Radeon Pro 580 8 GB Preformance?

[silvetti]

Small advice to people looking to buy high end iMac.
Let's go back to the year 2013, new iMac's came out, the fastest as ever... same thing.
I maxed out an i7 27 inch with 780m 4gb vram, cost me around 2500 dollars (in my country).

I played games with high graphics, no issue. Years passed and the new games coming out I had to start lowering graphic settings. Playing anything but default screen resolution (1440p) was garbage, downgrading to 1080p to keep graphics settings on high gave me worse result than staying at 1440p medium. Enter year 2016 and get ready for with a 3 year computer to play games on Low (games like BF1, Rust, PUBG).

What are my choices ? Drop another 2500$ ? No Thanks, I'm not rich to spend 2500$ every 3 years.

Granted I didn't buy the iMac just for gaming so I am ok with retiring it from the gaming world (or keep those few titles at low settings) BUT if you plan to have more than 3 years of longevity on this computer DO NOT buy an iMac.

OR, buy yourself lower specked iMac (if you really want OS X, I want!) and either buy a Xbox Scorpio or go the PC Master race way.

With a PC (for gaming) you can simply in 3 years update your GPU and you are set for another few years.

Sorry if I sound condescending, just hoping to help someone with the same doubts I had when I bought my pride (at the time) 780m iMac.

 

[richinaus]

Small advice to people looking to buy high end iMac.
Let's go back to the year 2013, new iMac's came out, the fastest as ever... same thing.
I maxed out an i7 27 inch with 780m 4gb vram, cost me around 2500 dollars (in my country).

I played games with high graphics, no issue. Years passed and the new games coming out I had to start lowering graphic settings. Playing anything but default screen resolution (1440p) was garbage, downgrading to 1080p to keep graphics settings on high gave me worse result than staying at 1440p medium. Enter year 2016 and get ready for with a 3 year computer to play games on Low (games like BF1, Rust, PUBG).

What are my choices ? Drop another 2500$ ? No Thanks, I'm not rich to spend 2500$ every 3 years.

Granted I didn't buy the iMac just for gaming so I am ok with retiring it from the gaming world (or keep those few titles at low settings) BUT if you plan to have more than 3 years of longevity on this computer DO NOT buy an iMac.

OR, buy yourself lower specked iMac (if you really want OS X, I want!) and either buy a Xbox Scorpio or go the PC Master race way.

With a PC (for gaming) you can simply in 3 years update your GPU and you are set for another few years.

Sorry if I sound condescending, just hoping to help someone with the same doubts I had when I bought my pride (at the time) 780m iMac.

Have you heard of external GPU?

 

[silvetti]

Have you heard of external GPU?

My iMac has TB1 so for me that option would limit the gpu to like 70% at least.

Think on what level in 3 years GPUs will be and what TB will be... etc...

Even with TB3 you are not getting 100% out of a 1080.

Still valid point and it might work for some people. My only point is to not think of iMac as a gaming machine.

 

[Zarniwoop]

What are my choices ? Drop another 2500$ ? No Thanks, I'm not rich to spend 2500$ every 3 years.

It is $69 / month. ($2500 / 3yrs)

 

[silvetti]

It is $69 / month. ($2500 / 3yrs)

If I was in US earning a US salary maybe.
In my country prices of Apple products are wayyyyy high compared with average salary.

I need to work 2,5 months to buy an iMac (if I don't pay rent or eat or do anything else )

 

[klatox]

I have a late 2015 5K with the M395X. Serves me pretty well and I play games on it. I want to see benchmarks before I make a decision.

 

[bcortens]

You can see here something reporting itself as a Radeon Pro 580:

https://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?benchmark=gfx40&did1=46620965&os1=OS%20X&api1=metal&hwtype1=dGPU&hwname1=AMD+Radeon+Pro+580&did2=27669994&os2=OS%20X&api2=metal&hwtype2=dGPU&hwname2=AMD+Radeon+R9+M395X

Notice in offscreen performance that apparently it is quite a bit faster than the m395x

 

[bkends35]

I think you're talking about the iMac Pro here.

