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Portal 2 results for 2011 iMac vs others

barefeats

barefeats

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 6, 2000
1,058
19
I ran some Portal 2 timedemo tests on the top 2011 iMac at Highest Quality settings but 4x MSAA*

At 2560x1440...
38 FPS = 2010 iMac Core i7 2.93GHz with Radeon 5750 (1G GDDR5)
61 FPS = 2011 iMac Core i7 3.4GHz with Radeon 6970M (2G GDDR5)
59 FPS = 2010 Mac Pro 6-core 3.33GHz with Radeon 5870 (1G GDDR5)

At 1920x1080...
82 FPS = 2010 iMac Core i7 2.93GHz with Radeon 5750
94 FPS = 2011 iMac Core i7 3.4GHz with Radeon 6970M
180 FPS = 2010 Mac Pro 6-core 3.33GHz with Radeon 5870

At 1280x720...
141 FPS = 2010 iMac Core i7 2.93GHz with Radeon 5750
172 FPS = 2011 iMac Core i7 3.4GHz with Radeon 6970M
243 FPS = 2010 Mac Pro 6-core 3.33GHz with Radeon 5870

P.S. For Portal ver 1 results comparing four 2011 iMacs, go here:
http://barefeats.com/imac11b.html

(* detail on advanced settings: 4x MSAA, Anisotropic 8x, Vertical Sync disabled, Shader Detail Very High, Effect Detail High, Model/Texture Detail High)
 
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Interesting that the iMac scores higher than the Mac Pro (albeit a small margin) at native res. All hail the 6970.
 
Thanks!
Could you run the benchmark on the 3.4ghz model at native res with 4xAA enabled? I'd like to see how much it affects FPS on that card.
 
sth said:
Thanks!
Could you run the benchmark on the 3.4ghz model at native res with 4xAA enabled? I'd like to see how much it affects FPS on that card.
Click to expand...

CORRECTION: The numbers above were at 4X MSAA.

Full detail on settings:
4x MSAA, Anisotropic 8x, Vertical Sync disabled, Shader Detail Very High, Effect Detail High, Model/Texture Detail High.
 
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daneoni said:
Interesting that the iMac scores higher than the Mac Pro (albeit a small margin) at native res. All hail the 6970.
Click to expand...

Yes. This may be because at 2560x1440, the mac pro is limited by 1GB graphics memory. Perhaps this resolution is high enough to see a real advantage from the 2GB upgrade on the 6970m.

Also the improvement over the 2010 iMac is much larger at 2560x1440 than the lower resolutions.

This improvement is likely even more pronounced as AA is enabled.

I'd love to see benchmarks comparing the 6970m with 1GB and 2GB at native resolution. But these benchmarks certainly seem to imply that 2GB graphics memory really helps out the 27 inch imac's WQHD screen.
 
Besides Portal 2, Mac games I have in my test kit include WoW (latest), Borderlands, Starcraft 2, and Left 4 Dead 2.

If you have a game you want to see tested, let me know.

As a starter for non-games, I posted Cinebench, Geekbench, LuxMark, and GLView results for four 2011 iMacs here:
http://barefeats.com/imac11b.html

I plan to post After Effects CS5, Photoshop CS5, Squeeze, and other pro apps sometime this week. Suggestions welcome.
 
barefeats said:
Besides Portal 2, Mac games I have in my test kit include WoW (latest), Borderlands, Starcraft 2, and Left 4 Dead 2.

If you have a game you want to see tested, let me know.

As a starter for non-games, I posted Cinebench, Geekbench, LuxMark, and GLView results for four 2011 iMacs here:
http://barefeats.com/imac11b.html

I plan to post After Effects CS5, Photoshop CS5, Squeeze, and other pro apps sometime this week. Suggestions welcome.
Click to expand...

Would love to see some tests of Borderlands at native resolution since I'm thinking of picking that game up. Can you run it at max with AA?

Also, are you running these games through OSX or Boot Camp?

Thanks!
 
barefeats said:
CORRECTION: The numbers above were at 4X MSAA.

Full detail on settings:
4x MSAA, Anisotropic 8x, Vertical Sync disabled, Shader Detail Very High, Effect Detail High, Model/Texture Detail High.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the correction! Good to know that you can crank everything up to the max and still get perfectly playable framerates under OSX. Would be nice to see if the same is true for the other Mac games you listed.

Another interesting comparison would be to know how well the games perform at the same settings running in Boot Camp.
I think Portal 2 and Starcraft 2 would be good candidates for such a comparison. Portal 2 uses a simpler graphics engine but is running using an internal emulation layer under OSX (possibly showing how much that solution slows the game down). Starcraft 2 on the other hand is a native OpenGL game on both platforms (and therefore giving a reference point for the actual driver performance difference). Or maybe use WoW with the same OpenGL backend (called "GLL" IIRC).
 
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barefeats said:
Besides Portal 2, Mac games I have in my test kit include WoW (latest), Borderlands, Starcraft 2, and Left 4 Dead 2.

If you have a game you want to see tested, let me know.

