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Funny that the iMac has a higher resolution than your standard 55" HDTV and would benefit more from HD than a TV.

And yeah OP. I've been completely happy with SD content even on my 46" Bravia for years. But now I have a 1440p display things are starting to look a little low res! And I hope this works out for ya. The 6970 is a superb card. Was playing GTA last night, 1440p with everything set on medium-high for a super smooth 60fps. Looked gorgeous! Go for it :).


It all has to do with viewing distance, and with the 27" iMac we tend to sit very close while watching movies, so it become very apparent SD Vs HD, SD is almost unwatchable on the 27". Typically People sit about 10 feet away from a large screen, so the SD content is very watchable plus the current crop of flat panel do an excellent job of up scaling content.
 
Funny that the iMac has a higher resolution than your standard 55" HDTV and would benefit more from HD than a TV.

And yeah OP. I've been completely happy with SD content even on my 46" Bravia for years. But now I have a 1440p display things are starting to look a little low res! And I hope this works out for ya. The 6970 is a superb card. Was playing GTA last night, 1440p with everything set on medium-high for a super smooth 60fps. Looked gorgeous! Go for it :).

well swaping the card will go on hold until i can source one, i havent really had any issues with the one thats installed.

Will the 09 iMac have a large enough PSU for the 6970M? It's a 100w card.

i dont know, that might have somthing to do with the cable that was mentioned earlier

It all has to do with viewing distance, and with the 27" iMac we tend to sit very close while watching movies, so it become very apparent SD Vs HD, SD is almost unwatchable on the 27". Typically People sit about 10 feet away from a large screen, so the SD content is very watchable plus the current crop of flat panel do an excellent job of up scaling content.

i can sit quite far back when watching movies in my bedroom (where it is at present) and when watching the new star trek for instance it looks terrible! i purchased that film on blu-ray along with the dvd and digital copy but i only get the SD copy since im in the UK.
 
i dont know, that might have somthing to do with the cable that was mentioned earlier
Yeah, probably,

Well, I hope it works for ya! Would be pretty cool.

Keep in mind that when you buy an iMac you get an installation disc which has the drivers for everything so you can boot off it, with the 6970M installed you won't have that.

I.E, if you need to re-install, boot from the DVD, etc., not gunna work unless it's the latest version of SL that includes the drivers for the 6970M.
 
Yeah, probably,

Well, I hope it works for ya! Would be pretty cool.

Keep in mind that when you buy an iMac you get an installation disc which has the drivers for everything so you can boot off it, with the 6970M installed you won't have that.

I.E, if you need to re-install, boot from the DVD, etc., not gunna work unless it's the latest version of SL that includes the drivers for the 6970M.

ahh, well im going to upgrade to lion when its released anyways (well maybe after a few months) so that would come generic?
 
Some more info

Hello im new to the forum and im not a mac user yet.

I have done some research on this matter myself. I was looking if it might be possible to put an Hd6970m in an 21,5 2011 imac im going to buy soon.
but it would be to expensive anyway.

The card you have in your current imac (the hd4850) is likely the same size as an Hd6970m (im not 100% sure) I do know the hd5850m is an annex b mxm module like the hd6970m.
The problem is the heatsink of your hd4850 might not fit the hd6970.

Second problem is: I´ve read a story at mxmupgrade.com that Apple uses it´s own vbios on the graphics cards so a third party hd6970m will not work.
Or it will probably fail the hardware test.

So you would need to buy an hd6970m directly from Apple. which would be very expensive

This would though eliminate the problem of the heatsink as i believe you get a new heatsink with the card. You just have to hope it wil fit in a 2009 imac.

third: the power supply is probable the same and your hd4850 has probably the same pci-x power connector as the hd6970m.
I dont believe this will be the problem.

This all would be probably so expensive you would be better off selling your current imac and buying a new 1 with the hd6970m.
Instead of buying an hd6970m to find out it doesn´t work.

But somebody has to be the first!

Good luck!
 
Resurrecting this old thread. I was curious about doing the same thing - upgrading my 27" late 2009 i7 iMac with better graphics board.

Did anyone actually try this? Success/fail? Any information from someone that has looked into this would be great.
 
Sigh. bluray? really?

I wish I had money to throw around like that -- just to get a few extra frames or see a movie just a tiny bit clearer on a really small screen.

Seriously, is there any movie that you say "wow, that was 100X better on BR vs DVD". I mean, the story is the same, the end is the same, but you can see blades of grass vs a clump?

Un-freakin believable.

Now, on a 55" TV, I hear ya.

Sigh ... you never seen bluray before? Maybe because you spend too much time rent and buy iTunes HD movies? Well .. trust me, it's nothing compared to the real bluray.
Not even on 55" tv, or 200" projector screen. You don't want to watch dvd/iTunes movies on those. Plus you don't get the great sound quality that bluray has.

And having 1440p iMac screen makes my 1080p tv starts to look odd. I thought I can see each pixel I've never seen before.

Just like iPhone vs iPad screen, PPI is matters much more than resolution.
 
Seriously, is there any movie that you say "wow, that was 100X better on BR vs DVD". I mean, the story is the same, the end is the same, but you can see blades of grass vs a clump?

Have you ever watched a movie?

480p and 1080p are miles apart in quality.
 
Resurrecting this old thread. I was curious about doing the same thing - upgrading my 27" late 2009 i7 iMac with better graphics board.

Did anyone actually try this? Success/fail? Any information from someone that has looked into this would be great.

This hehe. I found this thread:https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3029120?start=0&tstart=0 So it looks good...

I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card as well in my late 2009 aluminum iMac ( 27" with 4670 )
 
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not logged on here in a while and was surprised there was a few comments for people wanting the same.

has anyone actually done it yet?

i went to install the blu-ray drive and hit a few money issues so never got round to doing it, but hoping too very shortly. also ive been looking at the cards, the card upgrade is starting to look more apealing as the 2gb over the 512mb will be a significant upgrade
 
i've installed a UJ-235 (Sata) Blu-Ray burner & it works fine.

Screen Shot 2012-07-24 at 2.11.45 AM.png

i have a 27" Mid '10 iMac however it should fit/work with any iMac that uses a SATA connecter.

If your iMac does NOT have a SATA connector for the optical drive then try/use the UJ-225 (IDE) Blu-ray burner.

Also i am seriously contemplating the 6970M video card upgrade.
 
3 years later I am also on my way to do the same. I've replaced the CPU to a better one, the 4850 of my iMac late '09 with the 5750 and am now planning to go for the way too expensive 6970. But I've seen you have to cut out a bit of the plastic where the heatsink fits. 5750 and 4850 have 2 copper tubes. 6970 has 3. I've heard a lot of succes stories, so it must be doable. I also learned these thing from the forumpost above. There's all the info you need actually..
But the reason I am posting here is because I didn't think of one thing, mentioned above.. what about the PSU? can it handle the 100W?
 
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