I just thought I would write a review on the iMac G5 20" 2.1ghz when it comes to gaming so here it goes. Also all benchmarks are just to give a generic example:
The iMac G5 iSight features a ATi Radeon x600 and x600xt in the 17" and 20"
models respectively. While much better than the preceding releases of G5's with nVidia's GeForce 5200's and still notably better than the ATi Radeon 9600's , the graphics is still budget level cards just under a year old when the G5 iSights were released. Making them very outdated at this date.
The iMac G5 I personally own is the 20". Both cards have a humble 128mb's of Vram, but the XT is clocked slightly faster than the normal x600. Just enough to see a couple frames improvement in most games. To my surprise, it still preforms very well for generic gaming, although, the now relatively slow G5 is a huge limitation in the gaming capabilities of the machine.
The main limitation for newer games at this point is the vram. The card is fast enough to handle most games at 1680x1050 at modest settings but high resolution textures cause major stutter. Even games such as Halo stutter from otherwise decent frame rates with high resolution textures. Setting them to medium cures the problem completely.
Still, if you could find a G5 iSight for under 400 dollars and you have plenty of cash, I would say go for it. It still preforms quite well for day to day applications but the lack of dual cores can make multitasking a little sluggish. I've provided some benchmarks here at the end. Just simple tests. All framerates go (Resolution, Avg FPS, Lowest FPS)
System: iMac G5 20" 2.1ghz G5
2gb DDR2 Ram
x600xt ATi Radeon, 128mb
OS 10.5.8
Doom 3 Medium, No Shadows:
800x600, 42, 25
1280x1024, 30, 22
(small amounts of stuttering) 1680x1050 26, 19
Call of Duty 2, default, extra quality textures:
800x600, 50, 30
1280x1024, 39, 25
1680x1050, 39, 5
Wolfenstien: Enemy Territory, Max:
1680x1050, 175
Penumbra Overture, no grain or motion blur, med shaders:
800x600, 50, 35
1280x1024, 45, 35
(extreme stuttering) 1680x1050, 36, 29
Halo, max, no shadows, adv. pixel shaders:
800x600, 40, 38
1280x1024, 37,37
(lots of stuttering) 1680x1050, 32, 29
The iMac G5 iSight features a ATi Radeon x600 and x600xt in the 17" and 20"
models respectively. While much better than the preceding releases of G5's with nVidia's GeForce 5200's and still notably better than the ATi Radeon 9600's , the graphics is still budget level cards just under a year old when the G5 iSights were released. Making them very outdated at this date.
The iMac G5 I personally own is the 20". Both cards have a humble 128mb's of Vram, but the XT is clocked slightly faster than the normal x600. Just enough to see a couple frames improvement in most games. To my surprise, it still preforms very well for generic gaming, although, the now relatively slow G5 is a huge limitation in the gaming capabilities of the machine.
The main limitation for newer games at this point is the vram. The card is fast enough to handle most games at 1680x1050 at modest settings but high resolution textures cause major stutter. Even games such as Halo stutter from otherwise decent frame rates with high resolution textures. Setting them to medium cures the problem completely.
Still, if you could find a G5 iSight for under 400 dollars and you have plenty of cash, I would say go for it. It still preforms quite well for day to day applications but the lack of dual cores can make multitasking a little sluggish. I've provided some benchmarks here at the end. Just simple tests. All framerates go (Resolution, Avg FPS, Lowest FPS)
System: iMac G5 20" 2.1ghz G5
2gb DDR2 Ram
x600xt ATi Radeon, 128mb
OS 10.5.8
Doom 3 Medium, No Shadows:
800x600, 42, 25
1280x1024, 30, 22
(small amounts of stuttering) 1680x1050 26, 19
Call of Duty 2, default, extra quality textures:
800x600, 50, 30
1280x1024, 39, 25
1680x1050, 39, 5
Wolfenstien: Enemy Territory, Max:
1680x1050, 175
Penumbra Overture, no grain or motion blur, med shaders:
800x600, 50, 35
1280x1024, 45, 35
(extreme stuttering) 1680x1050, 36, 29
Halo, max, no shadows, adv. pixel shaders:
800x600, 40, 38
1280x1024, 37,37
(lots of stuttering) 1680x1050, 32, 29