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680MX Benchmarks please
- Thread starter tacokisses
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I got extremely excited when I saw your post. However, the tone of the piece seemed to be too supportive of a mac for a 'gaming enthusiast' website. My suspicions were then confirmed when I checked the date of the piece...you guessed it, 1st April 2013!
All said, I would absolutely love to see that machine go into production - it would indicate a real change in Apple's view of gaming.
Rob
Although an April fools joke, new Mac Pros are on the way... So, it may happen! I for one may be a little disapointed if it happens now, seeing as I just dropped over £2,000 on a (absolutely fantastic) iMac. I suppose when I see the price of the new Pro I won't be too bothered (I'm assuming it'll be way out of my price range).
In other news, I can cross off Crysis 3 and Call of Juarez: Gunslinger from my long list of games that I am currently playing, because I finished them! Whoop. Crysis 3 is absolutely stunning from a visual perspective, story was pretty mediocre, but fun all the same. Call of Juarez: Gunslinger was great! I recommened picking it up if you are a fan of the FPS genre, the story lasts around 8 hours - it's only $15.
ALSO, if you guys haven't heard of it, you should check out Kinguin - it's a kind of marketplace for cd keys, I've purchased nine games off there so far and the keys tend to come almost instantly.
Didn't catch that, damn. I wasn't too excited by a "Mac Gaming" computer per se, just about the option of a Titan on a mac. I did read in other sources that the new OS will, or might, include drivers for the Titan. Quick search:
http://macdailynews.com/2013/05/29/...x-titan-drivers-in-apples-latest-os-x-builds/
Could one of you please dump the GTX680MX videoBIOS with nvflash and upload it here:
From a native Windows install:
Download NVFlash 5.118 for Windows | techPowerUp
Just run in commad prompt (cmd)
nvflash -b GTX680MX.ROM
or from a bootable DOS USB stick:
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2165/NVFlash_5.127.html
Thank You very much!
i would love to do it, but i get "unknown eeprom" message when trying to save the bios.
Was a little worried about my iMac purchase because I wasn't sure what the new Mac Pro would offer. After seeing the teaser, I feel confident that i made the right choice, as far as having a capable workstation that is also a viable gaming computer. Looks like the new MP video cards are not upgradable.
Not good. I said it earlier and I'll say it again. NOW, at THIS point in time - the iMac 27" with GTX 680MX is an extremely competent gaming machine. When the focus switches to the consoles, PCs will once again get left behind. That's my suspicion. I can't even fathom my iMac running Battlefield 4 at the level of detail/settings the 360/PS4 can run it.
But I'd love to be wrong.
Not good. I said it earlier and I'll say it again. NOW, at THIS point in time - the iMac 27" with GTX 680MX is an extremely competent gaming machine. When the focus switches to the consoles, PCs will once again get left behind. That's my suspicion. I can't even fathom my iMac running Battlefield 4 at the level of detail/settings the 360/PS4 can run it.
But I'd love to be wrong.
If you haven't seen it yet:
http://www.game-debate.com/news/?ne...a Shrugs Off Consoles, Says PC More Important
The important chart there is (unfortunately) the smaller one, where Nvidia is comparing relative GPU performance of their offering vs. consoles. Unfortunately they don't give the underlying data, so we're playing with round numbers here, but:
- Nvidia's top 2013 desktop offering (Titan, really a workstation-class GPU) is about 2.5x the performance than the next-gen consoles (by GFLOPS)
- Titan offers about 1.9x the performance than the 680mx (by 3DMark or GFLOPS)
- Ergo, the 680mx already performs somewhat better than the next-gen consoles, and nothing about designing games for consoles will affect the performance on the iMac.
The 680mx should offer excellent performance on modern games for about 3-4 years.. which, in tech years, is an eternity.
Plus in 3-4 years time, Thunderbolt GPU expansions should be commonplace and much cheaper. These can upgrade the GPU power of the imac...extending its life even further!
Plus in 3-4 years time, Thunderbolt GPU expansions should be commonplace and much cheaper. These can upgrade the GPU power of the imac...extending its life even further!
Sorry, doesn't work in reality - no performance benefit. Because you can't use your iMac as an external screen, you're pretty much stuck with 680MX. 680MX is a very good gfx card though.
Those numbers don't translate to the real world. I have zero doubt the GTX 680MX is not in the same league as PS4/XBOX ONE. There's no way developers will be able to eke out those frames per second on a PC like they do on a console.
Look at the PS3/360. 7-8 years old and still supported. The PC won't get that kind of love.
