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Gosh

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 14, 2006
349
0
Hi just like to know, honestly how do the new iMac's graphics compare with the pervious model?
 

miniConvert

macrumors 68040
Erm, I think there's a slight improvement - the 2600's are DX10 parts but that doesn't mean much on a Mac.

The new cards are nothing to write home about, but they're adequate for almost everything an iMac would get used for.

Do you have any specific requirements of the new iMac?
 

Leemo

macrumors 6502
May 7, 2006
430
0
Nottingham, UK
I've noticed an improvement in Motion rendering and performance, if that helps.

Although that's probably down to the bump in CPU speed as well!

-Leemo
 

Gosh

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 14, 2006
349
0
The new cards are nothing to write home about, but they're adequate for almost everything an iMac would get used for.

Do you have any specific requirements of the new iMac?

General stuff plus Starry Night Pro and I would like to think I might get into some of this new EA and id games (if they do turn up in Mac form)!

Video cards are a bit of a mystery to me and it seems VRAM isn't the full story. Seems that Apples choice of ATi has dissapointed some and I notice that the 24" has gone from nVidea to ATi.:confused:
 

Jimmdean

macrumors 6502a
Mar 21, 2007
648
647
General stuff plus Starry Night Pro and I would like to think I might get into some of this new EA and id games (if they do turn up in Mac form)!

Video cards are a bit of a mystery to me and it seems VRAM isn't the full story. Seems that Apples choice of ATi has dissapointed some and I notice that the 24" has gone from nVidea to ATi.:confused:

The fact of the matter is that the imac will never be a top-notch gaming machine - the form factor just won't support it. Light gaming is another story... They would have to use external graphics for anything more, and that would require a very high-bandwidth port (a lot higher than Firewire 800).

But to answer your question, yes this new generation is better. The 2000-series is a lot more feature-rich than the x1600 and Nvidia 7000-series. The most common example is the hardware h.264 acceleration.
 

cmvsm

macrumors 6502a
Nov 12, 2004
784
0
I think it depends on what cards you are comparing. When compared to the x1600 sure, the 2600 Pro would be an upgrade I think. When compared to the old 7600GT, I think not.
 

Gosh

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 14, 2006
349
0
Thanks, that's reassuring!

Perhaps there are a lot of idealists who post gripes about graphics cards!

I do wonder if someone will invent an accelerator with VRAM - along the lines of Elgatos's Turbo.264 (as is to encoding)?
 
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