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6970M 2 GB and World of warcraft

zepharus

zepharus

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 7, 2007
684
2
Anyone running this at native res (2560 x 1440) with ALL settings on ultra and playable in OS X (Im hoping for a steady 60FPS)

Im looking into the viability of finally ditching the PC rig as I do not game much anymore but want the ability to game well if I so choose.

By the way Thunderbolt External Graphics? hurry up!
 
You won't get remotely near that, not even at 1920x1080
I will test it for you, but since my i7 2600k PC with a Geforce GTX 560Ti OC'd edition, is only just acceptable at 1920x1080 i don't have high hopes for the iMac at 2560x1440.

I'll get back to you with some results...
 
There are a few options that tend to kill performance under OSX - namely shadows, water, and possibly the lens flare effect. Everything else can be on ultra with 4x AA and 16x AF and it'll run at native rez at 60fps no problem. As long as you keep those 3 options on low (their effect is minor anyway), you will have excellent framerates.
 
KasperH said:
You won't get remotely near that, not even at 1920x1080
I will test it for you, but since my i7 2600k PC with a Geforce GTX 560Ti OC'd edition, is only just acceptable at 1920x1080 i don't have high hopes for the iMac at 2560x1440.

I'll get back to you with some results...
Click to expand...

Then you are doing something VERY wrong. You should be getting that and then some.

Make sure you dont have AA enabled in the driver AND WoW. It kills performance. Let WoW handle it
 
Hmm might have had AA enabled both places on my Win7 box. I don't have it installed, but as far as i remember orgrimar was my main issue at ultra and i did spend a lot of my time in that area at that time. Nvidia is a lot better at WoW than ATI according to some extensive testing by toms hardware a few months back: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793.html

But as promised, i just tested it on my iMac, and everything at Ultra in a small uncrowded town near silithus gave me 80fps looking around and in the area of 100 looking out over the horizon . Orgrimar outside the auction house fluctuated between 30-50 depending of how many tards showing off dragons :) Durotar was a solid 100fps.

I'm quite impressed!

Though, something must be bugged with Liquid detail, Sunshafts, Particle Density and Texture Filtering and multisampling 1-8 i got zero change in performance by altering those. Turning Shadow Quality from Ultra to low doubled the framerates in orgrimar from 29 to 59 at the same spot changing back and forth.

it looked stunningly beautifu! the iMac is definitely capable of some serious WoW gaming.
 
Last edited:
KasperH said:
Hmm might have had AA enabled both places on my Win7 box. I don't have it installed, but as far as i remember orgrimar was my main issue at ultra and i did spend a lot of my time in that area at that time. Nvidia is a lot better at WoW than ATI according to some extensive testing by toms hardware a few months back: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793.html

But as promised, i just tested it on my iMac, and everything at Ultra in a small uncrowded town near silithus gave me 80fps looking around and in the area of 100 looking out over the horizon . Orgrimar outside the auction house fluctuated between 30-50 depending of how many tards showing off dragons :) Durotar was a solid 100fps.

I'm quite impressed!

Though, something must be bugged with Liquid detail, Sunshafts, Particle Density and Texture Filtering and multisampling 1-8 i got zero change in performance by altering those. Turning Shadow Quality from Ultra to low doubled the framerates in orgrimar from 29 to 59 at the same spot changing back and forth.

it looked stunningly beautifu! the iMac is definitely capable of some serious WoW gaming.
Click to expand...

was about to post my impressions, but you basically said everything i was going to say! of course in towns and raids where there are a lot of people, it'll slow down, but everything else its 60fps for me. all settings are cranked except for shadows which i off because i dont see any point in having them.

specs are 3.4ghz core i7, 256GB SSD + 1TB HD, 6970m 2GB, 16GB of ram :)
 
secretanchitman said:
was about to post my impressions, but you basically said everything i was going to say! of course in towns and raids where there are a lot of people, it'll slow down, but everything else its 60fps for me. all settings are cranked except for shadows which i off because i dont see any point in having them.

specs are 3.4ghz core i7, 256GB SSD + 1TB HD, 6970m 2GB, 16GB of ram :)
Click to expand...

Gentlemen, you have made me happy. I just ordered an iMac i7 6970 2048MB :)D) with the 1TB + 256GB SSD combo. Ships in 1-3 business days.

Color me stoked
 
zepharus said:
Gentlemen, you have made me happy. I just ordered an iMac i7 6970 2048MB :)D) with the 1TB + 256GB SSD combo. Ships in 1-3 business days.

Color me stoked
Click to expand...
I'm presuming you ordered it with the base 4GB or RAM? You will want 8GB at a minimum probably although it depends on what other programs you keep open when you're playing WoW. But as others will tell you, better to buy the memory elsewhere.
 
