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Is ANYBODY planning to buy a base 21.5 iMac ???

I've bought the 21.5" w the ati graphic card. It's completely because I personally don't like the 9400m after reading so many negative reviews. That being said, I see nothing wrong about buying the base 21.5 as long as it fits your budget, your desk and your needs.
I love this new imac so very much. Stop waiting, get whatever you'd like and start enjoying it.
 
benxx11 said:
I've bought the 21.5" w the ati graphic card. It's completely because I personally don't like the 9400m after reading so many negative reviews. That being said, I see nothing wrong about buying the base 21.5 as long as it fits your budget, your desk and your needs.
I love this new imac so very much. Stop waiting, get whatever you'd like and start enjoying it.
Click to expand...

what's wrong with 9400M, it's one of the best integrated chip.
 
300D said:
Its an old low-end chip. My 3 year old X1900 is more powerful than it.
Click to expand...

whoa did not know that. ive been living off of my macbook and its crappy intel chip. i figured any upgrade, especially to an nvidia gpu, would be great. so is apple going to update that or why are they using such an "old low-end chip"?
 
maclook said:
whoa did not know that. ive been living off of my macbook and its crappy intel chip. i figured any upgrade, especially to an nvidia gpu, would be great. so is apple going to update that or why are they using such an "old low-end chip"?
Click to expand...

The 9400 will be an upgrade from the intel integrated graphics on the MacBooks. Although it is getting a bit old, as it was introduced with the original unibody MacBook Pros.
 
that's a shame. i have a 2.0ghz macbook w 4gbs of ram. i want the base 21.5" model. everything seems like a spectacular upgrade to 3.06ghz and the 9400M. i dont think the ATI card is worth $300 for me so i hope the 9400M isn't too bad
 
I am surprised they didn't allow the $1199 model to upgrade to the ATI card for a few bucks. I am not a big storage freak so 500 GB is plenty of me compared to the 1 TB that the higher 21.5" model comes with.
 
rfrankl said:
I am surprised they didn't allow the $1199 model to upgrade to the ATI card for a few bucks. I am not a big storage freak so 500 GB is plenty of me compared to the 1 TB that the higher 21.5" model comes with.
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the ATI is the draw to upgrade to the $1500 21.5", and then its so close tot he 27" that you might as well upgrade to the 27", then theres the 27" with quad core so you might as well upgrade to top of the line 27". i hate how apple's lineup pulls you in like that
 
ipure said:
what's wrong with 9400M, it's one of the best integrated chip.
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Thats the problem. Its at least 2x slower than Geforce 9600 and that (I assume) is slower than the Radeon 4670 found in new iMacs.

Of course we need benchmarks to confirm all that, but I tried previous gen 24" iMac with 9400 and it wasn't pretty. Watching that little nvidia push that many pixels made most of the system animation effects low-fps.
 
They should have dropped the Nvidia 9400. What an old, slow piece of hardware. They should have made the ATI card standard.
 
danners said:
is it really worth upgrading to the ati graphics card? the base model one cant be that bad :/
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Well, its normally used in Apples macbooks, which speaks for itself.
Having read so many (negative) reviews about the 9400M, it just has to be avoided. According to benchmark scores, my graphics card from 7 (yes, seven! ..ATi Radeon 9800Pro) years ago can handle more than the 9400M. Also, I've read that the 9400M will struggle badly with any game newer than 2006. So disappointing.

benxx11 said:
I've bought the 21.5" w the ati graphic card. It's completely because I personally don't like the 9400m after reading so many negative reviews. That being said, I see nothing wrong about buying the base 21.5 as long as it fits your budget, your desk and your needs.
I love this new imac so very much. Stop waiting, get whatever you'd like and start enjoying it.
Click to expand...

Even though everything in the base model meets my requirements, the GFX aspect is simply too poor. I too will most likely go with the ATi option too.
 
I have thought about the 21.5" iMac, but my rule is to buy the best I can afford at the time - so I'm sticking to the 27" iMac with Quad Core i7.

However, the 21.5" iMac is really attractive and obviously is better where space is a premium.
 
cman-uk said:
Well, its normally used in Apples macbooks, which speaks for itself.
Having read so many (negative) reviews about the 9400M, it just has to be avoided. According to benchmark scores, my graphics card from 7 (yes, seven! ..ATi Radeon 9800Pro) years ago can handle more than the 9400M. Also, I've read that the 9400M will struggle badly with any game newer than 2006. So disappointing.