When you have a dedicated box like the ONE/PS4, it changes everything. It's the same thing as iPhones running on inferior hardware but still running smoother than any Android handset with higher specs.
Dude, sorry but you're wrong. A photographer friend of mine already uses this:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/889096-REG/Magma_eb3t_Three_Slot_Thunderbolt_to_PCI.html
And Silverstone is coming out with an awesome one any day now:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/06/06/silverstone-external-graphics-card-case-deb/1
Quote: The as yet unnamed product can house any current graphics card, a Thunderbolt to PCI-E interface board and an SFX-size power supply to power the card. Simply fit the hardware and plug into any PC with a Thunderbolt port - yup, even a MacBook Air - and it will provide that graphics processing power to the attached device.
It will also depend on the power supply in those (the one from B&H will JUST power the latest GPUs), and also the bandwidth required from GPU over Thunderbolt, and if it's enough. Absolutely possible, though.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-780-performance-review,3516-23.html
I currently use a Sony Z2 13.3" laptop, which uses the Lightpeak (Thunderbolt) port (which is built into the USB 3.0 port) as a graphics card connection. Takes the Intel HD3000 and turns it into the AMD 6650 card. Not a crazy-fast card, or anything, by today's standards. But it gives us a glimpse at what I hope is the future. And this laptop came out 2 years ago! This laptop, while flawed in some other ways, was, and still is, ahead of its time.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/29/sony-vaio-z-review-2011/
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Exactly! While these external GPU units are still in the early stages, I'm confident that in 2-3 years they will become quite commonplace. (Especially with the new Mac Pro being so reliant on external thunderbolt components.) The nice thing with the 2012 imac is that we get to benefit from that, and extend the lifespan of our machine in a similar way to those with mac pros!
Nice looking laptop btw!
I'm sorry but you're "wrong".
If you're looking for using high-end gaming gfx cards, thunderbolt is a no-go. There just isn't enough bandwidth. By the time thunderbolt 2 comes out, the newest line of graphics cards are quite a bit faster than the fastest gfx cards when thunderbolt 1 came out. For each new gfx card line, the thunderbolt will perform progressively worse, ie. use less percentwise of the gfx card's total power. My point is, if you're looking for expanding your present thunderbolt1 iMac with an external graphics card for better framerates in future games compared to your 680MX, it doesn't work. Period. I wanted this to work myself, believe me, but there isn't enough bandwidth.I'm sorry but you're "wrong".
Source?
If that is true, it seems strange to me that so many companies are working on manufacturing and marketing external GPU expansion units. Why would they make something that would not work?
From reading the Mac Pro forums, it appears that Thunderbolt 1 will only result in a 5% drop at the most in performance from the latest Nvidia Titan GPU...
Other articles I have read also talk about companies working on software to make OSX recognize the external cards as dual GPUs, which means they would work in a dual GPU setup with the internal 680MX. Even if there was a slight loss in performance from thunderbolt, it would still be a boost over merely using the 680MX
Only 5% less performance from Titan? That sounds almost too good to be true. I saw some benchmarks some time ago with a GTX680 connected to a computer via thunderbolt, and the max performance loss was 30% or more I think. Remember that PCI express still has a lot more bandwidth than thunderbolt. Also, the new mac pro uses thunderbolt 2, the present iMac only has thunderbolt 1. Now, the dual GPU technology I didn't know about, that sounds very promising. Do you have any links with proper benchmark tests? That would be very interesting to read. The idea of external graphics card is great, but one needs a lot of bandwidth for proper high-end gfx card performance.
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Thunderbolt 2 has no where near the bandwidth of a true pci 3.0 16x slot.
Thunderbolt 2 maxes out 20 gigabits per second. PCI express 3.0 has 16 gigabytes per second aka 128 gigabits per second.
from this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1593386/
Thunderbolt 2 maxes out 20 gigabits per second. PCI express 3.0 has 16 gigabytes per second aka 128 gigabits per second.
from this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1593386/
Let's talk Battlefield 4...
So, it's been a while since I played BF3, but I'm pretty sure the 680mx was getting near to if not 60fps at 1440p with Ultra settings (AA turned off). How do we reckon BF4 will run? I'm trying to decide whether I'll get it on PS4 or on my iMac...
So, it's been a while since I played BF3, but I'm pretty sure the 680mx was getting near to if not 60fps at 1440p with Ultra settings (AA turned off). How do we reckon BF4 will run? I'm trying to decide whether I'll get it on PS4 or on my iMac...
