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6990m Crossfire?

C

connor.e

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 15, 2011
35
0
Canada
I've been scouring this forum trying to find peoples inputs on the next-gen graphics that the iMac (and quite possible, the next-gen MacBook Pros) will incorporate.

As of now, the big-boy is the 6970m with 2GB of GDDR3. Perhaps the next card will be the 7970m? I'd like to know some peoples speculations - as well if this is a worthy upgrade in performance. (I've heard talk of a 50% increase in speed...or something like that...)

What about the possibility of crossfiring two 6990m's? Would there be too much heat? Let me know what you think!

Cheers. :)
 
I am wondering the same thing. I plan on making the switch from a PC for my primary desktop, and I want the best possible video option for games. The way I see it, if gaming laptop developers can find a way to cram 2 6990m's (or better) in crossfire mode into a laptop, I can't see why a 27" iMac can't accommodate the same video setup with a little of bit of creative reworking of the internal design. Come on Apple, give us the option!
 
I'd trade the useless optical drive for CF GPUs any time of the day :)
 
Well, OS X does not support crossfire, and I Doubt apple would bother to code it in for a single product line.

I am hoping for 7970m, which will likely be a 30-40% speed increase over 6970m.
 
I've always thought that Apple should move the optical drive into the iMac's stand. Thickening the stand a little to fit the optical drive, really doesn't effect anything "visually" for me, and with the extra space they could certainly fit a great gpu inside! Just an idea...don't really know if it is plausible or not...who knows... :p
 
connor.e said:
I've always thought that Apple should move the optical drive into the iMac's stand. Thickening the stand a little to fit the optical drive, really doesn't effect anything "visually" for me, and with the extra space they could certainly fit a great gpu inside! Just an idea...don't really know if it is plausible or not...who knows... :p
Click to expand...

I am afraid that would raise the cost quite a bit as the case would be much more difficult to make...
 
Apple2000 said:
Well, OS X does not support crossfire, and I Doubt apple would bother to code it in for a single product line.
Click to expand...

Exactly. And CrossFire/SLI setups aren't ideal from a stability standpoint. Some games (e.g. Battlefield 3) just hate CF/SLI. Constant crashes, poor performance and so on. A high-power single GPU is always a better choice.

amd_28nm_gpu_roadmap_leak-580x366.jpg


What we know so far is that the high-end iMac will most likely use "Wimbledon" GPUs, aka 79xxM. That's based on Pitcairn (desktop 78xx) chip. As 6970M is just underclocked desktop 6850, comparing 6850 and 7850 is the closest we can do so far (see comparison here). Seems to be about 50-60% faster on average. Of course, we need the concrete specs as 7970M could be a full blown Pitcairn (1280 SPs) or chopped down model (1024 SPs) like 6970M is.
 
Apple2000 said:
Well, OS X does not support crossfire, and I Doubt apple would bother to code it in for a single product line.

I am hoping for 7970m, which will likely be a 30-40% speed increase over 6970m.
Click to expand...

Ahhh yes, last time I checked there was no 79xxm, but it looks like it is finally on the horizon. I could live with a 30-40% increase in performance via a single GPU.
 
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