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iMac 27 with 5K or not? :/

ApoorvPrem

ApoorvPrem

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 25, 2011
181
12
India
SO I am planning on buying an iMac 27inch. I was checking the prices - The 2K display with 1Tb fusion drive is only 200 less than the base 5K model. I just wanted to ask whether the difference between the two GPUs is huge - GT 755m vs AMD 290 ( Not the X one ). I don't want for extreme usage. But I would be doing moderate gaming. Games like GTA V and Fifa. Some future proofing would be welcome.
 
Some gaming benchmarks for the m290. Not a whole lot.

I suppose I could sum up the article by saying

m295x: you can try to game at 5k.
m290x: better dial down the resolution to 1440p
m290: you're better off with 1080p

Of course, all these benchmarks are perfunctory. Sure, Cinebanch is an easy test, but who in their right mind would want to game at 900x650-- the size of cinebench's viewport?

Notebook check says the GT755M is good for low and medium on GTAV, and the m290x is good for low medium and high.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.13849.0.html
 
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jerwin said:
Some gaming benchmarks for the m290. Not a whole lot.

I suppose I could sum up the article by saying

m295x: you can try to game at 5k.
m290x: better dial down the resolution to 1440p
m290: you're better off with 1080p

Of course, all these benchmarks are perfunctory. Sure, Cinebanch is an easy test, but who in their right mind would want to game at 900x650-- the size of cinebench's viewport?

Notebook check says the GT755M is good for low and medium on GTAV, and the m290x is good for low medium and high.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.13849.0.html
Click to expand...

To sum it up - Should i go for the 5k one? too much data :/
 
Try to find a really good deal on the 3.5 Ghz model? It wasn't the graphics card that bothered me. It was the hard drive.

And oh yeah. The screen. Great for text.
 
To be honest, the most important thing is to get at least a fusion drive for flash storage, all the GPU's will be fine for moderate gaming at 1440p. Of course what happens with games in the future may make that a bad decision in 3 yeras time, but as of now that would be my advice.
 
I see people writing about getting an iMac and then say Gaming. In my mind, without a better definition of what gaming means, you can't really answer. But looking at the games listed, it seems that they are Windows programs and not a native Mac app.

It doesn't make sense that so many people are looking to buy a computer designed to effectively integrate a connectivity ecosystem (ie your phone/tablet) with your computer and look good to boot, and want to try and make it do something it was not designed for like play games with ultimate high resolution, textures and frame rate.

It is sort of like my laugh at the HomeDepot near where I live. They converted all the 'Contractor' parking spots that were right beside the lumber and drywall large pickup doors over to 'Hybrid cars' parking. Great for image, but I don't expect to see someone with a Toyota Prius picking up 10 sheets of drywall and a stack of 2x4's.


That is not saying that an iMac cannot play a good game or two. I am interested to see if the next El Capitan OS will change the gaming environment for iMac as if this new Metal Graphics Technology allows the iMac to do with DirectX did for windows, then all of a sudden the iMac could be a viable gaming machine for once.
 
But the iMac Retina is a better computer than the non-Retina iMac. The fact that it comes with a better video card that will let you play games (at a higher level of graphical detail) is a nice bonus. the R9 m295x, which is the quinessential "I want to play games on my mac card" isn't under consideration here. (The equivalent for the non Retina imacs would be the 780m, but that's not offered anymore.)

Is the m290 substantially worse than the m290x? In some games, no. In others, perhaps those extra stream processing units and texture processing units make the difference between a game that is playable at high detail, and one that's not. But m290x model comes with a fusion drive, standard, and the other has to be built to order-- meaning that volume discounts don't apply.
 
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jerwin said:
But the iMac Retina is a better computer than the non-Retina iMac. The fact that it comes with a better video card that will let you play games (at a higher level of graphical detail) is a nice bonus. the R9 m295x, which is the quinessential "I want to play games on my mac card" isn't under consideration here. (The equivalent for the non Retina imacs would me the 780m, but that's not offered anymore.)

Is the m290 substantially worse than the m290x? In some games, no. In others, perhaps those extra stream processing units and texture processing units make the difference between a game that is playable at high detail, and one that's not. But m290x model comes with a fusion drive, standard, and the other has to be built to order-- meaning that volume discounts don't apply.
Click to expand...

Yup. Inclining towards the Base M290x model.
 
ApoorvPrem said:
SO I am planning on buying an iMac 27inch. I was checking the prices - The 2K display with 1Tb fusion drive is only 200 less than the base 5K model. I just wanted to ask whether the difference between the two GPUs is huge - GT 755m vs AMD 290 ( Not the X one ). I don't want for extreme usage. But I would be doing moderate gaming. Games like GTA V and Fifa. Some future proofing would be welcome.
Click to expand...

The U.S. $2299 retina iMac is the most economical one for what you're looking to do, in my opinion. The retina model without fusion or SSD just doesn't make sense to me.

If you want to save money, get a fusion of SSD retina from the refurbished store.
 
Just bought 27" 5k Retina iMac from refurb store UK. cannot believe the quality of this device. Absolute magic.
 
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ApoorvPrem said:
SO I am planning on buying an iMac 27inch. I was checking the prices - The 2K display with 1Tb fusion drive is only 200 less than the base 5K model. I just wanted to ask whether the difference between the two GPUs is huge - GT 755m vs AMD 290 ( Not the X one ). I don't want for extreme usage. But I would be doing moderate gaming. Games like GTA V and Fifa. Some future proofing would be welcome.
Click to expand...
if you don't need one now i'd wait. apple cheaped out on the 27" retina GPU; as much as people like to deny it, you are basically paying extra $$ to get the iPad 3 equivalent of the iMac (i.e. paying the "Retina" tax for a machine that doesn't have the specs to drive it)
 
JXShine said:
if you don't need one now i'd wait. apple cheaped out on the 27" retina GPU; as much as people like to deny it, you are basically paying extra $$ to get the iPad 3 equivalent of the iMac (i.e. paying the "Retina" tax for a machine that doesn't have the specs to drive it)
Click to expand...

It'll be a long wait.
 
I doubt a new 5K iMac is coming soon. 21.5 ones - yeah. Not the 5K ones. They are not even 1 year old! And the 295Xs are quite new.
 
JXShine said:
Yea..no.
For a $3000 purchase, a few extra months of wait is not a "long wait"
Click to expand...
But it won't be a few months. It'll be a few years, unless Apple puts an AMD Fury into its next iMac. And they won't. The improvements coming with skylake won't improve your perception of the machine. They won't save it from being the ipad 3 of imacs. A 4k gaming video card might. And it's not coming.
 
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I agree that the hard drive is the biggest issue with buying a new iMac. For a company pushing so strongly to move beyond spinning disks and user upgrades, it does seem crazy to still make them standard in their iMac line.

Anyway, I actually solved that issue by buying an external drive casing for an SSD (make sure it supports UASP) and my speeds are surprisingly fast. The only downside now is that my "all-in-one" now has its boot drive dangling outside of the computer like some sort of mutant brain and I use the internal 1TB as my time machine.
 
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