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AMD M395X in new Retina iMac

WilliamG said:
I had a top-of-the-line i7 2012 iMac with the GTX 680MX, and there's no way it hit a constant 60fps at 1440p in BF4 set to Ultra, even with AA off. Just... no chance. I think I ran that game at maybe medium-to-high settings at 1080p to hit a SOLID 60fps.
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That was also my impression...let's see what he comes up with 😛
 
BTW: Does anyone know of a reliable database for iMac gaming benchmarks? I would like to see some for the 680MX, 780M, and the m295x. Just to get an idea on how the performance increased over time

thanks
 
AnTaR3s said:
BTW: Does anyone know of a reliable database for iMac gaming benchmarks? I would like to see some for the 680MX, 780M, and the m295x. Just to get an idea on how the performance increased over time
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Seems like it would call for a wikipost. but I'll leave that for others.
 
Fried Chicken said:
Ye of Little Faith!

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I appreciate this, but a couple of things.

1.) Overclocking is hardly a factory config. Don't get me wrong, I overclocked the snot out of my 680, but it's still a mod.

2.) When you're up in the air in a chopper, the ground textures are blurred more, and detail levels are generally lower. Also, the chopper is taking up most of the screen. I still saw it drop to 57fps a few times, so it's not maintaining 60fps solid. I doubt you can maintain 60fps in busy city environments with lots of high-texture enemies and explosions, and where most of the screen isn't just flat snow. 🙂

I guess I still have little faith. 😛
 
WilliamG said:
I appreciate this, but a couple of things.

1.) Overclocking is hardly a factory config. Don't get me wrong, I overclocked the snot out of my 680, but it's still a mod.

2.) When you're up in the air in a chopper, the ground textures are blurred more, and detail levels are generally lower. Also, the chopper is taking up most of the screen. I still saw it drop to 57fps a few times, so it's not maintaining 60fps solid. I doubt you can maintain 60fps in busy city environments with lots of high-texture enemies and explosions, and where most of the screen isn't just flat snow. 🙂

I guess I still have little faith. 😛
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Ye of still little faith!

1. Don't care. None of the hardware has been changed, and the software required something like 5 clicks to install and get right.

2. I posted the video with the chopper b/c it's hard to get action while holding an iPhone in one hand. Yes: The game will lower its frame rate slightly if the situation gets extreme, but it's usually between 45 and 60fps. Yes: If I wanted to I can bring the whole system to its knees, but that usually requires an extreme situation such as putting my face into the fire on operation firestorm. Please; find me a system that will maintain 60FPS while doing that.
 
Fried Chicken said:
Ye of still little faith!

1. Don't care. None of the hardware has been changed, and the software required something like 5 clicks to install and get right.

2. I posted the video with the chopper b/c it's hard to get action while holding an iPhone in one hand. Yes: The game will lower its frame rate slightly if the situation gets extreme, but it's usually between 45 and 60fps. Yes: If I wanted to I can bring the whole system to its knees, but that usually requires an extreme situation such as putting my face into the fire on operation firestorm. Please; find me a system that will maintain 60FPS while doing that.
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I never said it was easy to maintain 60fps. I just said that the GTX 680MX will NOT run a constant 60fps at ultra settings. That's all I was saying. Sounds like you agree with me. 🙂
 
WilliamG said:
I never said it was easy to maintain 60fps. I just said that the GTX 680MX will NOT run a constant 60fps at ultra settings. That's all I was saying. Sounds like you agree with me. 🙂
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Nope. If solid means never going below 60, not even a GTX Titan will fulfill your requirements. To me solid means being around or over 60fps 90%+ of the time while gaming, the overlocked GTX 680mx will fulfill those requirements.

And I say "around" because some factors are independent of the GPUs horsepower and might cause it to go a little above or below 60fps, even with vsync enabled.
 
AnTaR3s said:
Ok...this is weird

Here you have some benchmarks for the 2012 iMac with the 680MX:
http://barefeats.com/imac12g3.html
and here for the m295x:
http://barefeats.com/imac5k2.html

Results for 2560x1440:

WoW:
680MX: 86.7, m295x: 63

Dirt 2:
680MX: 65.4, m295x: 75

L4D2:
680MX: 74.1, m295x: 122

Diablo III:
680MX: 62, m295x: 79

Not sure what to make of these... 😉
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Consider that in Blizzard's games like WoW the Shadows on an AMD cards will kill the Fps, with the M295X I can play WoW in Ultra @ 5K (shadows and water reflection on Off) with a frame rate ranging from 30 to 60.
Overall, even if the iMac isn't a gaming machine, with the maxed out card it can do decent things, but the Nvidia cards are way better if you are a gamer, I don't play games often but next year with the Nvidia refresh I'll change mine.
 
Regarding older 680MX benchmarks:

OS X performance was greatly(!) improved by Nvidia Web Drivers some weeks ago, especially on GK104 cards like 680MX, so comparing M295X/M395X performance with 680MX from 2-3 years ago is a little unfair.
 
Fl0r!an said:
Regarding older 680MX benchmarks:

OS X performance was greatly(!) improved by Nvidia Web Drivers some weeks ago, especially on GK104 cards like 680MX, so comparing M295X/M395X performance with 680MX from 2-3 years ago is a little unfair.
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But that means that the 680MX now is even closer to the m295x as in the benchmarks above. I find this is a ridiculous improvement considering that the 680mx iMac was released in 2012 and we have almost 2016...
 
