I'm looking to order a 2.93 24" imac. I don't normally play games, so I wasn't considering the 4850. I figured that the 120 could handle the HD tv that I watch. However, I've been reading here on the board that Snow Leopard will take advantage of the GPU. For that reason ("future-proofing"), should I go for the 4850, even though I don't play games?
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4850 - Overkill?
- Thread starter thatdarnfish
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Its not a huge cost difference considering what you are paying for the iMac. The GPU doesn't even come into play under OSX when decoding video, btw.
...its a computer, you can't future proof it = obsolete as soon as you open it
Ha! Isn't that the truth; that's why I put "future-proof" in quotes. Nevertheless, it doesn't hurt to buy a computer that will run well for 4-5 years and won't be totally obsolete by that time. I guess my question is, how much will Snow Leopard utilize the GPU? Do we know yet?
How are we gonna know that? Only the software engineers will know this info. Anyhow, the 4850 sounds like a good choice for the graphics card.
Well, I guess I thought since the name of this site was Macrumors, someone might have heard a rumor. Silly me...
Well if you wanted a middle of the road solution then go with the GT130M.
Honestly in my iMac G5 besides the slow 2Ghz CPU the POS ATI card is the next slowest thing. It's hard to watch any video. So maybe the 4850 wouldn't be so bad. (btw I have had my iMac for four years this june)
Honestly in my iMac G5 besides the slow 2Ghz CPU the POS ATI card is the next slowest thing. It's hard to watch any video. So maybe the 4850 wouldn't be so bad. (btw I have had my iMac for four years this june)
You had issues only due to the slow CPU. The only video decoding done by graphics card in OS X is the new line of GeForces (starting from 9400) and it only does H.264.
I guess I should have been more clear in that the POS ATI card also sucks at video games. Even casual ones that aren't demanding. And when working with final cut pro it bogs down A LOT.
Um, Final Cut Pro doesn't use graphics card. Its all CPU and HD. Motion on the other hand... I found it was acceptable for FCP, but close to being unusable in Motion when I still had my iMac G5.
I have the first generation iMac G5 as well. What a mess that computer has been since day one: fan noise, blown capacitors, a dead hd in two months, dead optical drive, dead bluetooth keyboard, etc. Never again will I buy a first generation model! In any event, I'm trying to "future-proof" my next computer as much as possible. I've received a lot of different advice here. I guess it comes down to how much we know (or don't) about Snow Leopard. Aside from apple's page, is there any other good place for info about the next OS? Thanks-
I wish I had a better answer but not really. Apple only said pretty much what you already know. The best thing you can do is watch the keynote on June 8th once apple post it.
Apple annouced they will be giving developers a final release copy of SL at WWDC which basically means it probably won't be ready until the "rumored" September release. (then again there was a rumor last year saying SL was going to be ready to be released in the first quarter of '09)
The reason why you haven't heard of anything is because the testers sign the NDA agreeing to be tight lip.