no need to worry on either front. I have the 21.5 high end and have experienced 0 problems.
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Is ANYBODY planning to buy a base 21.5 iMac ???
- Thread starter sushiman
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no need to worry on either front. I have the 21.5 high end and have experienced 0 problems.
I have always been a Windows user, but a fan of Apple. The Windows box that I built and have been rebuilding since 2002 is on its last leg, and I am tired of all the BS that goes with Windows. My wife's PC died days before the new iMacs were launched and we ordered the 21.5 inch that day (typing on it now). Being a bit of a tech nerd and liking to over do things I was worried about not getting the biggest screen, but the 21.5 inch is silly big, and I can't imagine I could put a 27 inch on my desk without laughing. As for the base specks, it does everything I have asked it to do so far, and done it wonderfully. Apple has never pandered to the budget crowd, but I think with the specs on the base iMac they will now get people like me that want a nice new machine that will work, but can't shell out $2k.
According to http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html, the 9400m performs about 10% slower than the X1600 which was the "middle" graphics card on the older white iMacs. Its leaps and bounds above the Intel integrated chips that used to plague the Mac line. Remember, it occupies part of a chip on the main board whereas all these other video cards its being compared to are separate, multi-chip units.
Saw the new imacs last weekend and my first thought was that the 27 inch was waaaaay to big then saw the 21.5 inch sitting next to it and thought it looked way too small. Duh, anything sitting next to that beast looks small. But when standing in front of the 21.5 inch beauty at about normal viewing distance it's actually huge, especially compared to the 19 inch dell monitor I've used for years.
Thanks. I'm sold.
Regardless that is six years and not seven as you claim. We were both wrong on that one.
Secondly. Reread your site again. You made the same mistake I referred to in my last post. It's the 9400M G which are in Apple's products, not the 9400M. Two different cards. This is why most who bash the 9400M G get their facts wrong. They base their numbers on the 9400M and not the 9400M G.
Check your info again.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php
You will see as I said "lets not get carried away'. The 9400M G beats the 9800 Pro.
The 9400M G has a score of 369 and the 9800 pro has a score of 306.
Now click on the 9400M G. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=GeForce+9400M+G
Notice just three spots above it is the Radeon 2600 HD. With a score of 376. Just three spots above the 9400M G. The Radeon was the middle of the road card not too long ago. Notice how many people claim that this card is so much better than the 9400M G. When in reality they are prety much equal cards.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=Radeon+HD+2600+XT
And notice also that alot of people claim that the 2400XT is equivalent to the 9400M G or even better than the 9400M G when you can see that simply is not the case.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=Radeon+HD+2400+XT
Check my last post all the info was there for you. Most importantly in Cinebench the 9400M G scores were pretty respectable. Cinebench scores have to be considered along with G3d to get the whole picture of how a card will perform. Is the 9400M G a top end card no, is it as bad as people make it out to be, judging by the numbers no.
Go to this page: http://www.nvidia.com/object/apple_speaks_visual.html
then click on the green 9400M in the middle of the page.
That will take you to this page:http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_9400m_g_us.html
Now notice on the bottom of the page:
"1. Please note that for Apple products, this goes by the name GeForce 9400M."
Hence the confusion and the mistakes.
There I proven you wrong.Now go ahead and get your 21.5.
I wish it was 24" instead of 21.5". If it was 24" I'd buy it. Though 21.5" is too small for me and 27" is too big lol...
I made a youtube video with a mac mini running wow,aion and nba2k10 and it plays all 3 great. Aion and nba2k10 came out last month and are very playable with most settings to med/high. Thats with a 2.0ghz cpu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sno9VhFG4XY
I just think people are pretty hard on the 9400 when it works fine for most stuff. Sure its not blowing up crysis but who cares.
I just think people are pretty hard on the 9400 when it works fine for most stuff. Sure its not blowing up crysis but who cares.
It's pretty competent. I have absolutely no problems with it on my base iMac. Of course doing graphically intensive things it's not as good as the dedicated card, but for day-to-day stuff I have a feeling that the dedicated card has a sort of placebo effect over the end-user.
Thanks for going to the effort of posting and replying with such detail. Much appreciated.
I am definitely considering the 9400M G more seriously now. Only hesitation is around it being marketed as a notebook GPU, but ultimately if/when I get to see what its capable of first hand, I'm sure I will know whether to go for it or not. Frustratingly, Apple shops claim the 21.5" model is too new for them to have installed a useful demo of its graphical capabilities.
No problem that is what the forums are for. Mostly and some bickering and arguing thrown in from time to time.
The 9400M G is optimized for movie playback, does a great job. Is capable of Open GL optimization so also keep that in mind.
Games work great for my needs but how much gaming are you going to do? I play Tiger Woods, Madden, Nhl that kind of stuff on occasion. So you might want to get more opinions form others who know about gaming if that is your interest. Haven't tried them yet on the new machine but played some on the old 20 which has the same card as my new 21.5 which is the 9400M G and they played fine with no slowdown in full settings.
How can I have a 21.5 at my house and Apple stores not have a fully working demo CD installed? Apple stores sucks sometimes. Amazon is the way to go. Free Shipping and no Taxes.
No problem that is what the forums are for. Mostly and some bickering and arguing thrown in from time to time.
Okay thanks, games can run on full/high settings with no slowdown - always good news. As mentioned I am no hardcore gamer, the only game I do (and would) play is Pro Evolution Soccer (if you're in the States then I'm not sure how big that title is over there, or of its under another name, e.g. in Asia its known as Winning Eleven)
If anyone has confirmation with regards to this specific game, that would be awesome!
