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iMac 5K GPU Performance

666sheep said:
Few notes: how you can trust some "Generic VGA" benchmark? If drivers for M295X aren't public, how result of the card unsupported by current drivers can be considered even half-trustworthy?
Why one, who can test the card not released to the market, uses Catalyst 14.500 instead of 14.7 Beta ones?

I don't believe that this "M295X" score is legit and can reflect actual performance of iMac 5K GPU.
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Thats a good point and i think that thats the reason that most here on the thread havent yet purchased the button. Including me.

If i was sure that result was indeed 100% i would have ordered it yesterday :)

But it was a valid contribution, may be not acurate, but at least for me gave me hope (even if it doesnt lasts)

Theres a lot of weird things as you mention and also memory of the card etc, but could it be some test done while the card was still inside AMD instead of a user? No one knows :)

We are just speculating and gatering some info, and i have to be honest when i saw those numers my expectations became high :)
 
AlphaMF said:
Yes we lack emperical data. Thats the most obvious point to make after 4 pages. We are all waiting for empirical data. Noone would be more delighted for empirical data. It's just not here, so we're waiting, hoping and speculating. Feel free to "not know" anything somewhere else.

ANYWAY. I wonder if anand etc received a m295x version on launch, or they had to order and wait like the rest of us. If they got a quick set, what is taking them so long ? Are they even doing the full review ?
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Yes we do lack it for the moment. However netkas outside Apple is as good an empirical source as you can get and I was simply marking cards as to who he is. No doubt there are detailed discussions on his forums, I have no need to find out but I am sure you will find a treasure trove of information from not only netkas but the rest of the community there.

I'm off to fix an iMac - that's been my job for 20 years and that's why I've posted lots of advice for free in my own spare time sharing what I know here for six years. A bit like someone else offering free advice with vast experience in a certain field.
 
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666sheep said:
Few notes: how you can trust some "Generic VGA" benchmark? If drivers for M295X aren't public, how result of the card unsupported by current drivers can be considered even half-trustworthy?
Why one, who can test the card not released to the market, uses Catalyst 14.500 instead of 14.7 Beta ones?

I don't believe that this "M295X" score is legit and can reflect actual performance of iMac 5K GPU.
Click to expand...

Agreed. If any of this turns out to be true, I'll be thrilled. As of now, everything is absolutely unknown.
 
koyoot said:
Im sure everyone is not believing, but just waiting, and discussing.

;)
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I'm not so sure about you ;) :D I know you too well.

Let's try to discuss then.

Below you see 3D Mark 11 graphics score of desktop cards, not limited by TDP, with good cooling (I presume).

3dmark-112.png
.

Notice 285 Tonga based score. It's really hard to believe that its mobile cousin, with 75W lower TDP, even with full 2048 cores etc would be 30% faster, especially @630 MHz.

BTW, M295X was "kinda" supported in Catalyst 14.300.
 
Altis said:
I like to think you're right, because I want to believe that Apple would have some level of standard for releasing a high-end (and somewhat ground-breaking) machine.

However, how it performs at things that aren't just browsing the app store, using Pages, and navigating the OS remains to be seen.

More critically... how will it hold up over time?

From what I can tell, the m295x seems to be worth the money for the upgrade if you're going to get the 5K at all.
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I agree. If I was purchasing, then I would certainly be paying for the upgrade. If money is an issue, then I would think about it.... and then probably upgrade anyway :D

----------

Here are some scores from guru3d for the desktop 285

index.php


index.php


http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-radeon-r9-285-review,18.html
 
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Latest NovaBench
2013 iMac i7 4771
32GB RAM
780M
256GB Flash


running built in display + 2 1080 27" externals
probably 15 programs/browsers/etc open

I'll do a restart later and only test the built in monitor, see if the score changes.


Added a second test score.
 

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mmomega said:
Latest NovaBench
2013 iMac i7 4771
32GB RAM
780M
256GB Flash


running built in display + 2 1080 27" externals
probably 15 programs/browsers/etc open

I'll do a restart later and only test the built in monitor, see if the score changes.
Click to expand...

Hey. Thanks. It seems doing better than the 780m but how accurate this novabench is humm!!! :)

Test for test m290m its better but as you said some apps opened plus 2 extra monitors will probably make the numbers lower than they actually are
 
theSeb said:
I don't think that the R9 M290X will struggle with something so relatively simple, in graphics terms, like the UI, even at such a high resolution.
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That M290X is a **** card, tbh.

However the M295X, although it doesn't sound too different, is EXTREMELY powerful.

Here is a comparison:

vs the M290X - http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-r9-m295x-mobility-chip-feature-tonga-gpu-includes-32-compute-units/

See this table:

Screen Shot 2014-10-21 at 4.45.57 PM.png


We can see that it essentially has 2x the specs of an M290X. Essentially it'll double the performance of that card. In fact, it's equivalent to a DESKTOP R9 280X!

Here's how the R9 280x stacks up to most other GPUs - these are 3DMark 11 scores: http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/gigabyte-radeon-r9-280x-windforce-review,19.html

vs the 980m - http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-M295X-vs-GeForce-GTX-980M

You can see that it actually pulls ahead of the nvidia card in several key areas.

Whats my whole point? Absolutely get the R9 295x if you're getting a riMac for gaming, or any heavy lifting.
 
I ask because the Wall St. Journal reviewed suggested the 290 was sufficient for FCPX / Photoshop. I can't imagine Apple would put anything in that would lag under even moderate usage (even in the base model).
 
Charlemagne said:
I ask because the Wall St. Journal reviewed suggested the 290 was sufficient for FCPX / Photoshop. I can't imagine Apple would put anything in that would lag under even moderate usage (even in the base model).
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Just bear in mind that applications like Photoshop aren't like, say, the operating system itself where once it's 'good enough' extra power doesn't matter. With power applications, there's always more performance to be found that will speed up time-consuming tasks.

An example would be if you happen to do web design in Photoshop (although it's falling out of favour as the tool of choice), having enough high-resolution layers can bog down even the most powerful of machines. As Photoshop uses the GPU, more performance is useful in a similar fashion to in games.

It looks to me like the M290X is more than enough for most casual users, it's a very competent card that can cope with OS X and straightforward apps just fine. But if you envision yourself doing anything that will truly tax the GPU, it'll simply be faster with the M295X.
 
Im waiting for my new imac but its almost delusional to expect it to run as a gaming machine. If youre a hardcore gamer, stick to windows or a console.
 
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