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iMac reviewed on Barefeats
- Thread starter zign
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Barefeats Imac Results Are In!
At least one of them anyway. Looks like they are testing with a few 3D games right off, Doom 3 being the first. Of course, the Mac Pro with the X1900XT is the ultimate gaming combo, but the 'old' 7600GT is holding its own.
I'd like to see the results with some more recent games which seems to be coming shortly from Barefeats. Maybe sometime today?
Check it out here:
http://www.barefeats.com/imacal.html
At least one of them anyway. Looks like they are testing with a few 3D games right off, Doom 3 being the first. Of course, the Mac Pro with the X1900XT is the ultimate gaming combo, but the 'old' 7600GT is holding its own.
I'd like to see the results with some more recent games which seems to be coming shortly from Barefeats. Maybe sometime today?
Check it out here:
http://www.barefeats.com/imacal.html
"The new iMacs use ATI Radeon HD series graphics processors. The graphical performance of both the Radeon HD 2400 XT and the Radeon HD 2600 leaves the new iMac in the mainstream performance category when it comes to games and 3-D applications, but it also paves the way for future capabilities. The Unified Shader Architecture touted by Apple and ATI/AMD will make it easier for game developers and others to show off fancy new special effects in their software. The new chips can also perform 128-bit High Dynamic Range (HDR) rendering, which will give games more intense, realistic lighting and shadows. As with the low-end model, the only place where the faster iMacs really fell behind was in the Unreal Tournament test (albeit only slightly), illustrating that the new graphics have a lot of future potential thats not showing up in our testswhich will make your iMac last longer before becoming outdated (a very big concern in the tech world)."
They are posting game results today and Photoshop, Motion etc tomorrow.
I think that once the drivers for the 2600PRO are updated we'll be seeing better frame rates.
it's a bit shocking, because this card appears to be much better than a 7600GT. It's probably a software issue.
On the flip side if the talk about the card being more "future" proof appear to be correct then getting anything above 40fps on high settings on the older games doesn't bother me so much. As long as it can run the more recent games "okay" it shouldn't matter to much.
Like has been said countless times, Seeing some results from more recent games will be a lot more telling.
What is a major plus for me though is that the halflife 2 results from most people at native or high res with high settings are very good. It means team fortress 2 will be very playable and that was the game I was most worried about as it looks brilliant.
Like has been said countless times, Seeing some results from more recent games will be a lot more telling.
What is a major plus for me though is that the halflife 2 results from most people at native or high res with high settings are very good. It means team fortress 2 will be very playable and that was the game I was most worried about as it looks brilliant.
Wouldn't it be better to test inside Windows to eliminate it from being a software issue? This way you can use the latest ATI drivers that take advantage of the card's architecture... instead of wondering how optimized Mac OS X drivers are.
I doubt it will ever out perform the old 7600GT though. Take a look at PC benchmarks between the two, using the latest drivers for both...
I'm happy with my choice of picking up last years model on Ebay. The new aluminum machines have made their resale value so low - you can pick up a better gaming machine for cheaper than the new models. Dollar for dollar, it was better spent for me. The new ones are only marginally faster, and in games much slower than the old iMac with the 7600 card...
With the money I saved I can afford to have a 24" imac AND buy a new macbook for on the go.
I doubt it will ever out perform the old 7600GT though. Take a look at PC benchmarks between the two, using the latest drivers for both...
I'm happy with my choice of picking up last years model on Ebay. The new aluminum machines have made their resale value so low - you can pick up a better gaming machine for cheaper than the new models. Dollar for dollar, it was better spent for me. The new ones are only marginally faster, and in games much slower than the old iMac with the 7600 card...
With the money I saved I can afford to have a 24" imac AND buy a new macbook for on the go.
I'm no fan of DX10, but as time goes by, more and more games are going to be DX10 only. These 2000-series may not play them great, but they will play them. That 7600 will not (at least not the way they were meant to be played). It's something to think about if you are a boot-camper...
I wanted to see how it did vs the iMacs with the X1600. But the Geforce 7600 is even beating out the 8600! I hope we see some driver updates so we can see the HD2600 pass the cards its replacing.
Like I said, new games will be the key to it....
Quake 4 is up but I think that score is LARGELY down to them not having it optimized and patched up to use the C2D inside it. As why would Prey have a higher score? They just haven't patched it. Above 50 is fine by me.
Quake 4 is up but I think that score is LARGELY down to them not having it optimized and patched up to use the C2D inside it. As why would Prey have a higher score? They just haven't patched it. Above 50 is fine by me.
clearly a driver / not optimized game issue with doom 3 and quake 4.. look at prey.. its only 2 fps slower than the old 7600gt imac.. let them test some newer games and ull see the new one is as fast as the old high end model..
should be tested on windows anyway..
should be tested on windows anyway..
