Another thread is showing the 295s extra vram is critical for driving external monitors. How important is that? The CPU is 15% speed + hyper threading. How core aware are your apps?
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Retina iMac Kerfuffle
- Thread starter Col Vandal
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Well I haven't seen any benchmarks that show the 295 to be faster than a mildly overclocked 680MX from the 2012 iMac yet.
OpenCL performance would be a good start. The bare feats article shows this with the Luxmark benchmark. This translates to a performance increase in FCP X. I assume that not everyone on this forum is only interested in the 5K iMac to plays games on in Windows? I assume that people care about other performance too?
Regardless of the above, the M295X beats the 780M in every benchmark I have seen.
You are right - the numbers are the numbers and we already know that a 780M is faster than a 680MX and the R M295X is faster than both of them and yet you keep posting that it's no better because you have an over-clocked 680MX? Your over clock will only work in Windows, unless you have found some ways to channel dark magic, so I don't really see what this has to the with price of fish over here.
It's like saying my turbocharged E46 M3 is faster than an E92 M3 on the 1/4 mile, therefore the E92 M3 is not better in any aspects.
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No, I'd just like to take my car to the track, rather than hobble it on the side streets, i.e. for gaming, Windows absolutely, positively destroys OS X. So, if I can use my overclock - or, for analogy's sake, - my track tires for better performance, I certainly will.
Right now it doesn't even look like you can run Windows at native res on the 5K iMac (max res as far as I've read so far is topping out 4K) due to I assume driver issues.
*sigh*
Don't get me wrong. My 4Ghz/295 iMac is preparing for shipment, so I'm getting one! I was just hoping for something more. That 5K screen is the real reason, of course...
PS The 780M is not faster than the 680MX in Windows when overlocks are factored in (and there's so, so much headroom with the 680MX that simply isn't there on the 780M).
I think you're missing my point and this thread is an excellent example of what happens when people post statements like "it's no better" all over the place and then forget all of the caveats that you are now mentioning. Many people won't even know what you're talking about, or care. Most people won't go out and buy track tyres for the M3, nor will they over clock their GPUs.
Is it any wonder that confused people post threads like the one we are in? If you're going to be posting absolute statements, then you need to include the caveats that you're leaving out, because on a site like this it leads to a lot of confusion and frustration.
This doesn't matter for 99% of people wanting to know about the 5k iMac on these forums.
From what we have seen so far, the R9 M295X is faster than the 780M, which is faster than the 680MX. Trying to say it's not and then only mentioning the specific edge cases when questioned seems irresponsible to me. Not everyone that has posted in, or read, this thread will know that you over clocked your 680 MX. I happen to know this because I have read other threads.
There will be many people that are interested in FCP X performance, as I mentioned. And yet, here you are telling everyone that the 5K iMac is no better. Full stop. Definite and absolute. In a thread where the original poster is complaining about being confused.
You should think before posting such things, because it isn't true.
Please keep your ad hominem attacks to yourself. Thank you.
If you want to gloss over the rest of the thread without taking my comments in context, you're more than welcome. If you'd rather I keep quoting my earlier statements in the thread before making new statements to make sure everyone is on the same page, well.. I'm not going to do that.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure most of us on this forum are more than capable of installing Windows via Boot Camp, and then running a little application to make things run faster. OS X is really, really poor for gaming.
Now, to get back on topic. The 295X is a disappointment. It just is. Now, given the only people who are really going to care about the 295X over the 290X are enthusiasts, it makes sense to suggest that at least some of those enthusiasts are more than willing to overclock their 680MX from two years ago to the same level as the 295X is appearing to be. Without ANY instability or other issues.
Now, THAT said, perhaps the 295X itself will overlock hugely, too? We don't know. That's why, for now the 295X is a disappointment - as I did say "BY CURRENT ACCOUNTS," (which, you will note, you didn't bold so as to take my comments further out of context).
Anyway, I'm not going to have this discussion anymore. It's clearly not going anywhere. I just don't see how anyone can be satisfied in this small improvement in GPU capability a whole TWO years on from the absolutely stellar GTX 680MX.
