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iMacs just got interesting...!

D

dh2005

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 25, 2010
907
0
Holy cow. Seven months ago I was getting into fights about the piss-poor gaming capability of the iMac... then Jobs goes and sticks a 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5750 in the new 27-incher! True, the 5750 isn't state-of-the-art anymore - but it's a 'proper' gaming card.


The first thing I'd like to say is; excellent work, Apple. I'm pleased to see that you do, in fact, want my business after all.

The second thing I'd like to say is; bite me, all of you who told me that iMacs would never be built with gaming in mind, and mocked me for making that suggestion. And there are many of you.


My only disappointment with this development is that it's only available in the very best iMac. If I could add a 5750 to a 21.5" model, then I'd probably buy one on Monday... mind you, the 5670 in the 21.5" iMac isn't exactly rubbish.

Bottom line: I really, really like the way that the iMac is headed. I hope this continues. Perhaps in February (when my one-Mac-per-year academic discount renews), I'll be in the market for one.
 
dh2005 said:
True, the 5750 isn't state-of-the-art anymore...

The second thing I'd like to say is; bite me, all of you who told me that iMacs would never be built with gaming in mind, and mocked me for making that suggestion. And there are many of you.


My only disappointment with this development is that it's only available in the very best iMac...
Click to expand...

Not sure why gloating about being correct when an outdated graphics card you deem "proper" is only available in the high-end model. Anyone serious about gaming will build their own machine anyways. The iMac has always been aimed at the lowest common denominator consumer... kind of like most of their other products.
 
I find it hilarious that you both think the 1gb "ati 5750" is the first step apple has taken with their iMac lineup for being a "gaming" machine, and that you're really stressing the 1gb vram marketing ploy.

The mobility 5850 (called 5750) in the new iMac is just an incremental upgrade from the mobility 4850 that was in the high end iMacs of last year. The 1gb of vram doesn't really translate into huge amounts of gains when gaming, because the card doesn't even have the necessary bandwidth to take advantage of it.

The mobility 4850 at its time was just as "proper" of a gpu as the mobility 5850 of this year's model. Both cards were top 10 mobile gpus for their release year.

miles01110 said:
Not sure why gloating about being correct when an outdated graphics card you deem "proper" is only available in the high-end model.
Click to expand...
It is not outdated because ATI hasn't released mobility 6k series yet.
 
I'm gloating because snotty pricks were queuing up to tell me that I was an idiot for asking for this precise card in an iMac. They had their laugh, and now I'm having mine.


The previous iMac 27" suffered from what I perceived to be an irritating mismatch in its spec - quick CPU, quick RAM, not-quick graphics card. The gap has been closed, and now the machine looks very nicely balanced.

As for, "Anyone serious about gaming"... well, there's no way to address that grumpy platitude. Unless you have an objective standard for "serious about gaming", and understand exactly what every person who enjoys games is looking for in a computer. Which, with respect, you don't.
 
With regard to the second reply... that's not true. It isn't. The 4850 was 'older news' several months ago than the 5750 is now. If the 5750 is still being used in a year's time, I'll agree with you.
 
dh2005 said:
With regard to the second reply... that's not true. It isn't. The 4850 was 'older news' several months ago than the 5750 is now. If the 5750 is still being used in a year's time, I'll agree with you.
Click to expand...

It will be used in a year's time. When apple first updated the modern iMacs (with lynnfield cpus and 27 inch screens) The mobility 5k series wasn't released yet, so the mobility 4850 was still top 10 gpu the market had to offer. The same thing will happen with the mobility 5850. Apple won't update the iMac until summer of next year, and for the first half of next year people will be complaining about the mobility 5850 because Apple hasn't put in a mobility 6k card yet.

It's not that Apple chooses to use outdated components, they just choose to release their computers with new cpu releasese, and not new gpus releases.
 
dh2005 said:
As for, "Anyone serious about gaming"... well, there's no way to address that grumpy platitude. Unless you have an objective standard for "serious about gaming", and understand exactly what every person who enjoys games is looking for in a computer. Which, with respect, you don't.
Click to expand...

That is a phrase tossed around all too lightly. One can be serious gamer, that is serious about playing the games, without being serious about gaming hardware. You just need enough to get the gaming flowing to be good at playing. The iMac is more than sufficient at this. The nice thing about the upgrade is that the card's performance finally matches the resolution of the screen. That was the killer for the old card.
 
TMRaven;

If that turns out to be so, I'll agree with you then.

I've just Googled for a few reviews, and most of them praise the addition of the 5750 as being a breakthrough on the graphics side. I'm just a user, but these people are professional journalists. If they think its a notable improvement, then it pretty much definitely is. No?


flopticalcube;

Yes, I quite agree - I have a friend who's very "serious" about his own particular gaming, but still uses his PS2 more often than not. The point I made more recently, about the lack of balance, was my greatest annoyance with the previous range.
 
dh2005 said:
Holy cow. Seven months ago I was getting into fights about the piss-poor gaming capability of the iMac... then Jobs goes and sticks a 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5750 in the new 27-incher! True, the 5750 isn't state-of-the-art anymore - but it's a 'proper' gaming card.


