AMD Radeon R9 M290x vs M295X

[colodane]

With regard to the advice to purchase AppleCare with your iMac - I couldn't agree more. The iMac is a highly integrated device with a physical design that does not lend itself to easy access and repair. I'm sure that the Apple cooling design keeps the components within their maximum allowable operating temperatures, but even so heat does have a cumulative effect on reliability over the years. I would not want to pay for a GPU or display fault on an iMac. At $150 or so, the AppleCare coverage seems reasonably priced.

On a Mac Pro, however, AppleCare may not be such a slam dunk purchase. It is more expensive ($250?) and actually covers less. The advantage of a Pro is the ability to use a monitor of your choice, and the monitor would not be covered. The AppleCare pricing on the Pro seems to reflect a hardware configuration of a high-end user with lots of processors and other performance enhancements. If I go with a Pro, it would be a simple quad core, a small SSD and only one monitor. Given that the cooling design on the Pro is more conservative than on the iMac and the service access better, I think I'd skip AppleCare in this case.

 

[clayj]

I often run more than one VM at a time, so having extra RAM is vital. My current Mac Pro has 24 GB of RAM -- I tend to allocate 8 GB to each Windows VM, so that leaves 8 GB of RAM for the Mac OS itself.

Thanks all for your comments -- based on what I've read, I've decided to wait until the next generation of Retina iMac. As was mentioned, there seem to be a number of compromises that have been made in the process of building this first-gen Retina iMac and that's enough deterrent for me to wait.

 

[clayj]

Actually, I've now decided to go with a pumped-up Mac mini -- 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD. This will give me better single core performance than I get from my 2008 Mac Pro (by about 2x), while being around 75% as fast as the i7 Retina iMac. I can still use the Mac mini with my 30" ACD, using a dual-link DVI adapter (which I already have on a 2010 Mac mini), so I'll still have access to my 2560 x 1600 screen. And I can add Thunderbolt storage rather easily.

This will only cost me $1399 -- quite a bit less than the iMac. The only downside is that the RAM maxes out at 16 GB, but I can get used to only running one Windows VM at a time.

 

[Georgio]

Hrm. So the choices are:

• M290X which may not run as smoothly as one would like when performing even basic windowing tasks. (FWIW, my plan was to spec the 4 GHz i7 with 256 GB SSD, and then add RAM to jump to 32 GB and external Thunderbolt storage.)
• Or, M295X which acts like an afterburner, giving short boosts to performance while causing the entire machine to overheat and potentially shorten its lifespan.

It almost sounds like Apple have, at least for now, bitten off more than they can chew with the 5K screen -- they've got the pixels, but can't drive them properly and safely no matter which GPU you go with.

As far as AppleCare goes: I wasn't planning to buy that. I did that with my 2008 Mac Pro and nothing ever happened to the machine in 7 years.

Not strictly true regarding a suitable GPU, Apple 'should' have used the far superior NVidia 980M GPU in the RMac, but that would have required them to wait another few months for adequate supplies, whereas the 290/295 chips were available immediately and cheap due to Sony not needing them for the PS4 (allegedly).
Plus the 980M being more expensive than the 295 would also have eaten into profits which was probably the major factor, but undoubtedly the NVidia chips would have been the perfect marriage in the RMac.
Hopefully at the next refresh Apple will finally see sense and produce a 980 powered iMac that can do justice to the retina screen.

 

[andy9l]

Actually, I've now decided to go with a pumped-up Mac mini -- 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD. This will give me better single core performance than I get from my 2008 Mac Pro (by about 2x), while being around 75% as fast as the i7 Retina iMac. I can still use the Mac mini with my 30" ACD, using a dual-link DVI adapter (which I already have on a 2010 Mac mini), so I'll still have access to my 2560 x 1600 screen. And I can add Thunderbolt storage rather easily.



This will only cost me $1399 -- quite a bit less than the iMac. The only downside is that the RAM maxes out at 16 GB, but I can get used to only running one Windows VM at a time.

