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When is the 680MX called for?

T

Tri-stan

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 27, 2012
268
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I have already placed an order for a 675mx but I am having second thoughts. I know some people say to max the system to get the best expected life out of the machine but £2000 is the limit and the 180mx exceeds that. If I was to spend more it would have to be worth it.

I am going to be using the machine for advanced 3D applications, photoshop, autocad, 3Dsmax etc. I want to know if I am not going to be gaming (exept for the new sim city) is the 680mx going to be worth it? Curently the gfx is just used to refresh the render preview window but there is speak of further integration with cuda.

Any video specialists see any real world benifits in final cut for instance as an example?
 
I'm a heavy After Effects user and one of the bigger reasons I got the MX is for the 2GB of on board video RAM as opposed to 1. When working on large 3D scenes more is always better in that department. I don't know as much about pure 3D programs such as 3D Max, but as all programs progress, they seem to lean more and more on the GPU and maxing it out now, could save you valuable time in the future.

As for Final Cut/Premiere/Avid, I doubt it would be as big of a deal as these are much more processor intensive. Unless you are consistently dealing with R3D RAW 5K footage, but then you should have a R3D Rocket Card anyways.
 
Photoshop not important. Autocad last I remember not terribly important but check most recent version. If I remember correctly 3ds max uses some variation on DirectX rather than OpenGL. Look up nitrous viewport on that one. I'd try something like cgsociety. A Mac forum isn't the greatest place to look for opinions when it comes to programs that are solely compiled for Windows. With something like Max, the card being bug free is another concern. The consumer/gaming cards aren't typically tested for this. It might work great or it might suck. You'll need to do some research to see if the imac is even a good option for that kind of use. This means real research.
 
With maya you can use cuda plug-ins for faster dynamic simulations and overall faster performance with uncached scenes, mudbox runs twice as fast and can load 16 k textures. Under windows you can run Mari thanks to the 2 gb of vram, with the 675mx you will barely run the application. After effects and photoshop: gpu accelerated filters are about 30-40% faster. Premiers does not support both cards so it runs dog slow compared to an ati 6970m.
 
I think I will just never know which card would be the one to go for. Peoplen can quote that x card will x much faster in x program but in the end of the day I think the gfx in my situation is not going to be the limiting factor.

As long as the 675mx has got superb performance in photoshop I will be happy. There is nothing worse than sloppy photoshop performance for instance slow on screen refresh rates of giant files. Has anybody had any photoshop experience with either card?

Photoshop will be the end program in my workflow and where I will be spending alot of my time. For the rest of the apps I think I can make do with a 675mx.

The thing is whatever card I have owned in the past for apps it has never maxed out like my cpu has. Instead it would for instance struggle to fly round a model but would never be accessing full gpu load. There is something else that causes bogging down with graphics cards and it is probably down to the driver's.
 
Tri-stan said:
I think I will just never know which card would be the one to go for. Peoplen can quote that x card will x much faster in x program but in the end of the day I think the gfx in my situation is not going to be the limiting factor.

As long as the 675mx has got superb performance in photoshop I will be happy. There is nothing worse than sloppy photoshop performance for instance slow on screen refresh rates of giant files. Has anybody had any photoshop experience with either card?

Photoshop will be the end program in my workflow and where I will be spending alot of my time. For the rest of the apps I think I can make do with a 675mx.

The thing is whatever card I have owned in the past for apps it has never maxed out like my cpu has. Instead it would for instance struggle to fly round a model but would never be accessing full gpu load. There is something else that causes bogging down with graphics cards and it is probably down to the driver's.
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I'm a still photographer and went with the i7 but just the 675 - only just starting to use it but seems great so far. Like you I could not decide, but kept to the original 1 gig, I promised the wife I would not max everthing! :)
 
emsworthboy said:
I'm a still photographer and went with the i7 but just the 675 - only just starting to use it but seems great so far. Like you I could not decide, but kept to the original 1 gig, I promised the wife I would not max everthing! :)
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lol, I arbitrarily chose the 675 as the one thing I wouldn't max out. (Not a gamer, or power graphics/movies/etc. user.)
 
Tri-stan said:
Have you been having problems with the 675MX card or it is just the missing feeling of having the latest and greatest?
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TBH, I don't need it. I'm on my 'puter all the time, but just for writing, work, email, blah blah blah. The heaviest graphics card stuff would be Aperture. Just got the machine up and running and I am having no problems, but in retrospect, it was a silly sacrifice. But rationalization plays funny tricks when making a purchase this ridiculously expensive. :)
 
The Monkey said:
TBH, I don't need it. I'm on my 'puter all the time, but just for writing, work, email, blah blah blah. The heaviest graphics card stuff would be Aperture. Just got the machine up and running and I am having no problems, but in retrospect, it was a silly sacrifice. But rationalization plays funny tricks when making a purchase this ridiculously expensive. :)
Click to expand...

I think you made the right decision, the 180mx may be better for resale value but if you intend to keep the machine then it sounds like the perfect choice. It is going to be more power efficient and clocked less for reliability. It is very annoying when you don't know what apps you are going to be using and if the card is going to be able to keep up in the future.

If I want the 180mx I could drop fusion and install my own ssd and of course drop to the back of the iMac que. I don't know if I shoild go for it? Part of me says I should and the conservative other says keep what I've got.

I am comming from a pro grade graphics card and ability to upgrade at any time. iMac not possible.
 
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