The first thing I'd like to say is; excellent work, Apple. I'm pleased to see that you do, in fact, want my business after all.

The second thing I'd like to say is; bite me, all of you who told me that iMacs would never be built with gaming in mind, and mocked me for making that suggestion. And there are many of you.


My only disappointment with this development is that it's only available in the very best iMac. If I could add a 5750 to a 21.5" model, then I'd probably buy one on Monday... mind you, the 5670 in the 21.5" iMac isn't exactly rubbish.

Bottom line: I really, really like the way that the iMac is headed. I hope this continues. Perhaps in February (when my one-Mac-per-year academic discount renews), I'll be in the market for one.
Click to expand...

Why on earth put this here? put it on twitter or post it to apples press.
 
That's code for "shut up", right?

If I'd been criticised on Twitter, that would've been the appropriate forum for reply. As it turns out, I was criticised here.

Furthermore, so much banal twaddle gets discussed around here that I don't think anybody's in a position to challenge this thread.
 
Upgrading the gpu from mobility 4850 to mobility 5850 was just as much a "breakthrough" as upgrading from 8800m GTS to mobility 4850. :) Apple's just playing the incremental upgrade game. In the recent history of the iMac, the only "breakthrough" for an upgrade has been from wolfdale core2duos to lynnfield nehalems.

There is nothing revolutionary about that new gpu. If mobility 5850 were based on Cypress chip rather than Juniper chip, then I'd start praising apple.

I'm not trying to scrutinize you by saying the mobility 5850 is a terrible gpu, because it's not, but I say you-- or other people need to recognize Apple's attempts at gpus in the iMacs for more than this instance.
 
Well, now you've lost me. With the Juniper thingy.

When I look at the addition of markedly improved graphics systems to the Mini and the MBPs also, I get the impression that there's a drive in that direction underway at Apple. Time will tell.

I see what you mean, re the incremental improvement - I think, and I hope, that things may be different moving forward.
 
Juniper and Cypress are the codenames for the gpu chips in the ATI 5k series cards. Juniper is desktop 5800, while Juniper is desktop 5700. Unlike mobility 4850 (which uses exact same chip and specs-- spare lower clack rate, compared to its desktop counterpart) the mobility 5850 uses desktop 5700 gpu chip (Juniper instead of Cypress) This is a big deal, because Cypress uses a 256bit bus for that GDDR5 vram, while Juniper only uses a 128 bit bus. This attributes to half the possible memory bandwidth (desktop 5800 series has around roughly 150gb/s bandwidth compared to 64gb/s for mobility 5850) Likewise, desktop 4850 had 64gb/s bandwidth compared to 54gb/s memory bandwidth for mobility 4850 (not so much a difference)

I doubt apple will change much from its current trend of just providing overall strong computers in the iMacs. They are all-in-ones afterall, and Apple isn't trying to market them as serious gaming computers, they're just marketing the iMacs as good, solid computers. They're not trying to stuff desktop gpus in the iMacs, nor are they trying to SLI/crossfire gpus in the iMacs. Apple's just continuing their trend of putting very solid gpus and cpus in the iMacs.
 
I'm also glad apple is going in this direction! Who knows what the future could bring!!!!
 
TMRaven;

Thanks for the tutorial.

I hear what you're saying - I suppose what I mean is that I hope Apple continue this trend of making good, all round, solid computers with competitive graphics systems. I think that new 27" iMac, with that graphics card, looks like a terrific computer.
 
Can I hook up a ps3/360 game controller to an iMac via usb???

If I could then I would probably play more Mac games.
 
Yep. Xbox 360 controllers will work with an iMac. There's a custom made driver for OSX out there on the webs someplace. Also, they will work under Bootcamp.

PS3 I'm not sure about however.

I agree with the OP about this. Three or four years ago I would never even have considered an iMac. They simply couldn't be used for gaming. I'm not a huge gamer, but it is a dealbreaker for me. Yet, here we are with a very capable, reasonably priced iMac. It seems as if Apple were thinking about people like me when they designed it. I must say I am as happy as anyone. I never thought I would be able to use OSX and all that wonderful Apple hardware. I thought I was a prisoner to Windows. But I have been released by the new iMacs.
 
The Xbox 360 pad makes for an excellent emulator controller, by the way.
 
still expensive compared to a custom windows gaming system which can be purchased for at least $500 less. it would also make more sense to have a card like that on 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 display rather than the 27" with really high res. it takes away too many fps despite the video card being decent.
 
I agree. Hence my disappointment that the HD 5750 is not available as an upgrade to the smaller iMac, with the more natively 'sensible' screen size.


Yes, it's more expensive than a PC. But if one were to pull too firmly on that thread, the whole Apple universe would unravel... added to which, I think the iMacs are pretty reasonably priced when one considers that the screens are beautiful, and also that I qualify for an academic discount.

The entry level unit is £999.99 as is, which becomes circa £865 with the discount applied. I believe that percentage scales consistently across the whole iMac range - quite a considerable saving... almost worth dropping the bomb and getting the 27" machine I've been drooling over! But then, as a student with very limited space in my room (a room that already contains a 32" LCD TV), I just don't think I can justify it.


It would look effin' awesome, though...
 
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