Even though everything in the base model meets my requirements, the GFX aspect is simply too poor. I too will most likely go with the ATi option too.
Click to expand...

Lets not get carried away.

Actually that is not true. The ATi radeon 9800 pro was released in 04 so that would make it five years old. Secondly the 9400M in the imacs and mac book is a modified version from the 9300 called the 9400M G.
For HD video and light gaming the 9400M G is more than up for the task. And with Open GL is future proof as well.

Scroll down and read the performance part of the article.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Update-Apple-MacBook-Aluminium-Unibody-13-9400M.12533.0.html

And the specs and what it is capable of. This card is optimized for video playback not gaming so keep that in mind. Light gaming it can do, if your not a gamer and only do occasional gaming the 9400M G will fit your needs just fine.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9400M-G.11949.0.html

And the specs for your old card. No it cannot handle more than the 9400M. Simply not true.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-9800.2168.0.html

In comparison to the old cards. Compare these numbers with the 9400M G and you can see all the hype of this card being a total waste is blown out of proportion. Check the cinebench scores against these two.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-2400-XT.3772.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-2600.3771.0.html

In comparison to the new late 09 ATI card.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-4670.13881.0.html

As you can see the 9400M G is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Check youtube for videos of it.

I just sold my early 09 imac for 950US. Bought a new 21.5 for 1188. And a new Mac Mini for a HTPC for 800US for the living room all for the price of a high end 27 imac. The 27 imac cannot compare to my 63 inch panasonic plasma running boxee with my mac mini for displaying video.

For me, that is just my opinion but a 27 inch screen is a waste especially if you don't plan to view movies all the time on it. It's better to view your movies in the comfort of your living room with boxee. But thats just me.
 
I'm planning on getting the high end 21.5". I'm just holding off for a couple more weeks to see if the display and sluggishness issues get sorted out.

I'm also not too sure about that ati 4670 card with 256 mb of memory. Even the GT 130m had 512 mb and I'm worried that this "new" card is a real step backwards.

Any thoughts or real world experiences with the 4670 that you can share would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
MJD Dawg said:
I'm planning on getting the high end 21.5". I'm just holding off for a couple more weeks to see if the display and sluggishness issues get sorted out.

I'm also not too sure about that ati 4670 card with 256 mb of memory. Even the GT 130m had 512 mb and I'm worried that this "new" card is a real step backwards.

Any thoughts or real world experiences with the 4670 that you can share would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Prey,ETQW and Flatout2 all look great if thats any help. tv And Dvds look fine. 4670 can push a lot of pixels including the 27" so I think its great with the 21.5" screen. Playing everything at the higher resolutions and must have done 4 hrs straight in Prey.
 
iamthedudeman said:
Lets not get carried away.

Actually that is not true. The ATi radeon 9800 pro was released in 04 so that would make it five years old. Secondly the 9400M in the imacs and mac book is a modified version from the 9300 called the 9400M G.
Click to expand...

Yep lets not get carried away.

http://www.insidemacgames.com/reviews/view.php?ID=403

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R300

Both of those links suggest that indeed the 98000 Pro was released in 2003.

iamthedudeman said:
And the specs for your old card. No it cannot handle more than the 9400M. Simply not true.
Click to expand...

Are you sure?
I was actually working from here: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php ...whilst your links were for notebook related info (not sure that makes a difference??)


I would love you to prove me wrong (honestly, because that means I can go for the lower spec 21.5" option) ...Please do..
 
Dont Hurt Me said:
Prey,ETQW and Flatout2 all look great if thats any help. tv And Dvds look fine. 4670 can push a lot of pixels including the 27" so I think its great with the 21.5" screen. Playing everything at the higher resolutions and must have done 4 hrs straight in Prey.
Click to expand...


That helps a lot. Another poster had mentioned on another thread that WOW and Counter Strike Source would also not be a problem. Any thoughts on these? Really, it's more for my kids since I use my ps3 to satisfy my gaming lust.

Thanks again.
 
You'd probably be better off getting the high end(not server!) mac mini and adding an extra monitor(a decent 1920x1200 monitor can be had for less than half the price differential between the high end mac mini and the imac).

The iMac is a little bit faster, but probably not incredibly noticeably so, plus the mini is just so much more fun :p
 
I plan on buying one for christmas. I have been doing all my video editing on my base model 2006 macbook. It can handle everything okay but I just would like something new and something that has a bit more speed.
 
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