I don't know why it is taking reviewers so long to get these results out. IF I got one the first thing I would do is see what is was capable of.
You can compare to the MBP (x1600 and 8600GT) benchmarks here.
It seems like the new iMac is about on par with x1600 Macbook Pros for the games tested.
Ussually with many games ( in windows) You can optimize your machine to get a lot more performance out of it from clocking the graphics card, thing right drivers, making sure the game is updated and then playing with a games config file. I know just from my machine in quake 4 I got a extra 25fps from messing with it. Im pretty sure most of these benchmarks are from the stock game and it would be good to see a very PC site get their hands on it and see what they can get out of it, from overclocking it etc.
not true.. the games tested by barefeats are just too old to provide some valid info..
imo the only bench thats rly counts for performance here(at bf) is prey.. and the new imac did quite good there..
plus no one tested the o/c of the rhd card.. if its a underclocked xT , maybe theres some great potential to do that..
imo the only bench thats rly counts for performance here(at bf) is prey.. and the new imac did quite good there..
plus no one tested the o/c of the rhd card.. if its a underclocked xT , maybe theres some great potential to do that..
I don't understand why people buy Macs, just to install windows to play games.
If the only way to get to the better graphics is to use windows- might as well buy/build a windows machine. You'd save a boatload of cash, anyway!
Buying a $1500 computer, then spending $150 more to install windows, just to play a game - seems a bit ridiculous to me.
But then again, I'm not one of the hardcore gamer types.
If the only way to get to the better graphics is to use windows- might as well buy/build a windows machine. You'd save a boatload of cash, anyway!
Buying a $1500 computer, then spending $150 more to install windows, just to play a game - seems a bit ridiculous to me.
But then again, I'm not one of the hardcore gamer types.
Aye, I would love to see mainly. Oblivion, C&C3 and company of heroes tested.
The main games I am wanting to run on it are Team fortress 2 ( that looks pretty likely) and starcraft ( it will be a processor heavy game so that looks very likely as well. People wanting to play Crysis on this thing are going to have to wave that one good bye.
The simple answer? OSX.
Most gamers won't need to spend £150 on windows and it is only for playing the odd game.
Me personally I get a lot work done at college on OSX, it makes me want to work, I love using it and I feel just better using it I can't really describe it. Windows is a means to a end in many ways for me and I use it for games, stepping down to a imac in gaming turns will make me less obsessive at times and having to use a mac all the time might make me more productive in the long term.
I was actually pricing up a similer machine from a windows point of view and it was the same price if not more.
The main games I am wanting to run on it are Team fortress 2 ( that looks pretty likely) and starcraft ( it will be a processor heavy game so that looks very likely as well. People wanting to play Crysis on this thing are going to have to wave that one good bye.
The simple answer? OSX.
Most gamers won't need to spend £150 on windows and it is only for playing the odd game.
Me personally I get a lot work done at college on OSX, it makes me want to work, I love using it and I feel just better using it I can't really describe it. Windows is a means to a end in many ways for me and I use it for games, stepping down to a imac in gaming turns will make me less obsessive at times and having to use a mac all the time might make me more productive in the long term.
I was actually pricing up a similer machine from a windows point of view and it was the same price if not more.
I'll wait for Starcraft 2 or Battlefield 2142 to be released. Hopefully by then the HD 2600 PRO/XT will have better results.
I just can not wait to see, the Photoshop and Illustrator times for the C2E 2.8
I just can not wait to see, the Photoshop and Illustrator times for the C2E 2.8
look.. prey is based on the newest doom 3 engine.. and the imacs results are better than on the mbp and only 2fps slower than the old high end model..
doom and q4 are outdated .. who cares for these results if the newer d3engine in prey runs as fast as on the g7600 model..
hl or other game benchs are still outstanding as well as some windows testing and o/c..
wait and see =)
doom and q4 are outdated .. who cares for these results if the newer d3engine in prey runs as fast as on the g7600 model..
hl or other game benchs are still outstanding as well as some windows testing and o/c..
wait and see =)
That is just sad that a new card is 30 FPS slower than an older card
This is the reason why I won't buy a 2xxx dollar system with a less than $100 GPU; its just absolutely ridicules and I know the iMac aint a gaming system, but there is absolutely zero reason to combine such a great 2.8 Ghz processor with such a low-end GPU as the R2600 that is in there now. Not to speak about the absolutely crappy R2400 that is in the lower-end systems.
slower on an old game, but the 2600 is in its infancy ( driver wise) and the 7600Gt is totally maxed out( driver wise). in a year from now the 2600 will have better drivers and it will play the new crop of games better than the 7600 GT will. with the DDR3 memory and XT core in this card and full DirectX10 support this card is better than most people give it credit for. Lets re-discuss this whole thread in 6 months and see where we are, and by then ill have one on my Desk!
Trout