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New iMacs announced
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woog315 said:you're on
edit: just for a frame of reference, here is doom3 on pc at 1024x768 with 8x AF (8xAF is the default setting for High quality in doom3) and no AA. it averaged 15.9fps. This is on a p4 3.2ghz with 1GB RAM. We can skip the suspense and you can paypal me now if you wantunless you think the horrid mac port is going to pull a miracle and outperform the pc version by 50% - http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-07.html
A Darn it, you are right. I read http://www.macologist.org/viewtopic.php?t=1104 where default high accounted for:
Still I am waiting to see the benchmarks on this, just for my honours sake. And i will keep my bet. just wait for the benches (but what if no site publishes anything with these settings?)
isgoed said:
Heh, you don't have to pay. Just repeat after me "Apple is giving us the shaft on graphics cards to increase profits. They rely on silly brand loyalty to shovel some inferior, outdated products onto people at inflated prices. They are using 2+ year old graphics cores in their top of the line consumer machines and advertising it as great for modern games. The new imac cannot adequately play new games. Apple is lying and misleading people. People should be angry about it, not making excuses about how great apple is and how the imac isn't meant to play games."
Just for the record, I love apple and their software, but they're really being *******s with the whole graphics card thing.
edit: and this 9600 wont get 25fps at 1024x768 on medium settings, I guarantee. Probably not even low. The 9600 benchmarks on that site are 9600XT, which is over twice as fast as the big stinky turd apple put in the new imac
edit2: actually, no bets here, but I'm going to make a prediction that doom3 is completely unplayable unless you dont mind 640x480 at 20fps (which you should be extremely pissed about on a $1500 machine specifically advertised as "screaming on modern games" dont make me quote apples imac page again
)
matticus008 said:
Best graphics card for Apple machine is the nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra and Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition
Below that, there's the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition which is what I'd consider midrange.
A Radeon 9700 Pro chip would've even been better than this 9600 NP.
woog315 said:
As I recall, people were talking about the weak card for gaming. Someone said a high end card wouldn't go in a consumer-level product. The calls for a midrange card came AFTER the original post, which referred to gaming. Timing is everything.
The Radeon 9700 (except Mobility) hasn't been used in a Mac, to my knowledge. The nVidia 6600 isn't being used by Apple (they're phasing out nVidia, it seems). The 9800se is about the third-best card you can get (in other words, too high on the food chain). It makes sense for it to be a 9600 product. Now, the 9600 Pro hasn't been on the market in awhile (except old stock), and so that leaves you with the 9600XT.
Why didn't they do it? Maybe it doesn't make that much of a difference, or maybe Apple wasn't able to get the XT GPU for embedding. Who knows. Maybe they saw the huge updates everywhere else and decided to save a few dollars by going with the slightly cheaper of the TWO viable options.
matticus008 said:
So, let me get this straight, Apple is phasing out nvidia (the highest end card they sell is nvidia, as well as the card in the 12" powerbook), we know nvidia offers a far superior card for a similar price, but it's ok that apple wants to stick with a pathetic ATi card? Theyhave moved all the lines to a radeon9600 for some weird reason. That card is over 2 years old.
Anyways, let's say you're right about everything you said (you aren't but we'll deal with hypotheticals) The 9600XT would have been a MUCH better option, it's around twice as fast as the 9600 they used.
Dont' want to be too rude, but you're pretty much the typical brainwashed apple-ite who will go out of your way to defend a ****** move by apple. Here, let me unzip steve's pants for you. The video card in the imac is a joke, there's really no arguing it.
edit: and the radeon 9700 has been used in macs.
It are the facts of life, but i am not repeating you line for line. I don't agree with "giving us the shaft" and "the iMac isn't meant to play games". If you were talking about the FX5200 I'd agree with you on all points. As a comment to matticus008 above me: the 9700 was available in the G4-towers.woog315 said:
edit: and this 9600 wont get 25fps at 1024x768 on medium settings, I guarantee. Probably not even low. The 9600 benchmarks on that site are 9600XT, which is over twice as fast as the big stinky turd apple put in the new imac
edit2: actually, no bets here, but I'm going to make a prediction that doom3 is completely unplayable unless you dont mind 640x480 at 20fps (which you should be extremely pissed about on a $1500 machine specifically advertised as "screaming on modern games" dont make me quote apples imac page again
Than what actually are default high settings for mac doom. I looked at two pages:
from http://www.macologist.org/viewtopic.php?t=1104
and
http://www.barefeats.com/doom3.html
It seems that Anisothropic filturing is on by default in high settings but I can't figure out at which setting. Barefeats mentions that you can only disable it by the console or with ATI display utility.
And is AA enabled in high setting? Because all sites just state "high quality no AA" so it's not conclusive.
And at high quality the screen resolution is not fixed right?
I completely disagree.sw1tcher said:
I'm using a Dual 1.8Ghz G5 PowerMac with the stock Nvidia 5200fx and it runs fine. I am able to power my 20" Apple Cinema Display at 1680x1050 and another CRT monitor at 1920x1440@85Hz just perfectly. I can play Doom 3 at a reasonable performance level. I can run FCP, DVD Studio Pro and Motion perfectly well.
It may not have the 3D performance of a Radeon 9800 or a GEforce 6800, but games are not the forté of Macs. No point having professionals pay a premium for a R9800 card if they don't play games.
