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iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks
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All of which just proves my point. If you're a consumer and don't want /need ultra compact or all-in-one, Apple comes off as way more expensive, regardless of whether or not they have laptop or desktop parts in their consumer line.
Perhaps the more appropriate question is how many Mac owners would like to be able to play the latest games?
I guess im going to be waiting for the next revision, and hope Apple listens to the comments people are making.
No way can i justify getting the iMac with the current graphics option, as much as id like one. In graphics performance, it would be a downgrade from my current system, and the point of upgrading is to improve on what you have... I feel so sad when i think that it has 2GB RAM and that 2.8Ghz C2E CPU... the makings of an awsome gaming machine, and then they stick that $50 graphics card in there....... Wouldnt care if you could change it, but since your stuck with it for the life of the system... well..... if it looks slow and poor performing now, just wait till the systems been out for a while :/
Lets hope Apple have a "Oops what were we thinking" moment and fix's this ASAP. I don't care if they have to make the iMac 2" wider.... DECENT GRAPHICS CARD PLEASE! THE IMAC IS SMALL ENOUGH!
Seriously though, until the iMac (or some product within that price range simular to it) comes with something that i cant fish out of a bargin bin @ PCWORLD, i'm not going to commit to a switchover :/
"All-in-one! ~ Unless your interested in games then forget it."
No way can i justify getting the iMac with the current graphics option, as much as id like one. In graphics performance, it would be a downgrade from my current system, and the point of upgrading is to improve on what you have... I feel so sad when i think that it has 2GB RAM and that 2.8Ghz C2E CPU... the makings of an awsome gaming machine, and then they stick that $50 graphics card in there....... Wouldnt care if you could change it, but since your stuck with it for the life of the system... well..... if it looks slow and poor performing now, just wait till the systems been out for a while :/
Lets hope Apple have a "Oops what were we thinking" moment and fix's this ASAP. I don't care if they have to make the iMac 2" wider.... DECENT GRAPHICS CARD PLEASE! THE IMAC IS SMALL ENOUGH!
Seriously though, until the iMac (or some product within that price range simular to it) comes with something that i cant fish out of a bargin bin @ PCWORLD, i'm not going to commit to a switchover :/
"All-in-one! ~ Unless your interested in games then forget it."
Don't like the new iMac? Leave feedback: http://www.apple.com/feedback/imac.html
Someone already started a thread in the forums for this, but I figured I'd mention it here.
Seriously, what we need to do is mass together all the Mac users from the various sites who would be interested in this mythical 'mid-tower' that we yearn after. Then we take the appropriate actions to get the attention of Apple and let them know just how many thousands are interested in this kind of thing. Yeah, they will probably ignore us, but what if by some small chance we actually got a large enough group to voice our opinion that it actually influenced them? It sure as hell beats just sitting here and complaining.
Someone already started a thread in the forums for this, but I figured I'd mention it here.
Seriously, what we need to do is mass together all the Mac users from the various sites who would be interested in this mythical 'mid-tower' that we yearn after. Then we take the appropriate actions to get the attention of Apple and let them know just how many thousands are interested in this kind of thing. Yeah, they will probably ignore us, but what if by some small chance we actually got a large enough group to voice our opinion that it actually influenced them? It sure as hell beats just sitting here and complaining.
I still don't get why you and others have such huge issues over the included GPU.
Sure, in nVidia skewed games the ATI offerings aren't going to compete - and the iMac is using mobile chips. But so what?
This HD 2600 XT (yeah, its actually the XT, no Pro) does just fine in current games. Oh, maybe some settings have to be cranked down in new games, and you might have to play at 1024x768 - boo hoo. :\
Everyone acts as if they were hoping Apple would turn the iMac into a game-geared machine, surprise, that didn't happen.
It's a great machine and the GPU is awesome at everything besides running the latest games at max settings.
It can do physics acceleration and has hardware support for HD content such as HD-DVD/BR, and it actually does a noble job at gaming as well.
Most "hardcore" or "semi-hardcore" gamers will never be happy with the iMac. There will always be better GPUs (every 6-months according to nVidia) and the iMac will ALWAYS be behind on that curve.
Someone should take a breather, and then go look what you get for the extra $400 over a Mac Mini.
The iMac is great value for an Apple computer, and if someone has NOT switched yet they will obviously obsess about specs (I did before I switched) and complain about the graphics. Honestly, I've never been disappointed about switching and just got one of these new iMacs with the HD 2600, it's excellent.
/me raises hand too
gaming mac is what I really want.
..I'm still dreaming of $700-$900 mini-tower mac that is announced the same day the new mac games come out..
I'll wait for Leopard or a refurbished Mac Pro after they're revised.
That or I can get one on credit to build a credit history. Not that I can't pay for it all at once...