What I meant is an iMac with a good grfx card is the best computer for the balanced needs for the consumer, i.e. HD movie editing, creative fun (so, not the Pro's) AND gaming.
The lesser specced iMacs usually have pretty bad grfx cards, so that demanding games run badly. Buying a 2nd computer just for gaming is usually not an option.

Yeah.. oops. I was thinking the 580 was the chip for the Pro. Disregard everything I said about workstation components.

 

[koyoot]

Small advice to people looking to buy high end iMac.
Let's go back to the year 2013, new iMac's came out, the fastest as ever... same thing.
I maxed out an i7 27 inch with 780m 4gb vram, cost me around 2500 dollars (in my country).

I played games with high graphics, no issue. Years passed and the new games coming out I had to start lowering graphic settings. Playing anything but default screen resolution (1440p) was garbage, downgrading to 1080p to keep graphics settings on high gave me worse result than staying at 1440p medium. Enter year 2016 and get ready for with a 3 year computer to play games on Low (games like BF1, Rust, PUBG).

What are my choices ? Drop another 2500$ ? No Thanks, I'm not rich to spend 2500$ every 3 years.

Granted I didn't buy the iMac just for gaming so I am ok with retiring it from the gaming world (or keep those few titles at low settings) BUT if you plan to have more than 3 years of longevity on this computer DO NOT buy an iMac.

OR, buy yourself lower specked iMac (if you really want OS X, I want!) and either buy a Xbox Scorpio or go the PC Master race way.

With a PC (for gaming) you can simply in 3 years update your GPU and you are set for another few years.

Sorry if I sound condescending, just hoping to help someone with the same doubts I had when I bought my pride (at the time) 780m iMac.

Nvidia GPUs are famous for getting old much faster than AMD GPUs. Its not uncommon to see for example a case where 780M(GTX 680) was faster than HD 7970, but after few years, with new games tested it happened that the Radeon GPU was faster.

Only situation where this is not the case, its where Games use GameWorks, or are specifically optimized for Nvidia(Unreal Engine).

Also I could tell you a lot about Nvidia drivers gimping details at beginning, and increasing it with time, to lower performance, and force you to buy new hardware, but I will be accused on this forum for being AMD Shill...

Overall Your points are factual. Buying AIO is a little problematic in some ways.

 

[kralnor]

My understanding is that the internal monitor can only be driven by the internal GPU, so adding an external GPU will require spending money to acquire an additional monitor.

This is why I dislike the all-in-one concept so much and wish Apple would provide a decent mid-range desktop that doesn't have a monitor built in.

 

[koyoot]

This is why I dislike the all-in-one concept so much and wish Apple would provide a decent mid-range desktop that doesn't have a monitor built in.

I suppose that is why there might be Mac Mini Pro in future .

 

[Zarniwoop]

I suppose that is why there might be Mac Mini Pro in future .

That name would be so absurd, that it would become a joke. Mac Pro Mini would be better, Mac Pro SE would follow Apple's naming logic.

 

[MrNomNoms]

Nvidia GPUs are famous for getting old much faster than AMD GPUs. Its not uncommon to see for example a case where 780M(GTX 680) was faster than HD 7970, but after few years, with new games tested it happened that the Radeon GPU was faster.

Only situation where this is not the case, its where Games use GameWorks, or are specifically optimized for Nvidia(Unreal Engine).

Also I could tell you a lot about Nvidia drivers gimping details at beginning, and increasing it with time, to lower performance, and force you to buy new hardware, but I will be accused on this forum for being AMD Shill...

Overall Your points are factual. Buying AIO is a little problematic in some ways.

I think one thing that needs to be said regarding AMD is this - drivers with macOS are better and more importantly AMD are willing to give Apple the hardware specifications, source code and engineering assistance that nVidia flat out refuses to provide Apple which why for almost two decades that ATI/AMD performance has always been better than nVidia on macOS. I think the most noticeable strength of AMD will come as Metal matures that the full potential of AMD GPU's will be put on display because Apple will have insight into the whole stack - from operating system to framework then to driver and hardware specifications itself.

 

[fathergll]

Small advice to people looking to buy high end iMac.
Let's go back to the year 2013, new iMac's came out, the fastest as ever... same thing.
I maxed out an i7 27 inch with 780m 4gb vram, cost me around 2500 dollars (in my country).

