Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
2600xt?
- Thread starter I'mAMac
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
So, are we done speculating? What the hell card is in the imac? What is the HD 2600 Pro really? I'm lost here. I've seen talk of over clocking, but since it's not possible on the mac side, I don't really care, because I have no plans of installing vista any time soon.
Oh well, so, what's up, is this card better than people though?
Oh well, so, what's up, is this card better than people though?
well one things for sure, the clock rates of the card are higher than the 2600 Pro.. that leaves a hell of a lot of speculation, because apple wouldnt clock it over what the actual thingo is.
my best guess is that its an underclocked XT.
ne1 else agree/disagree?
So far its looking like an underclocked 2600XT, which normally has higher speeds than the regular 2600 mobile gpu.
Remember the gpu speeds in the macbook pros are variable, so at idle they are at a lower speed. Barefeats identified that the 17 inch for example has higher speeds (same gpu) than the 15 inch at normal and maximum speeds. If Apple did the same with the iMacs the 2600xt could have higher maximum speeds than the normal 2600 mobile even though its overall underclocked.
What I don't understand is why not market it as a 2600XT ? Why choose to call it a 2600pro since it would obviously lead to confusion about its performance and quality as evidenced by the several threads on this topic?
Thanks Adom, that solves it. It is a Mobility XT like it's id says, it's just been underclocked. That suits me fine, I will leave it alone in OS X and clock it up to XT speeds when gaming in Windows.
(Core/Mem)
Desktop 2600 Pro: 550/700
iMac: 600/685
Mobility 2600 XT: 700/750
The clock speeds aren't the only differences between the chips, though. How do the pixel shaders/pipelines etc compare in the three chips? (i.e. desktop pro, imac pro and desktop XT)
Cheers for the research and efforts guys! Looks like i MAY be getting an imac afterall
Cheers for the research and efforts guys! Looks like i MAY be getting an imac afterall
It means it can do 3D about 33% faster than everyone thought. It means instead of having a totally crap graphics card it has one that's inline with a pretty expensive laptop.
The clock speeds aren't the only differences between the chips, though. How do the pixel shaders/pipelines etc compare in the three chips? (i.e. desktop pro, imac pro and desktop XT)
Cheers for the research and efforts guys! Looks like i MAY be getting an imac afterall
AMD/ATI has made the 2600 line (mobile or desktop) have the same amount of stream processors. The only differences is clock speed (which is single rate for the core & shader units) for both the core/shader units and memory (DDRx).
It is a very agressive move as technically it should have similar performance of whatever stream processor equivalent nvidia may have. Oddly enough, in practice nvidia pretty much owns AMD/ATI when pitting same lines against each other.
basically...
they have exactly the same cores, same technology, they just slow down the clock speeds and give it a different number and different price.
ati has recently enterered this market (or was it nvidia)
correct me if im wrong
they have exactly the same cores, same technology, they just slow down the clock speeds and give it a different number and different price.
ati has recently enterered this market (or was it nvidia)
correct me if im wrong
I really think we should wait for some decent benchmarks before we go labeling this iMac as a gaming machine. Granted, it seems the card is a bit on the higher end. But let's face it, the 2600XT isn't mind blowing in the first place. We really need someone to give us real world numbers on Windows XP on some recent games. Until then I will hold off my purchase.
I agree that we have to wait for some benchmarks before hailing the new iMac as the second coming of Christ but as a soon to be switcher (I'm typing this on an age old Dell Pentium III) I am excited to see that the graphics card might not be quite as bad as was originally thought.
Interestingly enough, have a look at the the cnet reviews of the 20 inch iMac and the new HP 20 inch notebook behemoth that also uses the mobility HD2600 XT.
In the Quake 4 test (1,024 x 768, 4x AA, 8x AF) the iMac scores 39.2 FPS whereas the HP scores an impressive 65.9 FPS.
Can we really expect to see a 70% improvement in the iMac by overclocking it to the 'correct' speeds?
I agree that we have to wait for some benchmarks before hailing the new iMac as the second coming of Christ but as a soon to be switcher (I'm typing this on an age old Dell Pentium III) I am excited to see that the graphics card might not be quite as bad as was originally thought.
Interestingly enough, have a look at the the cnet reviews of the 20 inch iMac and the new HP 20 inch notebook behemoth that also uses the mobility HD2600 XT.
In the Quake 4 test (1,024 x 768, 4x AA, 8x AF) the iMac scores 39.2 FPS whereas the HP scores an impressive 65.9 FPS.
Can we really expect to see a 70% improvement in the iMac by overclocking it to the 'correct' speeds?
thats running on osx isnt it?? they should compare bootcamp lol.
remember the 2900 is more a 'new games' gpu, that has intense shaders and what not.. it doesnt do that good in the raw power arena, moreso in the complex arena.
no overclocking wont get you 70% extra power. maybe 20% if your lucky.
I agree that we have to wait for some benchmarks before hailing the new iMac as the second coming of Christ but as a soon to be switcher (I'm typing this on an age old Dell Pentium III) I am excited to see that the graphics card might not be quite as bad as was originally thought.
Interestingly enough, have a look at the the cnet reviews of the 20 inch iMac and the new HP 20 inch notebook behemoth that also uses the mobility HD2600 XT.
In the Quake 4 test (1,024 x 768, 4x AA, 8x AF) the iMac scores 39.2 FPS whereas the HP scores an impressive 65.9 FPS.
Can we really expect to see a 70% improvement in the iMac by overclocking it to the 'correct' speeds?
No, but you might see a 70% improvement by running the game in windows and then overclocking the processor to the correct speeds
.
I agree that we have to wait for some benchmarks before hailing the new iMac as the second coming of Christ but as a soon to be switcher (I'm typing this on an age old Dell Pentium III) I am excited to see that the graphics card might not be quite as bad as was originally thought.
Interestingly enough, have a look at the the cnet reviews of the 20 inch iMac and the new HP 20 inch notebook behemoth that also uses the mobility HD2600 XT.
In the Quake 4 test (1,024 x 768, 4x AA, 8x AF) the iMac scores 39.2 FPS whereas the HP scores an impressive 65.9 FPS.
Can we really expect to see a 70% improvement in the iMac by overclocking it to the 'correct' speeds?
Apple's has GDDR3, doesn't the xt support GDDR4? Hp's could have GDDR4, maybe that along with the clock speed?