AnTaR3s said:
But that means that the 680MX now is even closer to the m295x as in the benchmarks above. I find this is a ridiculous improvement considering that the 680mx iMac was released in 2012 and we have almost 2016...
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Maybe under 1440p, but at this resolution or at 4/5K there's no game, and even for the 780M, the M295X (and hopefully the M395X) at high resolution show big muscles for a mobile graphics card
 
AnTaR3s said:
But that means that the 680MX now is even closer to the m295x as in the benchmarks above. I find this is a ridiculous improvement considering that the 680mx iMac was released in 2012 and we have almost 2016...
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That's basically what I'd expect judging by PC benchmarks. Mobile cards are hard to compare because they're sitting in different laptops with different processors and different cooling systems, so I usually look at their desktop counterparts:

680MX/780M are both full-size GK104 chips found on GTX 680 and GTX 770. Desktop variants are clocked higher obviously, but practically that's all the difference.

M395 is a Tonga chip found in R9 285 and 380. Telling by available data, they also only differ in clock rate.

M395X is the full size version of M395. Doesn't have a desktop equivalent so far, would equal the (yet to be released) R9 380X.

Sitting in the same PC system, the Tonga cards (R9 285/380) are barely (if at all) faster than the 2012 era Nvidia Kepler cards. A 2015 Maxwell card in the same power envelope would virtually destroy them. AMD has still a quite good price-performance ratio with their Hawaii cards, but those 300W TDP beasts are obviously a no-go for the slim iMac.

Obviously this isn't 1:1 comparable to the mobile variants sitting in the iMacs, but it makes clear what you can expect from the 2015 AMD cards.

Of course it could be much worse (hello, 4K iMac!) and the performance isn't bad compared with gaming notebooks, but when I read Apple stating something like this:
The idea behind iMac has never wavered: to craft the ultimate desktop experience. The best display, paired with high-performance processors, graphics, and storage — all within an incredibly thin, seamless enclosure.
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I honestly don't know whether I should laugh or cry 🙄
I also don't understand how making the iMac as thin as possible increases the "ultimate desktop experience". There was nothing wrong with the old form factor, which I had myself some years ago.
 
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the old form factor was heating the metal chassis like hell...on the top. SInce 2012...not anymore
but still since 2012 and that 640M and todays Iris Pro Hd6200 is a nice gain from Intel
is 10% faster than 640M
 
MandiMac said:
Honest question: Why do you change it then?
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I want to sell my '14 5K for the '16 because after 2 year is still worth money, 1 year left of Apple Care, and with Blizzard Games (the only ones that sometimes I play) Nvidia have some unique features and better performance, i don't like AMD cards but with the 5K was the necessary evil 😀
 
Astelith said:
I want to sell my '14 5K for the '16 because after 2 year is still worth money, 1 year left of Apple Care, and with Blizzard Games (the only ones that sometimes I play) Nvidia have some unique features and better performance, i don't like AMD cards but with the 5K was the necessary evil 😀
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I'll go with a similar strategy. Although I am not at all happy with the current lack of focus on GPU improvements since 2012 or so, I waited enough on my mid-2010 iMac - I'll buy the iMac i7-6700K 395X combo now with Apple care and hope in 2017 for a decent iMac STILL having a dedicated GPU (a nucleus of doubt comes from the fact that Apple discarded the dGPU in the 21.5" models… they will not dare doing this crap in their "ultimate desktop experience", will they???)
 
Fl0r!an said:
That's basically what I'd expect judging by PC benchmarks. Mobile cards are hard to compare because they're sitting in different laptops with different processors and different cooling systems, so I usually look at their desktop counterparts:

680MX/780M are both full-size GK104 chips found on GTX 680 and GTX 770. Desktop variants are clocked higher obviously, but practically that's all the difference.

M395 is a Tonga chip found in R9 285 and 380. Telling by available data, they also only differ in clock rate.

M395X is the full size version of M395. Doesn't have a desktop equivalent so far, would equal the (yet to be released) R9 380X.

Sitting in the same PC system, the Tonga cards (R9 285/380) are barely (if at all) faster than the 2012 era Nvidia Kepler cards. A 2015 Maxwell card in the same power envelope would virtually destroy them. AMD has still a quite good price-performance ratio with their Hawaii cards, but those 300W TDP beasts are obviously a no-go for the slim iMac.

Obviously this isn't 1:1 comparable to the mobile variants sitting in the iMacs, but it makes clear what you can expect from the 2015 AMD cards.

Of course it could be much worse (hello, 4K iMac!) and the performance isn't bad compared with gaming notebooks, but when I read Apple stating something like this:

I honestly don't know whether I should laugh or cry 🙄
I also don't understand how making the iMac as thin as possible increases the "ultimate desktop experience". There was nothing wrong with the old form factor, which I had myself some years ago.
Click to expand...

Very nice and detailed post. Clarified a lot.

Fl0r!an said:
I also don't understand how making the iMac as thin as possible increases the "ultimate desktop experience". There was nothing wrong with the old form factor, which I had myself some years ago.
Click to expand...

I have to say I have the same question, especially when thinking of the thermal dissipation shortcomings and throttling.
 
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