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The ATI HD 5750 in the iMac is a mobility 5850.
- Thread starter TMRaven
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The iMac is a $1000 machine and a $1000 screen...
I agree that the 5850M wasn't the best choice, but it ain't a bad either.
If a sub 50w GPU is the limit, the 5850M is the best choice.
A desktop 5770 uses 100w, and might be too hot.
Why ATI haven't released a 256-bit (or 192-bit) M series card is to me a bit weird, I guess that could give a 20-30% higher performance and stay sub 70w
The nvidia 480M is 256-bit, but are also rated at 100w. The nvidia 460M is 192 bit, but that isn't released until late august as far as i know.
5830 isn't that huge step from 5770 but 5830 runs ~70W hotter. It would need VERY heavy underclocking if ATI wanted to come up with sub-70W because 5830 is 175W chip, 5850 is 151W, still too hot. Sure they could come up with 100W chip like NVIDIA did but the second issue is that it would be only barely faster than current Mobility 5870 is with twice as big TDP. There is no other Fermi based mobility chips available yet but when there are, I'm sure GF104 (GTX 460) based chip will overtake current GTX 480M in performance/TDP ratio.
Desktop 4850 has TDP of 114W so it was a lot easier to fit into mobility standards but 58xx wouldn't be unless it was underclocked so heavily that it would be fairly useless.
Southern Islands is coming Q1 2011 and that will bring 256-bit for Mobility 68xx but it will still be based on the same Juniper core
Yeah, the 5850 (desktop) is a much better chip than the 5830, since it's faster and uses less power.
My point was simply that there are no chips in the TDP range that will outperform the 5850M/5870M. Maybe the iMac needs to be a bit thicker and get a 50w bigger PSU
Modern Warfare was released in 2007. I am supposed to be impressed a new $2000 computer can run a 3 year old game on high settings? That's dumb.
The new iMac might be able to pull off 35 FPS in modern warfare 2 with settings maxed + native resolution, in windows, which isn't bad, but certainly not great either. And remember that game is an 8 month old console port.
A more intensive test is Crysis Warhead (2008!), with benchmarks suggesting the GPU will be lucky to manage 25 FPS at high settings at a lower 1080p res. Again the game will still be playable in medium settings, but in a years time the GPU will really start to struggle.
I'm not saying the iMac is a bad computer, or even that the GPU is bad in of itself, just that for the price of an iMac I would hope for a lot more power.
cluthz said:
I think so too. Alternatively, they could improve value for money by making it cheaper!
The problem with these GPUs isn't that they're really bad right now. They're okay low-mid range cards right now that will play whatever you need on low settings. The problem with that (and the iMac philosophy in general) is that these cards will be much more outdated in a years time. With the iMac you can't just purchase a new GPU and plug it in you need to buy a whole new $2000 computer. Thats why I always think that Apple should put top of the line gpus in their machines (though they can't really because of the iMacs design haha).
While I certainly agree with the former as I have never been a fan of "thinner is better", I don't believe Apple would let a single red cent slip away without a fight. "Value for money" is lower down on the list than "experience" and "form". Then again, all three of those are very subjective.
Just please dude you have no idea what you are talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klg4C32xYoo
Check that video, modern warfare 2. And who cares about crysis, new computers still struggle with that. Not even one game comes close to being as demanding as that game. Maybe metro, but thats just badly coded.
Check the video, its modern warfare 2, at 70fps average. So yeah
And if you take the compoments in the imac i think the price is right. just look at the ips display. Its a great price. The screen itself is worth 1000 dollars, then you have dekstop i7, a high end mobile gpu. 4gb ram, 1tb harddrive, wireless keyboard and mice.
You are out on thin ice.
Next time, read.
You are bashing a computer for having almost the best gpu they can fit inside. And do you really think they would make iMac fatter? i mean, really? do you really think that? And do you really think they can put a desktop gpu inside, with the watts/heat/space it requires? Again, really?
The jack of all trades, doesn't exsist, and you should know that. You cant have everything..
Been told that the new iMac cant even run starcraft 2 at full res with full detail even on the quad core. Sigh. Shame as I held out for a better graphics card with the newer model.
That's not true at all. My 4850 model ran maxed out starcraft2 at native resolution (no anti-aliasing) at 30fps. I could even xfire it with fraps if you wanted me to.
On another note, making the iMac half an inch thicker won't do anything for fitting better gpus in the iMac. Also, I hate the generic "will it play crysis" challenges. All the most recent games coming out-- and even newer games, still won't be as demanding as crysis is. Not to mention, it's a general consensus that Crysis is badly coded as well.