Sorry, the do have fully working iMacs in store. But they have not installed ANYthing on the machines. The UK's flagship store in London informed me that they are "waiting for their visualisations team to come and set the new iMacs up and install with software, like games and Parallels, which can be demoed.
I play Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 on my aluminum macbook (2.4 Ghz, 9400M G, 4GB ram) with 1280x720 and high details and get a steady 50-55 fps with Fraps (a software used on Windows to display FPS).
I can only assume that an iMac would perform better considering the better processor speed, though you would probably want to lower down the resolution from the native 1920x1080.
Hope that helps!
I can only assume that an iMac would perform better considering the better processor speed, though you would probably want to lower down the resolution from the native 1920x1080.
Hope that helps!
Vanil, indeed that helps very much, grazie tanto!
Great to know you can run it well! -
1] from my gaming past (past being key word = 6 years ago!!
), I seem to recall 50-55 fps is pretty damn good, right??? i.e. very smooth and fluid?? EDIT: a quick Google search shows 50fps is not so great these days? Please clarify!!
2] You mention Fraps, so I assume you are running PES via boot camped windows?
3] 1280 x 1024 for a game would be fine for me, anything higher = bonus!
This is getting interesting. the 9400M G may be fit for purpose after all.
1] from my gaming past (past being key word = 6 years ago!!
EDIT: a quick Google search shows 50fps is not so great these days? Please clarify
I would say that in a sport game 50-55 fps is more than enough, usually these kind of games are limited to a max of 60fps and I believe that on a PS3/XBOX360 the fps is pretty similar (keep in mind that today anything less than 30 fps is considered to be barely playable).
Yes, I play PES via bootcamped windows XP-32bit but I suggest you install either Windows 7 or anything 64bit since XP-32bit can't detect more than 3 GB of RAM (I think that with a 64bit OS it would perform even better).
If you have more questions feel free to ask.
Thanks, it very helpfully for me!
I'm also intersted in playing on ATI Radeon HD 4670. I'm not a big gamer, but sometimes I can play oldy Half Life 2, Need For Speed Undercover and other same.
How do you think, it would be playable on this GPU?
Now I have a SONY VAIO AR770NC, there is a Nvidia 8600M GT and it free to play this games on above the averange graphics settings.
I'm also intersted in playing on ATI Radeon HD 4670. I'm not a big gamer, but sometimes I can play oldy Half Life 2, Need For Speed Undercover and other same.
How do you think, it would be playable on this GPU?
Now I have a SONY VAIO AR770NC, there is a Nvidia 8600M GT and it free to play this games on above the averange graphics settings.
According to the benchmarks the ATI Radeon HD 4670 is better than the 9600M which, in turn, is better than your 8600M GT (if I remember correctly the 8600M GT was included in the early '08 Macbook Pro), thus I believe it's pretty safe to assume that the ATI would play significantly better than yours.
The 9400M G we were talking about would probably have a similar performance to your 8600M GT.
I see gaming units are able to hit up to 100fps, so I guess if 30fps is classed as unacceptable, the 50-55fps that the 9400M G can run seems okay.
Now my next concern..
:..rolleyes:..The 9400M G can put up with PES2010 on high settings, but what able things like the following all at the same time:
- running photoshop or movie editing in OSX,
- running Parallels (Windows),
- and within the Parallels window, running a TV application or watching a movie.
That is pretty much the most stress I would put my prospective iMac under - any idea on how the 9400M G could cope with that?
I thought most of that would be handled by GPU? and that an integrated card like 9400M G may struggle. Vanil, are you able to put yours under similar stress?
Very good point, thank you for the reminder.
Good point, although most modern games include an option called V-Sync used to *limit* the fps to 60 when they exceed that and avoid screen tearing and other issues. In case you might wonder, I disabled that option on PES 2010.
The 9400M G can put up with PES2010 on high settings, but what able things like the following all at the same time:
- running photoshop or movie editing in OSX,
- running Parallels (Windows),
- and within the Parallels window, running a TV application or watching a movie.
That is pretty much the most stress I would put my prospective iMac under - any idea on how the 9400M G could cope with that?
I thought most of that would be handled by GPU? and that an integrated card like 9400M G may struggle. Vanil, are you able to put yours under similar stress?
- running Photoshop CS 4 and iMovie 09 is fine, especially if you have 4GB RAM, unfortunately I can't help you with professional movie editing (i.e Final Cut);
- I used to run Parallels 4 (I even played a couple of games with it, Prince of Persia Sands of Time and Prince of Persia Warrior Within), but I switched over to Fusion because of some graphics issues (especially with these 2 games). Fusion runs amazingly well and I even played a couple of matches with PES 2009 with medium settings.
- running tv applications (SopCast, PPMate, PPCast, UUSEE, TVAnts, etc.) within Parallels/Fusion is fine. I've never watched a movie within a Virtual Machine because I never needed to (OSX doesn't have any issues with movies).
I forgot to mention earlier that I have recently installed the latest NVIDIA drivers for XP (you can find them with google or in the NVIDIA website), it is said that they can improve the performance even to 45% for some games and I recommend installing them.
Thanks for information.
Also I still want to know about issues with flickering on 21,5" iMac's displays.
Thanks for the response Vanil, but I meant running all those things at the same time! Could the 9400M G handle it? (Also, by TV App, I meant EyeTV)