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Gaming on the 27" iMac with the 4850

iBug2 said:
What do you mean by "even Cider ports0"? Cider ports are the ones which perform the worst anyway.

Try World Of Warcraft. Has slightly better performance on OS X than it does on Windows. (Yes I tested on the same machine with Windows 7 x64 vs Snow Leopard).

But yes in general gaming on OS X sucks. Developers need to really put in effort and money like Blizzard to make their games run decently on OS X.
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This is opposite of what I found on my previous iMac 3.06 w/8800gs. With Windows 7 -- I forget the exact increase -- WoW did perform better than it did using SL. I've also heard other people around here stating a performance boost when playing games such as WoW under Boot Camp.
 
Lava Lamp Freak said:
This is opposite of what I found on my previous iMac 3.06 w/8800gs. With Windows 7 -- I forget the exact increase -- WoW did perform better than it did using SL. I've also heard other people around here stating a performance boost when playing games such as WoW under Boot Camp.
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That I find rather odd. I have used wow under bootcamp and leopard for a long time and the performance was always similar. With SL and Win 7x64 I find that SL gives 2-3 framerates higher, really small difference though.

But you are mentioning 8800GS. Nvidia drivers are worse than ATI ones on OS X, I'm using 4870. With Nvidia, it's normal that even wow performs worse on Mac.

Again, it's about Nvidia, not Apple.
 
iBug2 said:
That I find rather odd. I have used wow under bootcamp and leopard for a long time and the performance was always similar. With SL and Win 7x64 I find that SL gives 2-3 framerates higher, really small difference though.

But you are mentioning 8800GS. Nvidia drivers are worse than ATI ones on OS X, I'm using 4870. With Nvidia, it's normal that even wow performs worse on Mac.

Again, it's about Nvidia, not Apple.
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That could be the difference. SL gave me quite a bit of a drop in performance on both the iMac and my MBP, which are both Nvidia. Still, though, there was a thread here earlier this year talking about the benefits of running games under Windows as opposed to Mac OS X and I thought the consensus was that it was better to run WoW under Windows. I can't find it now, though.
 
Does it actually use the mobility 4850? Apple lists the GPU as "4850" rather than "4850m" which mosts manufacturers would use and if they left the "m" out of the laptop version then that's just sneaky.
 
grahamnp said:
Does it actually use the mobility 4850? Apple lists the GPU as "4850" rather than "4850m" which mosts manufacturers would use and if they left the "m" out of the laptop version then that's just sneaky.
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I think it would be the mobility, but no one really knows. And seeing as how the i7 is the desktop version, you never know.
 
I just saw the pics of the tear-down on iFixit and the GPU has a relatively beefy heatsink and fan all to itself which apparently, is a first for the iMac. I don't see why it would be necessary if the GPU was less powerful than in previous iMacs. If it is the laptop version, at least it runs cool. :rolleyes:
 
grahamnp said:
Does it actually use the mobility 4850? Apple lists the GPU as "4850" rather than "4850m" which mosts manufacturers would use and if they left the "m" out of the laptop version then that's just sneaky.
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With your post in mind, I starting thinking about the situation with the Quad's.

Apple has current access to the 4850m. However, the Quads that utilize the 4850's are not shipping. Could it be that they were waiting for a desktop revision of the card to put inside of the new iMac?

Obviously, this is speculation and wishful thinking. Although, the upgrade price for the card is 50+ dollars higher than other revisions.

The iMac has a powerful desktop CPU and a huge power supply now. Maybe there going with a desktop GPU as well.
 
Well if by revision you mean ATI putting out a new card then probably not, the 4850 is a last gen card and has just been replaced by the 5850 and mobility cards come out way after the desktop cards except for the midrange models (4670m, 9600m) where the delay is not as long.

If it is a desktop card (and I'm still guessing it isn't), the 4770 would have been a lot better, less power, less heat and equal performance.
 
grahamnp said:
Well if by revision you mean ATI putting out a new card then probably not, the 4850 is a last gen card and has just been replaced by the 5850 and mobility cards come out way after the desktop cards except for the midrange models (4670m, 9600m) where the delay is not as long.

If it is a desktop card (and I'm still guessing it isn't), the 4770 would have been a lot better, less power, less heat and equal performance.
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I think its quite possible that they are using a desktop version of the 4850 vs the 4850m.

Ths would give a nice performance boost.
 
On the unboxing pics, the cards looked like mutants, kind of bigger than a mobile card, but definitely smaller than a full card.

I don't think it's impossible that its a custom buildout of a desktop version... we are just going to have to see when the bench's come out.
 
I just hope it's going to run Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 well. The 4850M is said to be faster than the 8800GT, and with the 8800GT I can run games such as UT3 and Fallout 3 maxed or nearly maxed out perfectly... If it can run those games, it should be able to handle Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 easily right? :) (Maybe the beyond HD resolution is a problem though...)
 
Maven1975 said:
With your post in mind, I starting thinking about the situation with the Quad's.

Apple has current access to the 4850m. However, the Quads that utilize the 4850's are not shipping. Could it be that they were waiting for a desktop revision of the card to put inside of the new iMac?

Obviously, this is speculation and wishful thinking. Although, the upgrade price for the card is 50+ dollars higher than other revisions.

The iMac has a powerful desktop CPU and a huge power supply now. Maybe there going with a desktop GPU as well.
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On the old 3.06ghz 24" iMac, it was only $50 to upgrade to the 4850.

It is now $150 to upgrade. So I'm thinking it's desktop....
 
I've just ordered an i7 iMac and one of the uses (after video and audio work) is boot camp gaming, mainly Modern Warfare 2. Based on the Bare Feats testing of Games at similar res of CoD4 (which MW2 is heavily based on)- the 4850 would sing at 1920 x 1200 but chug horribly at the higher framerates (without turning down details,AA, etc). I will eventually build a cheap gaming PC but use a 24" Dell monitor I already have.

But in the meantime, what I'd like to do is hook up the Dell to the imac using a display port to DVI adaptor and have Windows IGNORE the imac screen and just use the Dell.
My only use for Windows is the gaming side.

I know from my work PC that uses an Nvidia 260 that you can do this through the Nvidia control center. Does ATI allow you to do this?
 
When you get an AIO from any company, you are commiting to being stuck with many of the components like the GFX.

Here's my concern in a nutshell. If we are talking about the level of performance and ability to drive this res of t he 4850 *NOW*, what are we looking at in 1,2 or 3 years?

I have pre-ordered an i7, and would like to think of this being a 3 year computer, and I am worried about the legs of the 4850 in 1 year, let alone 3.
 
I think it was $50 to upgrade from the GT 130 -> HD 4850, but to upgrade from the GT 120 -> HD 4850 it would probably be about $150, and the GT120 is much more comparable to the HD 4670, the GT 130 is somewhere in the middle.
 
kinda silly to base your buying decision on just gaming?

unless you plan on gaming all day?

And I'm assuming you are gaming on the Windblows side?

I mean what are you people using *right now* thats better than the 4850?

My 24" iMac is only 2 years old and the 4850 is nearly 4X as fast as my Radeon 2600 -- and I play CoD 4 no problem?
 
I'm playing bioschock (mac version) on new 27 inch imac.
The default settings are mostly medium to high, runs very smoothly looks awesome no crashes.
 
ramment said:
I'm playing bioschock (mac version) on new 27 inch imac.
The default settings are mostly medium to high, runs very smoothly looks awesome no crashes.
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The problem is that game has been out for years, the performance you're describing should be in relation to the iMac that was released prior to Bioshock, not the highest end iMac released years later...
 
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