I played games with high graphics, no issue. Years passed and the new games coming out I had to start lowering graphic settings. Playing anything but default screen resolution (1440p) was garbage, downgrading to 1080p to keep graphics settings on high gave me worse result than staying at 1440p medium. Enter year 2016 and get ready for with a 3 year computer to play games on Low (games like BF1, Rust, PUBG).

What are my choices ? Drop another 2500$ ? No Thanks, I'm not rich to spend 2500$ every 3 years.

Granted I didn't buy the iMac just for gaming so I am ok with retiring it from the gaming world (or keep those few titles at low settings) BUT if you plan to have more than 3 years of longevity on this computer DO NOT buy an iMac.

OR, buy yourself lower specked iMac (if you really want OS X, I want!) and either buy a Xbox Scorpio or go the PC Master race way.

With a PC (for gaming) you can simply in 3 years update your GPU and you are set for another few years.

Sorry if I sound condescending, just hoping to help someone with the same doubts I had when I bought my pride (at the time) 780m iMac.

To be fair you can sell a maxed out iMac 3 years down the road for a lot of money.

 

[bcortens]

So I just received my 5K 2017 iMac

Quickly ran Unigine Valley
Ultra 2560x1440 w/ AA-Off

iMac 5K 2017
4.2 GHz Core i7
16 GB RAM
Radeon Pro 580

Default Fan
GPU 80ºC
Score 1696 - AVG FPS 40.5

Max Fan
GPU 72ºC
Score 1705 - AVG FPS 40.8

Compared to my old iMac:

iMac 2013
3.5 GHz Core i7
16 GB RAM
GeForce GTX 775M 2GB

Default Fan
GPU 95ºC
Score 1229 - AVG FPS 29.4

Max Fan
GPU 92ºC
Score 1229 - AVG FPS 29.4

Performance is quite a bit better and temperatures are much better, I'm not sure I'll do more benchmarking than this but I am quite pleased to see the GPU stay cooler during operation than the previous iMac (with its supposedly much vaunted GeForce Graphics).

 

[CWallace]

I'm surprised we still have not seen benchmarks comparing the 395 and 580. I keep checking Barefeats, but they have yet to post anything.

 

[jerwin]

I'm surprised we still have not seen benchmarks comparing the 395 and 580. I keep checking Barefeats, but they have yet to post anything.

r9 295x

Of course, that's at 1080p 8x AA, so....

Also:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/27-imac-late-2015-i5-3-3-amd-m395-benchmarks.1928943/page-2

 

[fathergll]

So I just received my 5K 2017 iMac

Quickly ran Unigine Valley
Ultra 2560x1440 w/ AA-Off

iMac 5K 2017
4.2 GHz Core i7
16 GB RAM
Radeon Pro 580

Default Fan
GPU 80ºC
Score 1696 - AVG FPS 40.5

Max Fan
GPU 72ºC
Score 1705 - AVG FPS 40.8

Compared to my old iMac:

iMac 2013
3.5 GHz Core i7
16 GB RAM
GeForce GTX 775M 2GB

Default Fan
GPU 95ºC
Score 1229 - AVG FPS 29.4

Max Fan
GPU 92ºC
Score 1229 - AVG FPS 29.4

Performance is quite a bit better and temperatures are much better, I'm not sure I'll do more benchmarking than this but I am quite pleased to see the GPU stay cooler during operation than the previous iMac (with its supposedly much vaunted GeForce Graphics).

Can you post what the temps of your iMac at idle(nothing running at all) and after watching just a 1080p YouTube video for 3 mins

This is about the range we were seeing from the 2014 Retina iMacs;

2014 i7 AMD Radeon R9 M295X with 4 GB of GDDR5 SDRAM
52C- 56C GPU - Idle
64C -72C GPU - watching YouTube video 1080p for 3 mins

2014 i5 AMD Radeon R9 M290X with 2 GB of GDDR5 SDRAM
38C - 42C GPU - Idle
47C -50C GPU - watching YouTube video 1080p for 3 mins

 

[bcortens]

Can you post what the temps of your iMac at idle(nothing running at all) and after watching just a 1080p YouTube video for 3 mins

This is about the range we were seeing from the 2014 Retina iMacs;

