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iMac 2011 1gb gpu or 2gb gpu
- Thread starter igoodso
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88 King
macrumors 6502
I'd say no, the extra memory itself will not generate any noise as its is flash chips (like RAM or USB memory stick). But for a program to take advantage of the extra Video RAM, the graphic processor will need to be pushed much hard, so the fan might be spinning a bit faster (more noise generated) than if its on 1Gb of VRAM.
In any case, unless you planning to run modern games in maximum settings and/or setup multiple monitors for gaming. The extra 1Gb of VRAM is wasted since the imac's mobile GPU is the bottleneck here not the amount of VRAM available.
In any case, unless you planning to run modern games in maximum settings and/or setup multiple monitors for gaming. The extra 1Gb of VRAM is wasted since the imac's mobile GPU is the bottleneck here not the amount of VRAM available.
DJJAZZYJET
macrumors 6502
i was stuck in the same boat as you, and no, 2gb will be the same as 1gb noise wise, but the 6970 graphics card dosnt need 2gb, its a waste of money and memory, it works just like ram in your imac, only that its for the graphics. Its called vram, and it depends on what your going to be doing. IF your running multiple monitors, 2gb will help, if your running games, video's etc, 1gb is best.
No need to get the 2gb unless you know why you need it.
There are very few use cases for a 2gb graphics card right now.
There are very few use cases for a 2gb graphics card right now.
Rumor has it that Lion will use OpenCL for a wide variety of tasks. OpenCL uses the GPU to help the CPU in intensive computations, and more VRAM would help in this regard. So 2 GB could be seen as future proofing. Hopefully we'll know more when Lion is made available.
I believe OpenCL requires application to be customized to take advantage of this API.
But nevertheless, 1GB of VRAM is still plenty for this sort of acceleration, there is no need for 2GB.
There's no sense in futureproofing either - by the time an application will use 2GB of VRAM, your computer will be an ancient piece of junk.
Not very likely since OpenCL is not about storing gigabytes of data on your GPU. Let's say you want to calculate a video frame by combining 9 uncompressed 1080p input images. Such a scenario would only use 62 megabytes of memory.
Even the heavily GPU-accelerated FCPX only requires 256mb VRAM.
DJJAZZYJET
macrumors 6502
your misleading the thread starter, 2gb vram wont future proof as the 6970m graphics card will be too underpowered in the future. 1gb is fine, and it wont be any faster if you have a 2gb unless your running multiple monitors and you might get an extra 1 - 2 frames per second running a graphical game (crisis 2 maybe) which isnt worth it.
Badger^2
macrumors 68000
How does something that doesnt move make any noise at all?
Whats the sound of one hand clapping?🙂