Failing all that Santa Rosa MacBook and a $600-700 gaming mini-tower.
I don't know if anyone has already quoted this from Anandtech...
"We want to paint an accurate picture here, but it has become nearly impossible to speak negatively enough about the AMD Radeon HD 2000 Series without sounding comically absurd.
Even with day-before-launch price adjustments, there is just no question that, in the applications the majority of people will be running, AMD has created a series of products that are even more unimpressive than the already less than stellar 8600 lineup."
"We want to paint an accurate picture here, but it has become nearly impossible to speak negatively enough about the AMD Radeon HD 2000 Series without sounding comically absurd.
Even with day-before-launch price adjustments, there is just no question that, in the applications the majority of people will be running, AMD has created a series of products that are even more unimpressive than the already less than stellar 8600 lineup."
What kind of crap mindset is that?
First, none will ever buy Mac if they don't stop skimping on video. Second, wanting to play (and being happy with) the handful of games that do hit Mac isn't an unreasonable desire.
My Mac excels at everything else, why not my favorite games too?
No, these cards are not "acceptable" or even decent on any level.
Actually they are, I own one.
It may not be "awesome" or "top-notch" for games, but it is certainly "acceptable" and "decent", more so, actually.
The system far outperforms my last two PCs, one with a 128MB nVidia 6600 GT, and a Radeon 9800 Pro laptop.
You'd probably be surprised to know that most consumers don't even have something as good as the 6600 GT in their computers.
For a small bit of evidence, take a look at the Steam Hardware Survey results. The majority of users are using "Other" graphics cards that aren't being detected, with second place held by the 6600 itself.
It used to be game developers catered to the lowest common denominator for recommended specs, with exceptions like Far Cry and Crysis - even Oblivion. That is THERE problem, not hardware vendors.
Those survey results put the new iMacs as "above average" - ie - higher then most consumers actually have, which makes it perfectly "acceptable" (lat I heard, "above average" is actually better then "acceptable" and "decent")
new tests...
New Barefeats tests show that there is some driver problems with the cards. Not saying they are the best, but that they could be better with some better drivers. One thing interesting about these cards that I haven't seen much reporting on is that they actually seem to support hardware MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264/AVC encoding and transcoding. It would be nice to see quicktime, imovie, or maybe handbrake take advantage of this capability.
New Barefeats tests show that there is some driver problems with the cards. Not saying they are the best, but that they could be better with some better drivers. One thing interesting about these cards that I haven't seen much reporting on is that they actually seem to support hardware MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264/AVC encoding and transcoding. It would be nice to see quicktime, imovie, or maybe handbrake take advantage of this capability.
new iMacs OK Windows machines - OSX, not so much
No, the BareFeats tests show that Windows is faster than OSX on the new systems.
Perhaps, in the future, tests with new OSX drivers will show parity - at which point making the statement about "driver problems" will be validated.
Until then, "Windows is faster than OSX for game X on these systems" is the only statement that the facts support.
"Just the facts, ma'am"
No, the BareFeats tests show that Windows is faster than OSX on the new systems.
Perhaps, in the future, tests with new OSX drivers will show parity - at which point making the statement about "driver problems" will be validated.
Until then, "Windows is faster than OSX for game X on these systems" is the only statement that the facts support.
"Just the facts, ma'am"
Did you trying Yahoo!ing for "even more unimpressive than the already less than stellar 8600" ??
Obviously not, because if you had you would have seen that result #2 was:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3023&p=12
Sorry, but it pi$$e$ me off when people waste our time asking a question that they could have more easily and quickly answered by putting the question to a search engine....
Where's the proof of this?
And if it's proved, then is there really any difference between the 2600 Pro and an under-clocked XT? If not, how can one claim that an XT at Pro clock rates is an XT and not a Pro?
Why would Apple (not known for conservative ad claims) say "The 2.0GHz 20-inch iMac includes the ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB of GDDR3 dedicated video memory, while the 2.4GHz 20-inch model and the 24-inch model offers extreme graphics power with an ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB of GDDR3 dedicated video memory" if they have better chips inside?
Inquiring minds want to know...
Well, I guess if you just look at the big numbers, then your right, windows running prey in XP is faster then OSX running the ported version of the same program. I was personally interested in the fact that the card scaled better with the windows drivers than it did with the mac drivers, loosing only 31% of the frames on a display with 2.4 times the pixels, rather than the 43% that OSX lost. Where I was not trying to point out that the mac would ever be as fast as xp in games, I would think that with some driver tweaking we might see similar results in scaled performance. Either way, the 2600 is not a gaming card for xp or osx, and I guess if that bothered me, I wouldn't have gotten an iMac. But in the last 5 years, the total amount of time i've spent playing games that are measured in FPS, is exactly..... none.
