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Radeon 4670 info

M

MJD Dawg

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 27, 2009
309
8
Junction of the Pacific, Juan de Fuca & NA Plates
I'm still undecided on whether to get the 21.5 inch or the monster 27 inch imac. Due to the size and the type of useage, I'm leaning to the high-end 21.5 imac. I've been trying to find info on 4670 performance and where it sits in the gfx card hierarchy and found this info.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3405&p=1

Granted that this review is for the desktop version while the new 21.5 inch imac I believe has the mobility version. Interesting nonetheless. But frustrated that Apple has to make this decision this difficult. Notice that the review is from Sept/08. Why would Apple use a gpu for the 2008 bargain segment as the upgrade option on the high-end 21.5inch model.

Damn you Apple!!!
 
MJD Dawg said:
I am. Is it that obvious??

This will be my first imac (hopefully). But Apple isn't making it easy to decide. Coming from the pc world, I'm just so used to all the choices on a wide variety of components.
Click to expand...
No kidding! Having said that, my kids are still enjoying their iMacs with the HD2600 and they play most of the modern games without complaint. You should be good for a few years with the 4670 unless you are really picky about performance.
 
MJD Dawg said:
I am. Is it that obvious??

This will be my first imac (hopefully). But Apple isn't making it easy to decide. Coming from the pc world, I'm just so used to all the choices on a wide variety of components.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that gaming has never really been a huge priority on Macs, they just keep it simple when it comes to the GPU. Mainly because, well, they can't fit a fat desktop GPU with a huge cooler inside a sleek iMac, and that's also just not what they're aiming at. I think everyone would've liked better (or rather, a bit more recent) cards, but in the end the 4670 works just great for 2D stuff like Photoshop or video editing, and it'll run most games as well—just don't expect too much of it in terms of running the latest and greatest at the highest possible resolution and details.

It all comes down to what you'll be using it for, but even though there is always that slightly better card that they could've included, you'll do just fine with the one that they did include. It's not like it's total rubbish. Since you already decided on the 21.5" and not a QC 27" I'm pretty sure this will be the case for you as well, and you'll just have a great machine that runs just fine for whatever you'll be using it for.

Thing about Apple is that they generally only make stuff that works great for a certain kind of folks, opposed to products with a wide variety of specs that just work. But yes, this limits your choices considerably and makes expanding various components a lot harder or simply impossible. They are sneaky too though, in that they're very smart when it comes to configuring models just the right way, so you're easily drawn to the more expensive models.
 
flopticalcube said:
No kidding! Having said that, my kids are still enjoying their iMacs with the HD2600 and they play most of the modern games without complaint. You should be good for a few years with the 4670 unless you are really picky about performance.
Click to expand...


Funny you mention kids since their experience is what I'm mainly concerned about. For the most part, I'm comfortable with the 4670 for my purposes, but the kids play Wow and Counter Strike online quite a bit and so I'm uneasy as to whether or not this is a decent gpu for them, both now but also in a couple of years. It's good to hear that your kids are still playing modern games with the HD2600.

Thanks floptical.
 
C64 said:
Thing about Apple is that they generally only make stuff that works great for a certain kind of folks, opposed to products with a wide variety of specs that just work.
Click to expand...


Well, if the crowds at the Apple Store yesterday were any indication, they are doing something right. That place was jammed with young guys, old guys, young couples, old couples, kids, women...etc.

Thanks C64.
 
MJD Dawg said:
Funny you mention kids since their experience is what I'm mainly concerned about. For the most part, I'm comfortable with the 4670 for my purposes, but the kids play Wow and Counter Strike online quite a bit and so I'm uneasy as to whether or not this is a decent gpu for them, both now but also in a couple of years. It's good to hear that your kids are still playing modern games with the HD2600.

Thanks floptical.
Click to expand...
Yep. Counterstrike, WoW, Aion, TF2, Oblivion, CoD4,... even my 10 year old daughter plays things like TF2 on her X1600 iMac with little trouble.
 
It's an all in one computer so It would impossible to use anything massive like serious gaming cards are these days. The 4850 is still the best single card (non crossfire) mobile solution available by ati (I have yet to see a computer of any sort use the mobility 4870) So I feel that the iMac is well equipped. However I do think there needs to some of mini mac pro, would be perfect for gamers.
 
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