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4850 worth waiting?

Hellhammer said:
A question, is 9800M GTS a good card for gaming for example?
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Well, based on everything that's being said both of these cards are excellent and there's so little difference between them it's pathetic. I serious doubt anyone could tell the difference if they had one of each side by side and were in either a heavy app or extreme gaming.

Ha! Shows ya all what I know! My knee-jerk response to the initial question was that the HD 4850 would blow away the GT130. :p

I thought so because of what i had read on the ATI HD 4850. After posting I stopped and thought to myself... Hang-on, I dunno what the hell the GT130 is... Better go look. Kinda glad I did. :)

The cards are virtually in the same league, on the same lane of the same highway. :) Or, Um... so it seems. :p
 
Worth waiting - all depends on your point of view. If you are dead serious about gaming, it is the optimum choice in GPU power, regardless of whether it's the mobile version or not, etc etc. It costs $50 more, and so you can also weigh in the factor is $50 worth a possible 10-20% (or maybe more) increase in performance? Hardcore gamers would typically say yes. It's very much in line with what you see if you were to purchase the desktop cards at newegg, approx. $90 for a 9600GT vs. $140 for a HD4850.

That said, the GT 130 (whatever it is), is a very nice piece of hardware and will likely handle all the top tier games in at least medium settings. I read an old magazine covering the 9600GT when it was first released (very similar specs to the GT 130), and it was released as the lower price end to get people gaming in DirectX 10 - particularly for Crysis. If your patience level is low (like me), my guess is you'll be pretty happy with the GT 130.
 
I called Apple and they confirmed it is the Mobility version.


EmperorDarius said:
1.The test is irrelevant unless it's run between 2 same machines, because 3dmark06 relies on the CPU too.

2.Furthermore, Apple often modifies the GPUs, so the GPUs could be under/over clocked.

3.We're still not sure whether the Radeon is Mobility or not.

So, IF the Radeon is the mobility version and the GPUs run at their normal speed, the difference is minimal. Otherwise, I don't know.
Until a benchmark between the GT 130 and the Radeon is done between two exactly same iMacs, it's useless to keep looking at tests-
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GonzoRob said:
I really can't imagine the 130 being faster than the 4850. If it was, it'd be blatant false advertising on the part of Apple.

But, I agree, we need to get some benchmarks :)
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Yeah, otherwise the Radeon wouldn't cost more. But I don't think that the difference is so big either, otherwise it would be more expensive.
 
EmperorDarius said:
Yeah, otherwise the Radeon wouldn't cost more. But I don't think that the difference is so big either, otherwise it would be more expensive.
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I agree. It's faster, that's sure but we don't know how much. Difference is only 50$ so it can't be a "superultimatemegatr00n0lifeyyberextremeoverclockededition".
 
I was reading another thread on another part of the forum and they were talking about the just released seed of 10.5.7. AppleInsider was quoted here regarding the 4870 Card and indicated that the Mac Pro is shipping with a custom version of 10.5.6 to support that card. One might assume that the same could be done for the iMac and the 4850 but apparently that is not the case. I guess it is interesting to speculate why they can do it for the Mac Pro and not the iMac.

Mac OS X 10.5.7 was also publicly mentioned on Apple's online store as a prerequisite for the ATI Radeon HD 4870 Graphics Upgrade Kit for owners of previous generation Mac Pros. After the blunder was widely reported, Apple changed the page to indicate that the card required 10.5.6, which is actually the case for the just announced Mac Pro, which will ship with a custom milestone of 10.5.6 that includes the appropriate driver support.
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EmperorDarius said:
Then if they both run at their original clock speed, according to this site:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

The GT 130 is slightly faster. Again, nothing can be verified without the actual Radeon iMac.
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3dMark is a horrible indicator of real world performance

The 4850 can handle 1920 x 1200 resolution, while the 9xxx series cards from Nvidia are notorious for choking at higher resolutions and settings. The 4850 is also more shader intensive, and games are more shader based today.

Run those 3dMark scores at 1920 x 1200 and the 4850 Mobility would smoke the 9800M GTS
 
chewietobbacca said:
3dMark is a horrible indicator of real world performance

The 4850 can handle 1920 x 1200 resolution, while the 9xxx series cards from Nvidia are notorious for choking at higher resolutions and settings. The 4850 is also more shader intensive, and games are more shader based today.

Run those 3dMark scores at 1920 x 1200 and the 4850 Mobility would smoke the 9800M GTS
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What about doing things not related to games?
 
Exactly my concern...

EmperorDarius said:
What about doing things not related to games?
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Exactly my concern...

CS4 and Aperture performance with large libraries.

Also while I'm at it...

What effect would adding 2nd display have on performance or GPU choices.

I'm thinking 3.06 and ATI with 24" LED Cinema Display added.

Thanks!
 
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