iMac reviewed on Barefeats

[jesteraver]

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

Starcraft 2
Battlefield 2142 (11/21)

*twiddles thumbs*

Atleast we will have native games soon.

One thing is I would love to see the difference when those two games come out and they run a test: native vs bootcamp. One thing I hope Starcraft 2 will run DX10. Not sure about Battlefield though, seeing the game has already been out for a bit.

 

[rainydays]

"medium level" office or school computing

It's a much more capable machine than that. Come on.

 

[shakastange]

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.

For general purpose computing we definitely won't touch Windows and that is what OS X is for. On the flip side, OS X is sorely lacking in the games department and Windows is just fine for that. Why buy 2 computers if one can do everything that both can.

 

[cmvsm]

Based on these results, whether some games are outdated or not, the new card is still too close to last year's 7600GT. Even with new drivers for the card, you are not going to see some amazing increase in fps. Certainly not one that will warrant an upgrade from an iMac/7600GT owner like myself.

I do firmly believe that Apple will come out with a BTO video card option before year's end. So for all of you looking to buy a new iMac, you may want to consider that, as I'd be really PO'd if I'd plunked down over 2 grand only to lose out on the option. These BTO cards are NOT usually available after market. So once you miss it, you miss it.

BTW, these tests from Barefeats are also comparing the 2.33 w/7600GT versus the 'new' 2.4 processor w/2600 Pro, and its still getting whipped. Maybe Aperture and some of the other tests will allow the new processor to shine.

 

[suneohair]

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.

Start your own site. Jeez. Lets all whine about people taking time to give you numbers that everyone will claim is wrong anyway because they are Apple apologists. Sounds good.

 

[MrSalty]

As said before, someone needs to test some windows games, the ati windows driver is far more advanced. PCworld tested with vista, reporting good results, although they did not state what settings they used.

Please please please, someone bang a copy of xp sp2 on there new imac and give the 2600 a proper test with the latest drivers, then we will know where we stand. Peace.

 

[ndriver182]

Wow. I actually thought that review was run through Bootcamp or something, but I guess that was in OSX. I have a feeling Windows results should be a lot better. I agree, somebody needs to get some tests going in Bootcamp with the latest Catalyst drivers.

 

[Red-red]

Start your own site. Jeez. Lets all whine about people taking time to give you numbers that everyone will claim is wrong anyway because they are Apple apologists. Sounds good.

Oh yeah, Get a 19 year old student to some how finance buying all these products then review them, Great idea......

Many of these sites get given the hardware for free. Yet all they do is spout out a load of pointless benchmarks that don't mean anything.

 

[jesteraver]

They should play some DX10 games with Vista for these reviews. Probably then the HD2600XT will shine. Thats just me.

Unreal Tournament 3 in November, plus there is Crysis.

Barefeat just give us. Some Photoshop, iMovie, Cinebench results.

If we want game benchmarks that will really mean something, post it in November when there is true DX10 games out.

 

[cloudstrife13]

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.

Because of OS X. I'd much rather do everything in OS X then Windows, right now there is only one game that is keeping me using Windows and that is Final Fantasy XI. I play FFXI with a bunch of my friends and I have to much fun with them to give it up, I'd switch to WoW if my friends would and then I would be 100% Mac.

 

[Jimmdean]

Battlefield 2142 runs pretty good in Boot Camp on the 2400XT.

The ATI drivers seem very immature (XP ones at least), as I wasn't able to get 3dMark06 or ATI Tool to function correctly, but once I turned off EAX BF 2142 ran like a champ!!!


Edit: and recently the Battlefield series isn't exactly the poster-child for system stability...

 

[rds]

Battlefield 2142 runs pretty good in Boot Camp on the 2400XT.

What settings?

 

[Red-red]

What settings?

It is commonly known that the battlefield games are ram heavy. So they don't put to much pressure on the GPU. Also battlefield can be tweaked quite a bit to get a extra 20fps if needs be while keeping the same quality.