PC World Reviews New iMac - Doom 3 at 92fps

[Neutral Gamer]

PC World have reviewed the 24" version of the new iMac and seem pretty impressed with it, especially the design which they say:

"...dispenses with the previous version's glossy kitsch in favor of glossy elegance..."

Although they do say that the Mighty Mouse now looks out of place with the aluminium keyboard and case.

It performs pretty well, with them saying that it's only:

"about 20 percent behind the average power desktop"

They also tested out the graphics card with Doom 3 and Far Cry, giving the following results at 1280 x 1024:

Doom 3 : 92fps
Doom 3 (Antialiasing On) : 47fps

Far Cry : 86fps
Far Cry (Antialiasing On) : 41fps

They cited the results as "average". They also said it was a pity there was no Blu-ray option considering the system is powerful enough to decode high definition video. Finally, they recommended waiting for October before buying so that Leopard would be included.

Here's the full article:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135777-c,macs/article.html

 

[ViperDesign]

PC World have reviewed the 24" version of the new iMac and seem pretty impressed with it, especially the design which they say:

"...dispenses with the previous version's glossy kitsch in favor of glossy elegance..."

Although they do say that the Mighty Mouse now looks out of place with the aluminium keyboard and case.

It performs pretty well, with them saying that it's only:

"about 20 percent behind the average power desktop"

They also tested out the graphics card with Doom 3 and Far Cry, giving the following results at 1280 x 1024:

Doom 3 : 92fps
Doom 3 (Antialiasing On) : 47fps

Far Cry : 86fps
Far Cry (Antialiasing On) : 41fps

They cited the results as "average". They also said it was a pity there was no Blu-ray option considering the system is powerful enough to decode high definition video. Finally, they recommended waiting for October before buying so that Leopard would be included.

Here's the full article:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135777-c,macs/article.html

Why wait when you can just purchase leopard when it comes out

 

[Eidorian]

It'd be nice to know what video card it uses.

 

[iLionel]

Apparently there's an issue with the HD 2400/2600 driver's regarding Anti Aliasing... 0.o

 

[xUKHCx]

Though the new iMac doesn't come with a next-generation Blu-ray Disc drive, the integrated graphics on the 24-inch model we tested can decode high-definition (1920-by-1080-pixel) H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2 video streams of the type used by Blu-ray. Consequently the iMac may be able to support an external Blu-ray Disc option, when a drive and playback software ship for the Mac.

Brings up the question will my current iMac Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz with the X1600 256MB card be able to play that high definition.

 

[BennyK]

I think it is interesting with all the negativity with the glossy screen that this review states as one of the two Pros in the pro/con section is:

"Improved screen quality"

Mine shipped today, Can't wait until Tuesday!

 

[pcorajr]

Apparently there's an issue with the HD 2400/2600 driver's regarding Anti Aliasing... 0.o

I think you are right. I can run wow with AA off and get 70 to 90 FPS on 1 GB of ram. With AA on i drop down to 25 to 35 FP that is a big drop.

 

[Neutral Gamer]

It'd be nice to know what video card it uses.

I thought all 24" versions of the iMac used the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB

 

[iLionel]

I think you are right. I can run wow with AA off and get 70 to 90 FPS on 1 GB of ram. With AA on i drop down to 25 to 35 FP that is a big drop.

Hopefully Apple will release a driver update, i'm going to see if ATI has done so on the windows side...

 

[Eidorian]

I thought all 24" versions of the iMac used the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB

I'm everywhere.

 

[Tumeg101]

Why wait when you can just purchase leopard when it comes out

If you buy now, then buy leoaprd, it is $130...

 

[Mollemand]

Doom 3 /w AA @ 47 fps is Ati HD2600XT speed on a PC:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=859&model2=722&chart=287

 

[iLionel]

The 2600 PRO is supposed to come with GDDR2, Apple uses GDDR3 on the PRO which is the same memory the XT comes with... Seems like it's basicly just a PRO running the same memory the XT does...

 

[Eidorian]

The 2600 PRO is supposed to come with GDDR2, Apple uses GDDR3 on the PRO which is the same memory the XT comes with... Seems like it's basicly just a PRO running the same memory the XT does...

The Pro can come with GDDR2 or 3. It doesn't mean that it complies with the manufacturers reference board though.

 

[RRK]

Doom 3 /w AA @ 47 fps is Ati HD2600XT speed on a PC:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=859&model2=722&chart=287

These "clues" are stacking up. However, I will not be disappointed if there is nothing to it.

 

[capran]

Interesting, but they didn't go into detail about settings, and all that nerdy stuff.

I'm still hoping Arstechnica or some such site will do a more exhaustive series of benchmarks.

 

[iLionel]

The Pro can come with GDDR2 or 3. It doesn't mean that it complies with the manufacturers reference board though.

Nah, it definetly doesn't, but most of the reviews of the Pro are with GDDR2...
I think the 2600 in the iMac's are going to perform somewhat better then the Pro's we've seen review's of, maybe closer to the XT's performance...

 

[Eidorian]

Nah, it definetly doesn't, but most of the reviews of the Pro are with GDDR2...
I think the 2600 in the iMac's are going to perform somewhat better then the Pro's we've seen review's of, maybe closer to the XT's performance...

That depends entirely on the core and memory clock. Like I've said before. The XT version is simply a much higher clocked Pro.

 

[iLionel]

That depends entirely on the core and memory clock. Like I've said before. The XT version is simply a much higher clocked Pro.

Hopefully somone can post some specifics on the cards so we can clear this up...

 

[Eidorian]

Hopefully somone can post some specifics on the cards so we can clear this up...

Agreed

 

[RRK]

That depends entirely on the core and memory clock. Like I've said before. The XT version is simply a much higher clocked Pro.

...and it has a huge fan on it. So they had to go with the pro for size and then overclocked it to the point that the case would allow.

Again, out of my butt.

 

[Eidorian]

...and it has a huge fan on it. So they had to go with the pro for size and then overclocked it to the point that the case would allow.

Again, out of my butt.

Keep in mind that the iMac does have a heatpipe and fan for the CPU/GPU.

I've seen dual fan slot HD2600 Pro models as well.

 

[Neutral Gamer]

Interesting, VERY interesting ...

I'm everywhere.

Doom 3 /w AA @ 47 fps is Ati HD2600XT speed on a PC:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=859&model2=722&chart=287

These "clues" are stacking up. However, I will not be disappointed if there is nothing to it.

The new iMacs are starting to sway me and more more; could it really be the XT model? Or something which compares performance wise to it? I need to see some more benchmarks from review sites to substantiate it though. At least we got hope ...

 

[Eidorian]

The new iMacs are starting to sway me and more more; could it really be the XT model? Or something which compares performance wise to it? I need to see some more benchmarks from review sites to substantiate it though. At least we got hope ...

Now note, it could be the Mobility HD 2600XT.

Once again the differences between all of these models is the RAM type used and then the clock speeds. It's the same shader core otherwise. The XT version outperforms the Pro only because of the faster core and RAM speed. Sometimes it even uses GDDR3 or 4 for higher memory clocks.

 

[pcorajr]

excuse my ignorance about Mac *(This is my first one) But in the pc world we have utility's that we can install and be able to see the clock speed and memory type speed the video card has.

Do we have such utility's in the mac? Things like CPUID but for Video cards.