As a starter for non-games, I posted Cinebench, Geekbench, LuxMark, and GLView results for four 2011 iMacs here:
http://barefeats.com/imac11b.html

I plan to post After Effects CS5, Photoshop CS5, Squeeze, and other pro apps sometime this week. Suggestions welcome.
Click to expand...

Can't wait to see the Starcraft 2 results. When do you think they'll be up?
 
yeah, sure the imac scores higher than the mac pro, but you guys wait!
probably this year the new mac pro will poop on the imac XD.

mac pro nowadays is outdated, however the imacs aren't, because an imac is a bit more mainstream!

later
 
More benchmarks please!! Over 60FPS at native res is huge.

Can't wait to see SCII, WoW, Crysis 2 and ithers maybe like The Witcher, Civ V, etc.
 
barefeats said:
Besides Portal 2, Mac games I have in my test kit include WoW (latest), Borderlands, Starcraft 2, and Left 4 Dead 2.

If you have a game you want to see tested, let me know.

As a starter for non-games, I posted Cinebench, Geekbench, LuxMark, and GLView results for four 2011 iMacs here:
http://barefeats.com/imac11b.html

I plan to post After Effects CS5, Photoshop CS5, Squeeze, and other pro apps sometime this week. Suggestions welcome.
Click to expand...

Loved your work with the benchmarking of the new mbp's.

Wouls love to see some proper sc2. Crysis 2 benchmark. I had great sucess overclocking the 5750. Dunno if this is something you want to try.

Also videos are allways welcome. Keep up the awesome work. Very appreciated.

Also i cant believe the 6970 gets double fps that of the 5750 at native res. That comforts me that from a year or two now i can still play games at medium settings with good framerates.

Also glad i went for the 2gb model:
Though our tests didn't, there are some apps that will use up all the 1GB. For example, when we were running Portal 2 tests (which we will soon post), we saw as high as 96% use of the 1G of VRAM.
 
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Please also do those tests with the iMac i5 2.5 with the 6750M, I'm thinking of buying it and would like to know how it fares on those tests.

Also, your benchmarks are the best and most useful on the web. Keep up the good work!
 
jpjandrade said:
Please also do those tests with the iMac i5 2.5 with the 6750M, I'm thinking of buying it and would like to know how it fares on those tests.

Also, your benchmarks are the best and most useful on the web. Keep up the good work!
Click to expand...

He is benchmarking the lowe ones aswell. Check thw website.

iMac 3.4 i7 = 'mid 2011' iMac 3.4GHz Core i7 with Radeon HD 6970M (2G GDDR5)
iMac 3.1 i5 = 'mid 2011' iMac 3.1GHz Core i5 with Radeon HD 6970M (1G GDDR5)
iMac 2.93 i7 = 'mid 2010' iMac 2.93GHz Core i7 with Radeon HD 5770 (1G GDDR5)
iMac 2.7 i5 = 'mid 2011' iMac 2.7GHz Core i5 with Radeon HD 6770M (512M GDDR5)
iMac 2.5 i5 = 'mid 2011' iMac 2.5GHz Core i5 with Radeon HD 6750M (512M GDDR5)

http://barefeats.com/imac11b.html
 
henrikrox said:
He is benchmarking the lowe ones aswell. Check thw website.

iMac 3.4 i7 = 'mid 2011' iMac 3.4GHz Core i7 with Radeon HD 6970M (2G GDDR5)
iMac 3.1 i5 = 'mid 2011' iMac 3.1GHz Core i5 with Radeon HD 6970M (1G GDDR5)
iMac 2.93 i7 = 'mid 2010' iMac 2.93GHz Core i7 with Radeon HD 5770 (1G GDDR5)
iMac 2.7 i5 = 'mid 2011' iMac 2.7GHz Core i5 with Radeon HD 6770M (512M GDDR5)
iMac 2.5 i5 = 'mid 2011' iMac 2.5GHz Core i5 with Radeon HD 6750M (512M GDDR5)

http://barefeats.com/imac11b.html
Click to expand...
Yes, I saw that, but I meant for the games he mentioned in this post (Portal 2, L4D2, SCII, WoW, etc).
 
5870 1gb fail at 2560x1440 is result of smaller vram, its just not enough, run without msaa to get comparable results or run test on imac 6970m 1gb.
 
Curious question: is portal 2 under OS X or Windows?
netkas said:
5870 1gb fail at 2560x1440 is result of smaller vram, its just not enough, run without msaa to get comparable results or run test on imac 6970m 1gb.
Click to expand...
I'm not so sure of that. The i5 @ 3.1GHz model has a 6970M 1GB and the difference is only 3 FPS between the 2GB model.

EDIT: Never mind, was looking at Portal 1 results lol. You're right.
 
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Kendo said:
Would love to see some tests of Borderlands at native resolution since I'm thinking of picking that game up. Can you run it at max with AA?

Also, are you running these games through OSX or Boot Camp?
Click to expand...

The initial testing will be done under OS X. Then I'll test under Windows 7 (Boot Camp).
 
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