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I'm hoping the next iMac has a 6950M 1GB/2GB in it, in fact, it should!

MythicFrost

MythicFrost

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Mar 11, 2009
3,944
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Australia
I've thought this for a while, and since Apple is offering the 6750M 1GB in high end MacBook Pro's, it makes sense that they'd offer the 6950M in the high end iMac.

Apple used the 5850M 1GB in the current high end iMac which is a slower clocked 5870M and is based off the desktop 5770 chip.

Seeing that the (desktop) 68xx series AMD cards are replacement for the 57xx series and not the 58xx series, it would make sense that the 6950M would be used in the iMac as it's based off the desktop 6850 chip.

I, for one, hope this will happen, and I look forward to it because I'll be upgrading!

The 6970 pulls some nice FPS:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6970M.43077.0.html (scroll to bottom)

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html
 
They used the 5750M. Sorry but I think we'll be getting the 6850M.. though I honestly can't predict seeing as to how I really did not see the MacBook Pros getting a 6750M.
 
jbyun04 said:
They used the 5750M. Sorry but I think we'll be getting the 6850M.. though I honestly can't predict seeing as to how I really did not see the MacBook Pros getting a 6750M.
Click to expand...
No, they advertise it as the "5750" (desktop). It's actually a 5850M. The 6850M is basically the same as the 5850M but with a few minor improvements -- it wouldn't be much of an upgrade at all.
A Macbook Pro said:
Why would they use a mobile graphics card in an iMac?
Click to expand...
Because they always have. It can't fit a full sized card (space, heat).
 
jbyun04 said:
They used the 5750M. Sorry but I think we'll be getting the 6850M.. though I honestly can't predict seeing as to how I really did not see the MacBook Pros getting a 6750M.
Click to expand...

They used the 5850m... which was proven on more then one occasion (using device IDs). This card is about equal in performance to the desktop 5750, hence the marketing.

A Macbook Pro said:
Why would they use a mobile graphics card in an iMac?
Click to expand...

Because its hard/not possible to fit a hot desktop card into such a small chassis? Be realistic.
 
I really hope they use it because it would offer enough power at 2560x1440 to play most games on High if not Very High... not including overclocking :cool:

Actually, I hope they use the 6970M but the 6950 would be good too.
 
They most likely will. They used 4850m in the '09 iMac, 5850m in '10 iMac so it makes sense for them to use 6950 in '11 iMac.

They might cheap you out on using 1gb of vram isntead of 2gb, but that really shouldn't matter as it only has around 128gb/s of memory bandwidth anyways.

The 128gb/s of bandwidth over the 64gb/s bandwidth the mobility 5850 offers is enough of an upgrade as it is.
 
Apple seriously needs to get into gaming more. Gamers like flashy and nice looking things. Granted that Macs are the niced looking computers and then nicest looking OS in the world, it would be nice if they could focus on better graphics in their computers and they need to stop suffocating their low-end products (21.5" iMac and 13" MACBOOK PRO!!!!!).

We want affordable Macs, but don't want to waste money on unused features.

I wish that Apple would stop focusing on their CPUs so much. Quad Core i7 is more than enough. If they paired a dual core i5 with a 6850 or higher graphics card, it would be a beutiful price point for me. Personally, I have an AMD Phenom II X2 in my computer and it's just enough for me.
 
I'd love to see the 6950m or 6970m in the next iMac.

Like told, the 4850m to 5850m upgrade wasn't an improvement at all.
It's time to improve again, especially since more and more games are coming to the Mac. With the new App Store a lot of new games emerged and more (demanding) will come!

Apple should know that the gaming industry has been left aside for too long, and it's a booming market which they still have to conquer. They would make a lot of new customers when they would release a powerfull Mac which is capable of playing games. The current iMac is not, and the expensive Mac Pro is rather a workstation. Since desktop cards are an issue for the iMac, choose the 6950m or 6970m cards! If laptops can house and cool it, why not a giant iMac?
 
MythicFrost said:
No, they advertise it as the "5750" (desktop). It's actually a 5850M. The 6850M is basically the same as the 5850M but with a few minor improvements -- it wouldn't be much of an upgrade at all.

Because they always have. It can't fit a full sized card (space, heat).
Click to expand...

Actually, the 6850 is the successor to the 5750 (markedly better), the 6950 being the successor to the 5850. The 6990 will be the successor to the 5970, due to AMD incrementing their tier system. To summarise The 6950 and 6970 are respectively the single GPU successors to the 5850 and 5870, the 5970 being the dual GPU predecessor to the soon-to-be released 6990. So, the iMac will most likely have a 6950/70m marketed as a 6850 desktop. This is actually a decent improvement in performance, since the 6850 approaches a desktop 5850.

Mobile 6970.
 
fpsBeaTt said:
Actually, the 6850 is the successor to the 5750 (markedly better), the 6950 being the successor to the 5850. The 6990 will be the successor to the 5970, due to AMD incrementing their tier system. To summarise The 6950 and 6970 are respectively the single GPU successors to the 5850 and 5870, the 5970 being the dual GPU predecessor to the soon-to-be released 6990. So, the iMac will most likely have a 6950/70m marketed as a 6850 desktop. This is actually a decent improvement in performance, since the 6850 approaches a desktop 5850.

Mobile 6970.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I was saying in my first post. If the 6950/70 has 128GB memory bandwidth, I'm down!
 
You're confusing the actual bandwidth with just the bus width. To calculate the actual bandwidth of a gpu, you divide its bus width by 8, and then multiply it by the clock rate of the memory and then multiply that with the data rate of the memory.

According to the memory speed of the gddr5 on 6950m via notebookcheck, this means the 6950m will have a little over 115gb/s memory bandwidth, compared to only 64gb/s of the previous generation 5850m. A substantial upgrade for high resolution gaming.
 
Last edited:
TMRaven said:
You're confusing the actual bandwidth with just the bus width. To calculate the actual bandwidth of a gpu, you divide its bus width by 8, and then multiply it by the clock rate of the memory and then multiply that with the data rate of the memory.

According to the memory speed of the gddr5 on 6950m via notebookcheck, this means the 6950m will have a little over 115gb/s memory bandwidth, compared to only 64gb/s of the previous generation 5850m. A substantial upgrade for high resolution gaming.
Click to expand...
Hmmm... what am I doing wrong here?

256 / 8 = 32
32 * 580 (core speed) = 18,560
18,560 * 900 (memory speed) = 16,704,000

16MB/s??? lol
 
You're multiplying by the gpu's clock speed and not the memory's clock speed, and then you're not multiplying again with the memory's data rate.

256/8 = 32
32x900 = 28,800
28,800x4 = 115,200

Even though GDDR5 is still called double data rate, and technically still is double data rate, it does some nifty tricks to give it twice the throughput as previous generation memory like GDDR3 that I had read up a while back but since then forgot, so it has a virtual data rate of 4 compared to 2, and is a big reason why it's such an important thing to have for powerful gpus.
 
TMRaven said:
You're multiplying by the gpu's clock speed and not the memory's clock speed, and then you're not multiplying again with the memory's data rate.

256/8 = 32
32x900 = 28,800
28,800x4 = 115,200

Even though GDDR5 is still called double data rate, and technically still is double data rate, it does some nifty tricks to give it twice the throughput as previous generation memory like GDDR3 that I had read up a while back but since then forgot, so it has a virtual data rate of 4 compared to 2, and is a big reason why it's such an important thing to have for powerful gpus.
Click to expand...
Ah right, thanks!
 
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