That's quite a downgrade for any multi-core tasks, and in terms of screen quality. If you're buying for the sake of wanting (not needing) something new, I'd recommend holding off.

The 5K iMac is - no, will be - an absolute fantastic machine. The screen is incredible, really, and with a better GPU it would be an extremely powerful and well-suited machine. For now, we are all aware of its limitations and downsides.

You've got to realise that users like yourself never really push the CPU or GPU. If you bought the M295X, you probably wouldn't have any heat issues because you don't put enough load on it. It is, then, overkill for your usage, but you get an amazing machine so who cares? No-one should tell you how to spend your money.

I personally couldn't make that jump down to a Mac Mini. Just looking at the performance of Mac Minis over time makes me anxious. The 2012 Mac Mini outperforms the 2014 by nearly 100% for multi core, whilst being only 5% behind for single core. I could not spend $1,500 on a product that is arguably worse than a 2 year-old predecessor.

I was disappointed with the 5K iMac and returned it. Yet I'm still waiting for the next gen - that's how much I wanted to keep it. The screen and speed of the thing is, or was, brilliant.

Hopefully at the next refresh Apple will finally see sense and produce a 980 powered iMac that can do justice to the retina screen.

I fear this is very unlikely. I can't imagine a corporate contract being up after one product cycle. I might be wrong.

Apple must have struck a deal with AMD for the Mac Pro FirePro cards, one might assume the iMac cards were bundled in that. Or the other way around?

 

[peixots]

Hi to all

I'm new around here and I need your help, after reading all I'm a bit confuse..

I have to buy a Imac for my work. My work is Architect, so I have to work a lot in Autocad photoshop and 3D rendering... and I was thinking to buy the Imac retina i7 with 16 gb and the M290...

Do you think that is enough? should I upgrade to the M295?

In your opinion, what will be the important for the 3D rendering performance?

Thankss

 

[Patbil10]

To the OP,

I have the M290 and haven't noticed any situation where it struggled. My uses for this machine are photo editing using Lightroom, web browsing, taxes, word processing and this iMac can handle everything I throw at it.

I'm planning on keeping this computer for 5-8 years so reliability is super important. That's why I avoided the M295x since it's hotter and I'm terrified at the idea that an overheating GPU blows right after Applcare ends....Yikes !

to me, it's quite simple. You game, get the M295x w\Applecare and hope it blows within coverage period. For non gamers, get the M290x w\Applecare and enjoy your machine for a long time.

 

[familychoice]

I've just returned my 290 iMac. I could put up with the juddery Mission control but spinning beach balls and freezes when zooming into a 4.5mb .pdf is not acceptable to me. I also ran some speed tests alongside my mid 2012 base model MacBook Pro, and noticed no increase in performance from the higher specced iMac - probably as the extra power is driving those extra pixels.

Lovely screen, shame about the graphics card.

 

[Patbil10]

I've just returned my 290 iMac. I could put up with the juddery Mission control but spinning beach balls and freezes when zooming into a 4.5mb .pdf is not acceptable to me. I also ran some speed tests alongside my mid 2012 base model MacBook Pro, and noticed no increase in performance from the higher specced iMac - probably as the extra power is driving those extra pixels.

Lovely screen, shame about the graphics card.

Funny since I never had these issues. I can stream 4K video and do other stuff at the same time...

 

[Tobamory]

yeah me neither all works fine.

What i have noticed is the Framerates in MAC os are poor compared to likewise game in Windows 8 bootcamp..

if i play World of Tanks on the BC i get around 55 to 120 FPS deep on map which is kind of on par with my Gaming PC running a full blooded R290.

however on playing starcraft the FPS on OS X dropped to 5 to 10 on the desert arcade maps but in windows it was fine and when things got very hectic it went to around 25...

must be drivers and I'm sure it will get better as it grows with age...

the 295 run at 90+ degrees though when hammered but never gone to 100 which is hot, but fine I'm told

 

[WilliamG]

Actually, I've now decided to go with a pumped-up Mac mini -- 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD. This will give me better single core performance than I get from my 2008 Mac Pro (by about 2x), while being around 75% as fast as the i7 Retina iMac. I can still use the Mac mini with my 30" ACD, using a dual-link DVI adapter (which I already have on a 2010 Mac mini), so I'll still have access to my 2560 x 1600 screen. And I can add Thunderbolt storage rather easily.

