9400M vs. 4670 Graphics Card...Does It Matter To Me?

[g00dbye]

I will soon be buying a new iMac and was wondering if I should upgrade the graphics card to the 4670 or not. I can say confidently that I will be playing absolutely ZERO videogames and my only concern is my web design work. Will going with the 9400M sacrifice much graphic design-wise? Thanks!

 

[Sun Baked]

Apple always seems to tie something to the GPU, and the 9400m will likely be the pathetic stepchild rather quick.

If you plan on getting rid of the machine in a year or two, likely won't matter.

If you plan on keeping it til you are scratching your eyeballs out over how slow it is, the 9400m will likely be doing that to you about the 2 yr mark with some app you want to use. Likely iTunes or iMovie.

 

[Badger^2]

how about this

https://forums.macrumors.com/search/?searchid=18467684

 

[stonemann]

I will soon be buying a new iMac and was wondering if I should upgrade the graphics card to the 4670 or not. I can say confidently that I will be playing absolutely ZERO videogames and my only concern is my web design work. Will going with the 9400M sacrifice much graphic design-wise? Thanks!

This has been posted elsewhere but in case you missed it, preliminary benchmarks are here:

http://www.macworld.com/article/143636/2009/11/imacs_late2009_benchmarks.html

According to these tests there's little difference between the 9400M and the 4760 except in gaming frame-rates. For general computing use the two cards are pretty evenly matched. However, according to Macworld: "down the road, when more applications take advantage of GPU processing power through OpenCL, the performance differences might become more apparent, but for now, the $1199 iMac looks like a super deal."

I'm not sure what specific applications you plan on using but hope this helps...

 

[larzy]

I noticed on my "old" 24" iMac with the 9400M it could handle up to 7 windows open in Photoshop - while my new 27" iMac gives a warning after only 4 windows open - could this be because of the higher resolution of the screen? It's normal pictures not heavy photoshop docs...

 

[iLog.Genius]

I noticed on my "old" 24" iMac with the 9400M it could handle up to 7 windows open in Photoshop - while my new 27" iMac gives a warning after only 4 windows open - could this be because of the higher resolution of the screen? It's normal pictures not heavy photoshop docs...

Generally, the error you're getting isn't tied to your GPU, instead it has to do more with RAM. With the Adobe suite and others like it, it's main resource would be RAM, the more you have the better.

How much RAM does your iMac with the 9400M have? I don't remember the exact specs or if you've upgraded it or not but if it has 2GB RAM, that might be the problem. On my MacBook Pro w/ 4GB RAM, opening ten pictures uses about 1.83GB of RAM and depending on the size of your pictures it could be more or less but cutting close to 2GB will throw that warning.

 

[larzy]

The 24" was the model released in march with 4 GB RAM - like the new 27". Thats why I find it weird it could handle more windows in Photoshop, then the new one with a better graphic card.

 

[PurrBall]

could this be because of the higher resolution of the screen?

Yeah, or if your new iMac has less VRAM.