Bear said:
I'm presuming you ordered it with the base 4GB or RAM? You will want 8GB at a minimum probably although it depends on what other programs you keep open when you're playing WoW. But as others will tell you, better to buy the memory elsewhere.
Click to expand...

Yes sir.

Just ordered these coming from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Y4XAAK

 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
zepharus said:
Yes sir.

Just ordered these coming from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Y4XAAK

[url=http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/3080/81on3rdefqlaa1500.jpg]Image[/URL]
Click to expand...

Sorry to derail the thread but does that mean the iMac uses notebook RAM? I just ordered mine but since it was on a discount at a non-Apple Store (and here in Brazil macs are freaking expensive so I had to do it lol) I got the stock 3.1 model with 4gb of RAM, but AFAIK it comes with 2 empty slots right?

But I didn't know it used notebook memory...
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
kioshi said:
Sorry to derail the thread but does that mean the iMac uses notebook RAM? I just ordered mine but since it was on a discount at a non-Apple Store (and here in Brazil macs are freaking expensive so I had to do it lol) I got the stock 3.1 model with 4gb of RAM, but AFAIK it comes with 2 empty slots right?

But I didn't know it used notebook memory...
Click to expand...

Notebook Ram my friend.
 
Badger^2 said:
Did you not even look at the apple site first?

Or even search -- no wait -- look 5 threads down to see what kind of ram an iMac takes?
Click to expand...

You could be a bit polite like zepharus (BTW thanks zepharus)

And no it did not help. I haven't delved into tech stuff for awhile, tho I was able to assemble a PC in the good old days.

All Apple's site says is 'Memory: 4GB (two 2GB) of 1333MHz DDR3 memory'

I don't remember anymore what this means besides the speed. Also, the thread was discussing about putting 1600mhz RAM versus 1333 on a mac that came with 1066, that means nothing to me nowadays because I haven't assembled PCs for my friends in 4 years and been with a Mac Mini for 5 so I forgot everything about it.

I mean why even post this when it's obvious I had no idea until I looked at the RAM model zepharus ordered from Amazon?
 
kioshi said:
You could be a bit polite like zepharus (BTW thanks zepharus)

And no it did not help. I haven't delved into tech stuff for awhile, tho I was able to assemble a PC in the good old days.

All Apple's site says is 'Memory: 4GB (two 2GB) of 1333MHz DDR3 memory'

I don't remember anymore what this means besides the speed. Also, the thread was discussing about putting 1600mhz RAM versus 1333 on a mac that came with 1066, that means nothing to me nowadays because I haven't assembled PCs for my friends in 4 years and been with a Mac Mini for 5 so I forgot everything about it.

I mean why even post this when it's obvious I had no idea until I looked at the RAM model zepharus ordered from Amazon?
Click to expand...

Here's the link I used to determine memory for the iMac.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3011

I believe the key is the mention of "SO-DIMM". I realize it's not straight forward, but I am pretty sure that SO-DIMM modules indicate small, or laptop memory where as DIMM is your regular, or desktop RAM.
 
jedolley said:
Here's the link I used to determine memory for the iMac.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3011

I believe the key is the mention of "SO-DIMM". I realize it's not straight forward, but I am pretty sure that SO-DIMM modules indicate small, or laptop memory where as DIMM is your regular, or desktop RAM.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link :)

It looks like that, browsing Amazon they always specify if it's notebook or desktop and all the 'desktop' ones have only DIMM.

But now I'm wondering (more out of curiosity) if what the OP ordered will be compatible, since the original Apple site says the iMac comes with 1333MHz (and your Apple link says the same and he said he ordered: Kingston HyperX Plug n Play 8 GB Kit (2x4GB Modules) 1600MHz'

I believe there's a thread where an iMac user tried 1333MHz RAM on his 1066MHz-using iMac and he said the Mac didn't work with 1333.
 
Just for some added context, I usually average 70-100fps out and about, and on the ground in cities.

In dungeons, raids and busier times, it dips a bit, but I find if you control particle effects and view distance you can stabilise things.

I'm also running 6x multisampling, which has a tiny impact on performance and is worth it.
 
iMikeT said:
It's not 2GB, it's 2048MB.
Click to expand...

Haha, so OP there just "typing it wrong"??
I hope this is a pure joke. 2GB is just the best way to sum up 2048MB of RAM. So i guess u used to write 1048576MB with your 1TB Hdd, huh? Lol lol
 
zepharus said:
Then you are doing something VERY wrong. You should be getting that and then some.

Make sure you dont have AA enabled in the driver AND WoW. It kills performance. Let WoW handle it
Click to expand...

agreed. my i5-2500k OC'ed pc gaming rig with a unlocked 6950 2gb easily handles that.
 
Im getting a steady 25-50 on ultra on a bog standard 2011 21.5"
i believe wow is much more cpu than gpu intensive. you should have no problems with the machine you mentioned
 
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