2014 i7 AMD Radeon R9 M295X with 4 GB of GDDR5 SDRAM
52C- 56C GPU - Idle
64C -72C GPU - watching YouTube video 1080p for 3 mins

2014 i5 AMD Radeon R9 M290X with 2 GB of GDDR5 SDRAM
38C - 42C GPU - Idle
47C -50C GPU - watching YouTube video 1080p for 3 mins

I 'just' started Photos and it's busy doing its Photo Analysis thing (not sure how long it is going to take) but if someone else hasn't posted by the time it finishes I'll do an idle and youtube check once its done. Right now I have photoanalysisd running at about 150% CPU usage so that would throw off any test.
It is spinning up the fan every few minutes right now and the CPU cores are hitting between 80-92ºC

[EDIT]
While the CPUs are hitting those temps the GPU appears to be idling around 42ºC

 

[Jimmdean]

The casual game market is 100 times bigger than the hardcore one. Those people could care less about the graphic settings - they just want to play. And the iMac is fine for that - good even.

As for the hardcore crowd, they've always had to go Windows. No one ever suggested they shouldn't. But they still buy more than a graphics card every 3 years. Being a hardcore gamer is expensive - much moreso than buying an iMac and wearing it into the ground...

 

[macdoofus]

I 'just' started Photos and it's busy doing its Photo Analysis thing It is spinning up the fan every few minutes right now and the CPU cores are hitting between 80-92ºC
[EDIT]
While the CPUs are hitting those temps the GPU appears to be idling around 42ºC

Thanks for posting! How loud is the fan - "jet taking off" or noticeably quiet? If the GPU is cool I guess the 580 isn't contributing to heat too badly at all. I'm interested in low heat/low noise.

 

[fathergll]

I 'just' started Photos and it's busy doing its Photo Analysis thing (not sure how long it is going to take) but if someone else hasn't posted by the time it finishes I'll do an idle and youtube check once its done. Right now I have photoanalysisd running at about 150% CPU usage so that would throw off any test.
It is spinning up the fan every few minutes right now and the CPU cores are hitting between 80-92ºC

[EDIT]
While the CPUs are hitting those temps the GPU appears to be idling around 42ºC

So far very impressive cooling on the 580. I'd love to know from a technical standpoint how they were able to get this thing running as cool as it is. The main reason I never upgraded my GPU back in 2014 was because it was running to hot you could fry an egg on it.

 

[jerwin]

So far very impressive cooling on the 580. I'd love to know from a technical standpoint how they were able to get this thing running as cool as it is.

a die shrink from 28nm to 14nm helps.

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units for more

 

[Swissness]

I was watching 8k videos on autoplay for about 45 minutes and the fan came on intermittently after about 25-30 minutes. It was definitely noticeable from the other side of the room but not in the jet-plane-taking-off range. The fan would usually only stay on for about 30 seconds before slowing down again. I have no idea what sort of temperatures it reached but I went over to check the back of the computer when the videos had finished, expecting it to be scorching but found only the middle of the back of the computer was warm. It's a pretty warm and muggy night here as well. 5 minutes later the whole computer felt like it was room temperature again.

 

[bcortens]

Can you post what the temps of your iMac at idle(nothing running at all) and after watching just a 1080p YouTube video for 3 mins

This is about the range we were seeing from the 2014 Retina iMacs;

2014 i7 AMD Radeon R9 M295X with 4 GB of GDDR5 SDRAM
52C- 56C GPU - Idle
64C -72C GPU - watching YouTube video 1080p for 3 mins

2014 i5 AMD Radeon R9 M290X with 2 GB of GDDR5 SDRAM
38C - 42C GPU - Idle
47C -50C GPU - watching YouTube video 1080p for 3 mins

Tests run:

iMac Core i7 4.2 GHz KabyLake, 16GB VRAM, Radeon Pro 580 8GB

Idle (about 7 minutes)
CPU: 44-48ºC
GPU: 33-37ºC

Youtube (about 6 minutes)
CPU: 48-55ºC
GPU 44ºC

EDIT - Pictures aren't happy with me so:
Idle: https://flic.kr/p/VxVvnd
Youtube: https://flic.kr/p/VxVv8L