This will only cost me $1399 -- quite a bit less than the iMac. The only downside is that the RAM maxes out at 16 GB, but I can get used to only running one Windows VM at a time.

If you're going to spend that much money on a Mac mini, I'd track down a 2012 Mac mini quad-core, which will blow away the 2014 Mac mini if multicore performance is important.

 

[familychoice]

Funny since I never had these issues. I can stream 4K video and do other stuff at the same time...

How does it handle zooming in and around large .pdf files?

Mine was great for most things - didn't have any issues at all, but it was rubbish at viewing .pdf's. Which is a bummer for me as I have to create and look at them on a daily basis.

 

[Tobamory]

By the looks of it it's not the hardware that's at fault but more Yosemite I have the 295 and it's fine and I'm in and out of both pdf and docs all day

I'm sure Apple will release something to fix it all

 

[familychoice]

By the looks of it it's not the hardware that's at fault but more Yosemite I have the 295 and it's fine and I'm in and out of both pdf and docs all day

I'm sure Apple will release something to fix it all

Every time I read about someone not having issues they seem to be using the 295x. Since all the issues with .pdf's seem to be happening to 290 users then I would think it definitely is a hardware issue.

It's not Yosemite anyway as I have the same problems using non OS pdf readers.

 

[Georgio]

yeah me neither all works fine.

What i have noticed is the Framerates in MAC os are poor compared to likewise game in Windows 8 bootcamp..

if i play World of Tanks on the BC i get around 55 to 120 FPS deep on map which is kind of on par with my Gaming PC running a full blooded R290.

however on playing starcraft the FPS on OS X dropped to 5 to 10 on the desert arcade maps but in windows it was fine and when things got very hectic it went to around 25...

must be drivers and I'm sure it will get better as it grows with age...

the 295 run at 90+ degrees though when hammered but never gone to 100 which is hot, but fine I'm told

Native gaming on the Mac is never going to work for graphics intensive titles; I did a direct comparision between World of Warcraft in MacOS and Win7 bootcamp and the Mac using OpenGL was a juddery, cartoony mess.

The directX bootcamp version looked excellent and had framerates double that of the Mac version i.e. 80 vs 35.

 

[Tobamory]

Native gaming on the Mac is never going to work for graphics intensive titles; I did a direct comparision between World of Warcraft in MacOS and Win7 bootcamp and the Mac using OpenGL was a juddery, cartoony mess.

The directX bootcamp version looked excellent and had framerates double that of the Mac version i.e. 80 vs 35.

Yeah your right, its weird though youd have thought they would have fixed this gap at some point.

 

[Georgio]

Yeah your right, its weird though youd have thought they would have fixed this gap at some point.

Just goes to show how neglected OpenGL for intensive graphics is, but then if you look at the economics of Macs, what 5% of the home PC market and of those probably 1-2% want to game, then it's cheaper to just do Bootcamp and let Windows have the headache.

 

[fathergll]

Every time I read about someone not having issues they seem to be using the 295x. Since all the issues with .pdf's seem to be happening to 290 users then I would think it definitely is a hardware issue.

What's odd is the performance on my Fusion drive/M290 isn't universally laggy. The computer can be lighting quick and then get a beachball for something small like going into system preferences to the display area setting. Note not changing the resolution but just getting into the actual screen. Also lags with preview a bit. But there's no issue doing something more intensive like 4k video streaming and honestly even Photoshop isn't bad at all.

It's an odd beast of a computer. It's dead quite and is snappy many times then BAM,....lag.

 

[kepler20b]

What's odd is the performance on my Fusion drive/M290 isn't universally laggy. The computer can be lighting quick and then get a beachball for something small like going into system preferences to the display area setting. Note not changing the resolution but just getting into the actual screen. Also lags with preview a bit. But there's no issue doing something more intensive like 4k video streaming and honestly even Photoshop isn't bad at all.