Fracking awesome!! Great news after a long day at work! New iMac for me (forget about ordering a PowerBook)... and next week a new eMac for the lil bro/sis (now they'll LOVE doing their homework)....
isgoed said:
the 9600 being used in the new imacs is about 10% faster than the fx5200ultra. It won't allow you to play games that ran too slowly on the fx5200 . the extra 64MB of ram might help in a couple of situations, but not many because you will be forced to play at such a low resolution.
doom3 - AA will always be off unless you specifically turn it on, and no the screen resolution is not fixed at high quality.
woog315 said:
You're new around here, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. I'm no brainwashed anything--I've caused my fair share of battles over the superiority of PC hardware on this site. That said, I AM right. Two years ago, nVidia had cards in many more Apple models than they do today. The nVidia cards remain at the high end (a special card commissioned by Apple for the 30" Cinema Display) and on the 12" PowerBook, and last revision low-end PM. EVERY OTHER MACINTOSH has an ATi card. Like it or leave it, Apple has chosen ATi.
Now, looking at Apple's GPU product lineup, you have:
GeForce FX Go5200 64MB
Radeon 9200 32MB
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 64MB
Radeon 9600 64MB
Radeon Mobility 9700 64/128MB
Radeon 9600 128MB
Radeon 9650 256MB
GeForce FX 6800 256MB
Where does the iMac fall? Oh, that's right, midrange. Wait, no--that's better than the middle of the road. Does ATi sell a couple other OEM products? Sure thing. If you've got a PowerMac, you can buy one of them if you prefer. Now let's look at other "midrange" PCs. Oops, we can't, they have Intel EXTREME GRAPHICS. Woop-de-friggin-doo. Midrange PCs that are lucky enough to have their own dedicated graphics hardware have some pretty crappy cards, too. Buy a flippin' PowerMac if you're worried about 3D game performance (because "modern games" doesn't have to mean Doom 3).
matticus008 said:
I'm not really interested in the whole mac vs pc argument, you can get a dell with a 20" LCD, top of the line processor, and top of the line video card for the same price as an imac. I'll price it for you-- http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/featured_dp_desktop4_4?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs And thats with a 3year warranty (add apple care to imac price to be fair), That pc has a geforce 6800, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, and a 19" LCD for $1700. The whole integrated graphics bit is a mac party faithful line... thats on $400 pcs. But that's neither here nor there, we're talking about what apple has available for purchase, and it's embarrasing.
a 9600 might be midrange in apple's extremely crappy graphics card line-up..you got me there, but in reality (i.e. what is available on the market) the 9600np is about as bad as you can get in discrete graphics. sure a 9200 is slower, but it doesnt matter because neither one of them will play new games. For some reason, apple's lineup completely skips the 8 and 12 pipe graphics cards, it goes from abyssmal lowrange 4pipe cards to top of the line 16 pipe cards, with no in between. It's a giant misstep on their part.
edit: you might be right about them phasing out Nvidia, doesn;t really matter. They are still missing the whole midrange graphics market in their lineup. They have like 6 variations of old outdated 4pipeline video cards and one 16 pipeline card (the geforce 6800) It's almost like apple is being used as a dumping ground for all of ATi's old outdated parts.
2x512MB sticks will perform better than a single 1GB stick as far as i know. Basically dual channel memory is enabled when you have 2 of the same sticks. That's why on Powermacs you should always buy your RAM in pairs but on the iMac you only have 2 slots so your initial memory configuration is important.aswitcher said:
matticus008 said:
Well, I just priced a (what I consider) midrange Dell and for $1346 I got this:
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 630 with HT Technology (3.0GHz)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 400MHz (2x512M)
160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive(7200RPM)w/ Native Command Queuing
16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability
17 inch E173FP Analog Flat Panel
256MB PCI Express x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800
Sound Blaster® Live! 24-bit ADVANCED HD Audio
I know it's a Dell and a PC, but we're talking about GPU here.....
My point is that the 6800 is not a crappy card.
EDIT>>>>
Looks like woog315 beat me to it.
woog315 said:
I'm not interested in such an argument either. But for those that are, the 20" LCD (2005FPW), with the default CPU and 250GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, and the much better video card comes out to $2098 (with $2623 crossed out as their "list price") from your link. The new 20" iMac with 1GB RAM and AppleCare (with wireless internet and bluetooth and the 9600) comes to $2093 on the retail store. Ignoring any Windows v. OS X disagreements, this is pretty impressive news that Apple can match Dell for pricing.
I agree it's not a great performing card. But it's exactly what was asked for--Apple's midrange card in their midrange computers. Graphics and CPU power both can be criticized and both need improvements. But the update is in keeping with what Apple has been provided by its suppliers.
woog315 said:
Oh, so now you buy for Apple? We've been through this. If there were better hardware being sold to Apple with Mac-compatible firmware and BIOSes, they would use it. Not everything ATi makes is instantaneously compatible with what Apple makes. They buy what they are offered and fits the specifications Apple needs to fill. For the product lineup at Apple, the 9600 is par for course. Yes, the whole range is underpowered. But that's not some arbitrary decision Apple made. That's what there is to work with, nothing more or less.
xcalibur said:
Right. You get better performance from dual channel configurations, to an extent. Obviously, if you have 512MB installed in 1 DIMM, you'll get better performance by adding a 1GB DIMM than by adding a matching 512 to enable dual channel. 2x512 is better than 1x1024, but more RAM is an even bigger boost than dual channel
.matticus008 said:
Oh, so now you purchase for apple? You seem intimately familiar with what is available to them. Let's face it, neither one of us actually knows, but your line of thinking sort of sounds like excuses for apple while my line of thinking sort of sounds like reality