I'm actually much more interested in the potential for hardware encoding on the card. Since nothing has been said about it from the apple camp, i'm assuming it isn't something that is used now, but it does seem to be a capability that they, or some third party, might be able to unlock and give us some quality encodes with little cpu overhead. I guess I have to wait and see, though.
I'm actually much more interested in the potential for hardware encoding on the card. Since nothing has been said about it from the apple camp, i'm assuming it isn't something that is used now, but it does seem to be a capability that they, or some third party, might be able to unlock and give us some quality encodes with little cpu overhead. I guess I have to wait and see, though.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/339616/
It appears to be an underclocked Mobility HD 2600XT chip. To answer your question specifically, ATI lists only a Mobility HD 2600 and Mobility HD 2600XT and the chip ID is that of the XT. There is no Pro mobile chip listed by ATI.
The real problem with the desktop 2600Pro is that it comes in several flavours. Engine clocks from 450 to 665. DDR2 (400MHz) or DDR3 (700MHz). When a someone reviews the card, they really need to list the technical specs of the card. Bad reviews of desktop Pros (probably with DDR2) and poor drivers (both OSX and XP/Vista) have really not help this card. Coupled with the fact that it is aimed at DX10 and future games and not older games, things look bad for the iMac, for the moment.
That last Barefeats test proves it. Jobs and Gates are in on this...we have to buy Windows for the iMac. Apple = money hardware / Microsoft = money software...it all makes sense now.
Seriously, I have a G4 iMac and kept waiting for this "new" iMac...unless some soft fix (driver) comes along for native OS X or there is another option for a video card...I'm just disappointed on waiting so long.
I understand that rendering is faster, etc... But the iMac is supposed to be the all around PC...I love it...but the newest incarnation should be better across the board from the previous, right?
It appears that benchmark graphics scores have improved as system updates are added. If you look at recent Macworld scores you find the graphics score with 10.4.10 on last year's Imac to be considerably better then when it was initially released last September running 10.4.7.
When they do their comparisons they are using last years graphics cards with mature drivers versus this years model without any tweaks.
I don't know if there will be any improvement but I would be surprised if there is not. Of course, the Imac is not a gamers machine as the Pro could potentially be but I would bet it will fit the needs of the casual gamer.
When they do their comparisons they are using last years graphics cards with mature drivers versus this years model without any tweaks.
I don't know if there will be any improvement but I would be surprised if there is not. Of course, the Imac is not a gamers machine as the Pro could potentially be but I would bet it will fit the needs of the casual gamer.
You dont get id,do you?
If Jobs states that Apple is focusing more on gaming AND their iMac successor is worse in performance than its predecessor, it is a problem on many levels.
It is ok if you are not intrested in gaming or craphics performance, but undermining apples abysmal graphics performance (be it on iMac platform or Macpro) is nothing but apologism.
All I would want to is to know the reason for this kind of behiavour.
Is it
A.) Monetary. The Ati cards are 1 cheper,thus creating a larger revenue.
(cant be with MP,since the card would be a option)
B.) Technical. Next bigger card would create heat issues .
(cant be with MP. And are allready 2 gen´s behind in vid cards.)
C.) Ideological. Jobs doesnt want to have gamers as customers. Would they tarnish the apples "hip customer base" or create constant nuisance with their "upgrade the gfx crds,pllzzz.lol" whining.
D.) Idiotical. Apple just want to fkuck with our minds?
My guess is mostly technical as well as the state of the graphics industry. Both the anantech article and an article on Tomshardware were saying the newest low-mid range cards just aren't that good. Partly because they were optimized for DX10 which itself isn't very optimized. I suppose Apple could have used an older card that performed better, though. (Although we can see in most apps the new card does do better... just not in DX9? games).
As for technical, there would probably be too much heat with both the 2.8 option and a better video card option like the 2900xt. They probably decided a 2.8 option would be better for their customer base and I would unfortunately agree. Making it an either/or choice (I'd gladly take a 2.4 w/2900!) would cause confusion and highlight that compromises are made for the all-in-one design.
Still can't they just put a mega fan in there that only kicks in when gamers are maxing the hardware out?
Whatever the reason, the need for a mini-tower gaming Mac has never been felt more. I don't even think they need to create a new line... just make a "pro" mini with a high-end graphics card.
I would add the following:
- despite the GeForce trouncing the Radeon in Quake 4, the Radeon in Windows is faster than the GeForce in OS X; whose fault: OS X, drivers, GCC, or Aspyr?
- the performance drop from Windows to OS X is similar for both cards, so I don't buy the "driver problems" theory
- Prey appears to be CPU limited, even at 1920 x 1200, which is remarkable.
- there's more to life than Doom 3: the new iMac did well in other (perhaps more CPU-dependent) tests