It's an odd beast of a computer. It's dead quite and is snappy many times then BAM,....lag.

it's your fusion drive.

When it accesses information on it's SSD portion, it can do so quickly. But if it has to migrate to the hard drive part it takes time.

 

[andy9l]

it's your fusion drive.



When it accesses information on it's SSD portion, it can do so quickly. But if it has to migrate to the hard drive part it takes time.

I'm not a fan of fusion drives, but this simply can not be true. My 2006 5,400rpm hard drive doesn't cause beach balls in system preferences.

Maybe for loading big files that have been archived to the HDD, but not simple tasks like system prefs.

Besides, isn't the entirety of OS X itself always on the SSD? I thought it was always reserved.

 

[fathergll]

it's your fusion drive.

When it accesses information on it's SSD portion, it can do so quickly. But if it has to migrate to the hard drive part it takes time.

It's not it. I just did a test by setting up a new profile, logged in and no beach ball. Literally the beach ball is there everytime on my 'admin' account. Funny enough I tried running Windows 7 on parallels and that behaves pretty snappy. I'm seriously thinking of just using Windows 7 on this machine and not using OSX.

 

[blufrog]

@Patbil10 - you have the spec I was looking at. Could you run Unigine Valley benchmark in OSX and tell me the results? Note that you will need to set the desktop resolution for each test first as it runs at DESKTOP resolution, not that set in the program itself.

I'm realistic - I'm in no way expecting to game at 5k regardless of GPU, but if at 2860x1440 (still far higher than your average gaming PC) it can post "good" results, that's enough for me!

If you could try max resolution, high intermediate, and lowest resolution (all at max detail) it would be greatly appreciated.

Leave AA off, too. Max everything else.

I think the beach ball issue in strange places is a Yosemite problem as my rMBP does it randomly. Most of the time it is fine but occasionally it beach balls for no apparent reason (closing Viewer, going to Preferences, etc.). Most of the time it is very smooth. It has 256 Gb SSD and 8 Gb of RAM. It's not memory or CPU load related as I can go crazy, and aside from some slight slow-down when opening EVERYTHING at once, it doesn't beach ball any more frequently. OSX 10.10.2.

It seems to do it most often when ejecting a network share that hasn't been accessed for a few minutes.

 

[fathergll]

I think the beach ball issue in strange places is a Yosemite problem as my rMBP does it randomly. Most of the time it is fine but occasionally it beach balls for no apparent reason (closing Viewer, going to Preferences, etc.). Most of the time it is very smooth. It has 256 Gb SSD and 8 Gb of RAM. It's not memory or CPU load related as I can go crazy, and aside from some slight slow-down when opening EVERYTHING at once, it doesn't beach ball any more frequently. OSX 10.10.2.

Interesting. This is why I think a ton of the retina issues are more OS related than anything else. As to why a new profile would be faster on my iMac is another story.

 

[ball1980]

late to the party but nevertheless... some important info one should know
getting 290X or 295X is purely a performance choice, you do not get future proofing with either because the card "family" will support same shader/pixel model and hence upto a certain version of OS or software using upto a certain version of openGL.

So anyone saying you need better gfx card is just not aware. I sell PCs everyday and a friend has a mac store by the way. Go for the retina with any gfx card (i got the 3.5 i5 with 290x) but do keep in mind that the 290x has 2gb ram whereas 295x has 4gb. Your mac should be safe for 6 years atleast (possibly 8) now that processor speeds are not climbing that much every year and as technology advances slowdown. (unless they put a quantum processor in production) i would say putting more memory in the mac made mine better, i put in 8X2 gb to take it to 24gb, enough for me. My last imac lasted 5 years and it was still good for all apps, just wanted a new 5k display so upgraded.

 

[jerwin]

My last imac lasted 5 years and it was still good for all apps, just wanted a new 5k display so upgraded.

What model was your last iMac. You might have diminished expectations.