maybe the 4870 drivers really need some tweaking.

It seems so...!

I was very surprised to read that too. I even remember when the X1900 XT was a better card for Motion than the GeForce 8800 GT, due to bad nVidia drivers.
It seems then, that of Mac OS X 10.5.6 the nVidia drivers are on par, but the Radeon HD 4870 drivers need some improvement.
 

gesundheit

macrumors member
Oct 28, 2004
33
0
If you're talking about unexpected results in those Core Image tests (like the 3870 beating the 4870 in some instances as you mentioned), what about the Imaginator chart showing the 4870 in the 2.26 (2nd from top) handily beating the 4870 in the 2.93 (6th)? The machines are otherwise spec'd similarly. What's up with that?
 
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