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ATI 6970 = desktop or Marketing crap again?

M

mark28

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 29, 2010
1,632
2
Is the ATI 6970m the desktop GPU or an other marketing bull&$^*&#$@ from Apple?

If it's the real desktop GPU, I'm extremely tempted to get my credit card now and buy the high end 27" model :eek:
 
mark28 said:
Is the ATI 6970m the desktop GPU or an other marketing bull&$^*&#$@ from Apple?

If it's the real desktop GPU, I'm extremely tempted to get my credit card now and buy the high end 27" model :eek:
Click to expand...

it's the mobile variant which is why it has the 'm'
 
It is the Mobility version. 960 shaders just like the desktop HD 6850. To be honest it is the minimum for 1080p gaming.

It is a substantial improvement from the HD 5770. (5850M)
 
Oh I see, they put the mobile variant in it. Too bad. Won't order it now then.

I'll wait for reviews first, still looks pretty good so far :D
 
mark28 said:
Oh I see, they put the mobile variant in it. Too bad. Won't order it now then.

I'll wait for reviews first, still looks pretty good so far :D
Click to expand...

All iMacs had a mobile graphics card in the past. So I guess you'll never be ordering one ever?
 
Kendo said:
All iMacs had a mobile graphics card in the past. So I guess you'll never be ordering one ever?
Click to expand...

Maybe, maybe not. I'll have to wait for review first now. Perhaps if the Mac Pro gets updated soon, I'll order that one if it impresses me more.If not, maybe I'll order a 27" i7 :)
 
mark28 said:
Is the ATI 6970m the desktop GPU or an other marketing bull&$^*&#$@ from Apple?

If it's the real desktop GPU, I'm extremely tempted to get my credit card now and buy the high end 27" model :eek:
Click to expand...

Correct me if I am wrong, but iMac has had the mobile variant of AMD GPUs for a few revisions now, right? I wasn't surprised to see this. I have a 2009 iMac and as far as I know it has the 4850m and last revision it had the 5750m.
 
Its a high end Laptop GPU, it ranks about 16th on desktop GPU's i heard, not sure about that one.

Its a decent GPU anyway, if you want a gaming computer get a PC.
 
Dwee8le said:
Correct me if I am wrong, but iMac has had the mobile variant of AMD GPUs for a few revisions now, right? I wasn't surprised to see this. I have a 2009 iMac and as far as I know it has the 4850m and last revision it had the 5750m.
Click to expand...
It was advertised as the 5750 but is actually a 5850M which is based off the 5750 IIRC.
 
The 6850/6970m is a very good card. [H]OCP's "real-world, actual gameplay" review shows that it is capable of running a few games (Civ V, F1 2010, Mafia II) at 2560x1440 with decent settings. Games such as BF2 and Metro 2033 run well 1920x1200.

I was expecting a 6850m, but very glad the refreshes are shipping with the 6970m's.
 
Dwee8le said:
Correct me if I am wrong, but iMac has had the mobile variant of AMD GPUs for a few revisions now, right? I wasn't surprised to see this. I have a 2009 iMac and as far as I know it has the 4850m and last revision it had the 5750m.
Click to expand...

All aluminum iMacs have used mobile GPUs. I think the 7300GT and/or 7600GT in 24" white iMac was a desktop GPU but I'm not 100% sure.

MythicFrost said:
It was advertised as the 5750 but is actually a 5850M which is based off the 5750 IIRC.
Click to expand...

5770 if we are accurate (5750 has less shaders) ;)
 
Does anyone know how the 6770 on the base 27" compares to the 5750 on the high end 27" July 2010 model?

It kills me that the GPU isn't upgradeable on the base 27" iMac so I'm contemplating spending the extra $300 for the processor bump (which I don't need) and the 6970 (which I want).
 
Kendo said:
Does anyone know how the 6770 on the base 27" compares to the 5750 on the high end 27" July 2010 model?

It kills me that the GPU isn't upgradeable on the base 27" iMac so I'm contemplating spending the extra $300 for the processor bump (which I don't need) and the 6970 (which I want).
Click to expand...

I'm being lazy today so I quote what I have posted earlier:

Hellhammer said:
There aren't any benchmarks for 6950M but there are plenty for 6970M. Since 6950M has just 100MHz (15%) lower clock speed, it's fairly easy to compare them. NotebookCheck's benchmarks show that 6970M is up to more than twice as fast as 4850M, even in gaming benchmarks. I would say performance gains vary between 70% and 110%. Subtract the 15% from that and we get 60% and 94%, so average of 77%.

6950M will sure be a huge upgrade from 4850M.

6970M appears to be around 40-45% (30-60% in various benchmarks) faster than 5850M. Again, subtract 15% and we get ~36%. Note: You must compare 5850M with GDDR5 since there are versions with DDR3 and GDDR3. Those are much slower.
Click to expand...

Quite nice upgrade IMO if those numbers happen to be true with iMacs as well.
 
Kendo said:
Does anyone know how the 6770 on the base 27" compares to the 5750 on the high end 27" July 2010 model?

It kills me that the GPU isn't upgradeable on the base 27" iMac so I'm contemplating spending the extra $300 for the processor bump (which I don't need) and the 6970 (which I want).
Click to expand...
There are only two significant GPU upgrades here, from the Mobility HD 4670 to the 6750M and the HD 5850M to the 6970M.

On the lower end you also get bumped to a quad core from a Core i3. The high end would be only for the GPU.
 
I dunno, you tell me which is more likely to fit in the iMac case

This

amd-6970-gpu.jpg


or this

graphicscard.gif
 
Last edited:
mark28 said:
Perhaps if the Mac Pro gets updated soon, I'll order that one if it impresses me more.
Click to expand...
You'll be waiting a long time for that…

I think the new iMacs are very nice machines. It would be nice to see 1GB GPUs in the lower-end models, but I probably wouldn't buy anything other than the high-end machine anyway.
 
daneoni said:
I dunno, you tell me which is more likely to fit in the iMac case

This

amd-6970-gpu.jpg


or this

ATI_Radeon_Chip.png
Click to expand...

Well, the mobile version isn't exactly small either when you factor in the cooling system which is not included in your pic (to be honest, it's just the GPU, not even the MXM board).

ktLKDUFPyGmyPPQJ.huge


The GPU is on the left hand side.
 
I have a 24" Dell monitor in a 2006 model Mac Pro with an ATI Radeon 4870 card.

Will this new iMac high end model have better graphics capabilities or not?
 
Kendo said:
Wow. So it looks like the GPU in the base 27" 2011 iMac is slightly better than the GPU in the ultimate 27" 2010 iMac?? If that is the case, I don't feel a need to upgrade to the 6970M.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6770M.43955.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5850.23069.0.html
Click to expand...

Only look at the GDDR5 results for the 5850M. I would say the 5850M is actually faster when you ignore those DDR3 and GDDR3 results, which are irrelevant.
 
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