Here are some truisms:
There will be a faster iMac in the future, or at least a faster Mac.
It will be cheaper in the future to get higher resolution monitors.
The new machines will have better features.
And this has been so for like forever. So just get what works for you, if you can afford it, and if it does the work you need it to do. Apple has always done a very good job of designing for a normal user who's willing to spend more for design, ease of use, and for things like the better display.
If you are into specs, why are you even arguing about an all-in-one? Sheesh, or even Mac Pros? Just build your own and slam whatever system you can into it.
Meanwhile, it's not just the screen. That CPU is fast; and a definite bump for someone with a machine that's a few years old. Not to mention the SSDs are a bit cheaper. All this in a $2500 machine is amazing IMHO.
There will be a faster iMac in the future, or at least a faster Mac.
It will be cheaper in the future to get higher resolution monitors.
The new machines will have better features.
And this has been so for like forever. So just get what works for you, if you can afford it, and if it does the work you need it to do. Apple has always done a very good job of designing for a normal user who's willing to spend more for design, ease of use, and for things like the better display.
If you are into specs, why are you even arguing about an all-in-one? Sheesh, or even Mac Pros? Just build your own and slam whatever system you can into it.
Meanwhile, it's not just the screen. That CPU is fast; and a definite bump for someone with a machine that's a few years old. Not to mention the SSDs are a bit cheaper. All this in a $2500 machine is amazing IMHO.
Probably we're arguing about specs because Apple set the bar high two years ago.
Either way, can't wait for mine to show up. The screen (at least in the Apple Store where I got to drool quite a bit) is just out of this world.
Wait for the next one. Then when you're about to get that one, just remember the next will be better. So keep waiting with your c2d iMac.
Apple doesn't create gaming computers, they create working computers. I haven't heard a single complaint from anyone using this for professional work. It's all from 12 year old gamers and people who expose their computer to benchmark torture tests.
People who are saying the internals are disappointing are on crack. The i7 processor is the fastest processor available today, the 295x is still unreleased outside of this iMac, and you can get a 256gb SSD at no additional cost.
Using your educational discount you'll save $200 on the computer, $25 on the cpu upgrade and $25 on the graphics card upgrade. If you choose to get those.
You can wait all you want, but you've held out long enough if you still have c2d. You definitely won't be disappointed
Apple doesn't create gaming computers, they create working computers. I haven't heard a single complaint from anyone using this for professional work. It's all from 12 year old gamers and people who expose their computer to benchmark torture tests.
People who are saying the internals are disappointing are on crack. The i7 processor is the fastest processor available today, the 295x is still unreleased outside of this iMac, and you can get a 256gb SSD at no additional cost.
Using your educational discount you'll save $200 on the computer, $25 on the cpu upgrade and $25 on the graphics card upgrade. If you choose to get those.
You can wait all you want, but you've held out long enough if you still have c2d. You definitely won't be disappointed
The 4Ghz retina iMac is faster than a quad-core Mac Pro on several tests, also it's even faster a 6-core Mac Pro with Dual D500s on some gaming benchmarks.
http://www.barefeats.com/imac5k.html
http://www.barefeats.com/tube18.html
Tomb Raider is HEAVILY skewed in favor of the AMD cards. Also, it's not fair to compare a 3.5Ghz processor on last year's iMac vs a ~15% faster processor on the new 4Ghz iMac. That could easily explain the difference in Diablo 3 between the 780M iMac (64fps) vs the R295X iMac (73fps), I'd imagine.
So, I still await some real benchmarks in Windows. Amazed nobody has posted any yet!
Why would anyone buying an iMac desperalty await bench marks in Windows?
This is beyond me.
All I care about is if I can get work (editing 4k,5k and 6k material) done faster than before, and I think a lot more people care about how the 5K iMac will improve their workflow, than their gaming.
No one in their right mind would buy an iMac to play games under windows. Buy a pc if you want to do that
But then we'd have to sully our desks with a PC
Some of us want a really nice computer to work on, but would also like to time out and play the odd game here and there. Many of the best games are Windows-only. An iMac with a tolerably good Windows Bootcamp performance means we can do without PCs entirely. Gaming isn't my major use of the iMac, but it would be good to have smooth performance for when I do. I don't need cutting-edge SLI multiple Titans or what-have-you, but I don't want to play in treacle.