I just have to say... this is why I like MR. Good groundwork everyone!
On a related note, any GPU-Z screens for the HD 5670 in the 21.5"? If not I'll just wait for the benchmarks to see how it all plays out for actual games.
I'm going to be heading over to the Apple Store today or tomorrow to run some handbrake benchmarks as per this thread, though my source is a 480p DV file. If you could provide a link to an acceptable 720p mkv clip, I could run handbrake on that as well.
On a related note, any GPU-Z screens for the HD 5670 in the 21.5"? If not I'll just wait for the benchmarks to see how it all plays out for actual games.
I'm going to be heading over to the Apple Store today or tomorrow to run some handbrake benchmarks as per this thread, though my source is a 480p DV file. If you could provide a link to an acceptable 720p mkv clip, I could run handbrake on that as well.
Making it half an inch thicker won't fit an desktop 5870, but you might get a 5770 with custom cooling. The card itself aren't much thicker than half a inch itself. Here's a pic of the desktop 5830 preproduction, stripped.
pix stolen from hardware.no
You can see that the card itself could be a lot more compact, but made to accommodate a pretty large cooler.
(this is just an example, but I hope you get the point)
The 480M is too huge to fit the iMac atm, but with increased thickness, it could fit as well, it will fit large notebooks, so a 27-inch iMac would be able to fit it, with a slight thickness increase.
I also know apple buys tons of gpus, so they would get one custom fitted anyways and with increased thickness (coupled with a larger PSU), you would be able to put in better cards.
For gods sake, a simple Google search will show lots of computers (Sony and HP especially) that cost well over the $2000 and have massively inferior specs to the quad iMac, they are usually running 8/9 series geforce mobile cards. The 4850/5850's are decent mobile graphics cards that can handle most things you throw at them and the overall component quality of the iMac is extremely high. Seriously, I'm puzzled as to why all the moaners here don't just bugger off and buy an XBox or build a Windows gaming rig, oh yeah, cos then they'd have to stop moaning
Making it half an inch thicker won't fit an desktop 5870, but you might get a 5770 with custom cooling. The card itself aren't much thicker than half a inch itself. Here's a pic of the desktop 5830 preproduction, stripped.
pix stolen from hardware.no
You can see that the card itself could be a lot more compact, but made to accommodate a pretty large cooler.
(this is just an example, but I hope you get the point)
The 480M is too huge to fit the iMac atm, but with increased thickness, it could fit as well, it will fit large notebooks, so a 27-inch iMac would be able to fit it, with a slight thickness increase.
I also know apple buys tons of gpus, so they would get one custom fitted anyways and with increased thickness (coupled with a larger PSU), you would be able to put in better cards.
Theres more problem then space when adding a desktop gpu into a small space. Things like heat, watts etc is important. And i dont see the point in adding a desktop gpu then clocking it down. Then it will still peform as good as the mobile one.
Making it half an inch thicker won't fit an desktop 5870, but you might get a 5770 with custom cooling. The card itself aren't much thicker than half a inch itself. Here's a pic of the desktop 5830 preproduction, stripped.
pix stolen from hardware.no
You can see that the card itself could be a lot more compact, but made to accommodate a pretty large cooler.
(this is just an example, but I hope you get the point)
The 480M is too huge to fit the iMac atm, but with increased thickness, it could fit as well, it will fit large notebooks, so a 27-inch iMac would be able to fit it, with a slight thickness increase.
I also know apple buys tons of gpus, so they would get one custom fitted anyways and with increased thickness (coupled with a larger PSU), you would be able to put in better cards.
Or just overclock the 5850M found in iMac, it's exactly the same chip but just underclocked (625MHz vs 850MHz core clock)
Yeah what hellhammer said. The mobility 5850 is just an underclocked desktop 5770. If apple were serious about giving their customers even better graphics, they would have overclocked the mobility 5850 20-30% from factory defaults. The iMac certainly has the cooling ability for it too, but there again Apple values low fan speeds and low sound output over high amounts of cooling.
We're caught between AIO compromises and outrageously expensive Xeon-class components.
What we need is a Mac Maxi which is basically a small aluminum box analogous to the Mac Mini but is big enough to hold 2 card slots & 2 hard drives and is built around the NON-XEON i7 architecture.
Thanks. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't downgrading if I get the one one. For a long time, Apple starting go down with the GPUs and people told me it would be a step back, if I got a new machine.
I guess they've finally fixed that and stepped up.
I'm going to try the $1499 model.
IMO, you are better going for an i7 refurb at $1699. 27" screen, quad-core i7 and an HD4850 w/ 512MB VRAM.