But then we'd have to sully our desks with a PC
Some of us want a really nice computer to work on, but would also like to time out and play the odd game here and there. Many of the best games are Windows-only. An iMac with a tolerably good Windows Bootcamp performance means we can do without PCs entirely. Gaming isn't my major use of the iMac, but it would be good to have smooth performance for when I do. I don't need cutting-edge SLI multiple Titans or what-have-you, but I don't want to play in treacle.
Ok, I get you.
And I sympathise with that.
It's just that it sounds like most posters only cares about gaming performance
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Why is that not fair? That's like saying if the new iMac had a GTX-980 it wouldn't be fair to compare to earlier iMacs because its GPU is so fast.
We accept where improvements are made and (hopefully) we rejoice in this, we don't try to argue in the face of facts that those improvements are somehow "not fair".
I don't agree that "the new 5K iMac with the high-end GPU is no better than iMacs...from 2 years ago". Early benchmarks seem to show it's significantly faster over a range of workloads. I am confident that more detailed subsequent testing will continue to generally support this.
To depict this otherwise confuses people, as seen by the first post in this thread.
I think the screaming for figures was just because there is precious little information out there on the Bootcamp performance. We know that, under OS X, the new iMac is a quick if not stellar computer. But we know next to nothing about its Windows performance.
Although, given that the drivers don't yet support the 5k resolution we can assume that any figures we do see this early are subject to change as drivers are improved...
No, no, don't misunderstand. I'm talking about taking into account JUST GPU performance. Thus, it's not fair to say the R295X is faster necessarily, because the CPU speed is also faster in the test system.
Again, I'm talking JUST gaming-wise. But again, all the facts aren't available, and nobody has done any benchmarks in Windows yet (where all real gaming takes place).
I see your point but I think in general people care more about overall system performance. If it runs their apps of interest faster, what does it matter how this is accomplished?
I agree from an engineering standpoint there's nothing wrong with dissecting and analyzing each subcomponent -- provided people don't get the wrong idea about the overall system.
So if I persuade my accountant to allow the purchase of RiMac with upgraded CPU and GPU, do I need to use Thunderbolt for an external drive or is a USB 3 fine? I'm not running RAID or anything fancy. I'm thinking the 1tb Fusion will be good and then an external for other files. I have a Time Capsule at the moment as well that might be upgraded soon.
Again, I'm still waiting for some clear information on this thing. I tend to use my tech for awhile and just want to get the biggest bang for my $$. CPU seems worth it at this point. Jury appears out on the GPU.
Again, I'm still waiting for some clear information on this thing. I tend to use my tech for awhile and just want to get the biggest bang for my $$. CPU seems worth it at this point. Jury appears out on the GPU.
If your external drive will just be one spinning far drive, then you only need USB 3. A single spinning drive cannot read/write fast enough to take advantage of the TB interface. If you go with a RAID set up or a SSD, then TB2 will be the faster choice.
Bryan
I would upgrade the GPU and get the 512 GB SSD (or 256 GB if you can fit all of your applications and working files on it) with 8 GBs of RAM. The base GPU in there is just not worth it.
Then I would upgrade the RAM myself to 16 GBs, or 32 GBs, if you can afford it. 16 GBs will be fine in the mean time, but upgrade to 2x8, instead of 4x4 so that it's easy and cheap to upgrade in the future.
The CPU upgrade is pretty pointless for your uses. It will be a night and day difference between what you're using anyway, and in the real world, the differences between the upgraded CPU and the baseline are not something that you would notice.
For external storage, a USB 3 drive will be perfectly fine for your uses, unless you're planning on using a "fast" SSD, or RAID 0.
Thanks for the help! I'm waffling on the SSD. I like the idea of a 1TB drive because of space, but if I can fit everything I need on an SSD and then store the files on an external, that might be good as well. Just need a solid backup as well.