Want a better card in your new 24in iMac? READ HERE

[Mr. MacBook]

mac pro

What happened to those rumors of a 2900XT? WTF apple not everyone uses macs to show off and use photoshop, some people like to do what computers were made to do... GAME!and occasionally check email.

Meh, i personally prefer a 8600GTS as a build-to-order option, and the 2600 Pro can stay in others, but for hi-end 20" model and all 24" models they shuld have a 8600GTS build-to-order, or even better, a 2900XT.

 

[techlover828]

done and also said how I disliked the glossy screen like the guy above.

 

[DaftUnion]

Sent my feedback. Makes me feel better even if it goes in the e-mail trash bin.

 

[DocJ]

Get an Xbox!

High-performance gaming cards with their big honkin' fans or heat sinks won't fit in the iMac. You really need a tower for those, and Windows victims aren't usually jumping ship to buy a pricey Mac Pro. Besides, I doubt that gamers are the segment of the PC market that Apple has been stealing away, or wanting to.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Better graphics card

Although Apple doesn't advertise it, the Intel based iMacs use laptop components (rather than desktop components), and the new ones are no exception.

Firstly, I'm glad the the low end imac has finally gained a dedicated graphics card, rather than the travestry that was used in the previous low end imac (Intel GMA 950.)

ATI's most powerful laptop video card is the (Mobility) Radeon HD 2600 Pro. It's basically an X1600 (like in the older imacs) with DirectX 10, and a few technical enhancements. The old Geforce 7600 GT in the older imacs was up to twice as fast as the X1600.

The Geforce 8600M GT card is basically a DirectX 10 upgrade to the Geforce 7600 GT found in the older imacs, with a few technical enhancements.

The Geforce 8600M GT is faster than the Radeon HD 2600 Pro. And the 8700M GT certainly is.

It kind of makes sense though, Apple's keeping the graphics performance of one of their "pro" computers (Macbook Pro) above that of one of their "consumer" computers (iMac.)

 

[Liamf555]

I have sent my feedback

 

[Yateball]

Although Apple doesn't advertise it, the Intel based iMacs use laptop components (rather than desktop components), and the new ones are no exception.

Firstly, I'm glad the the low end imac has finally gained a dedicated graphics card, rather than the travestry that was used in the previous low end imac (Intel GMA 950.)

ATI's most powerful laptop video card is the (Mobility) Radeon HD 2600 Pro. It's basically an X1600 (like in the older imacs) with DirectX 10, and a few technical enhancements. The old Geforce 7600 GT in the older imacs was up to twice as fast as the X1600.

The Geforce 8600M GT card is basically a DirectX 10 upgrade to the Geforce 7600 GT found in the older imacs, with a few technical enhancements.

The Geforce 8600M GT is faster than the Radeon HD 2600 Pro. And the 8700M GT certainly is.

It kind of makes sense though, Apple's keeping the graphics performance of one of their "pro" computers (Macbook Pro) above that of one of their "consumer" computers (iMac.)

EXACTLY right! Seems like people here are wanting big honkin heat machines in their iMacs... that's not what the iMac design is all about. And like Freyman said, it's obvious they are keeping the really high end cards in their "pro" machines.

Since an iMac is always going to have laptop components in it, isn't it good that apple upgraded the card to the best ATI on the market?

Yes geforce is better, I realize that... but don't be expecting SLI Geforce 8800 cards in your iMac please.

I think the upgrade is nice, and I want one for my (now last-gen) iMac

 

[Rooivalk]

It's probably a heat issue.

I really dont think so. If they managed to put those faster Geforce cards inside MacBook Pros smaller casing which is a laptop running on battery power it just cannot be heat or power consumption issue.

 

[Mollemand]

I am a fence-sitter PC owner. I am looking at a horror-vista for my future, and obviously I don't like what I see. I do have the wallet, a 10 year job-related mac history, and my love for OSX to go on.

I really wanted a Mac - I don't anymore.

While the CPUs of both the iMac and the Mac Pro are easily matching the best on the PC side the GPUs are the big turnoff. I have a 10 year 3D-career behind me in the game industry and I like my 3D board to be up to specs. Neither iMac nor Mac Pro has a tempting GPU offering, and despite deep pockets I know when I'm getting screwed. I used to be on PC for lack of software options on the Mac. Now sadly it is for lack of a decent Mac.

My dream-Mac is a single CPU tower with a whipping GPU (possibly even SLI), and normal human non-NASA-grade RAM.

Sorry Apple - not this time either...

I'll dig in, run WinXP 64 and wait for better times.

 

[Wild-Bill]

I like my 3D board to be up to specs. Neither iMac nor Mac Pro has a tempting GPU offering, and despite deep pockets I know when I'm getting screwed.

Amen.

Click the link in my sig and tell Apple about it!

 

[BlackMax]

Although Apple doesn't advertise it, the Intel based iMacs use laptop components (rather than desktop components), and the new ones are no exception.

I know Apple is using a laptop CPU, RAM and DVD in the new iMac, but from what I can tell the ATI Radeon they are using is the Desktop ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO and not the "M" model.

If someone has more accurate information I'd be happy to see it.

 

[Mollemand]

Update from my former post: (a ray of sunshine)

Sorry Apple - not this time either...

And then again...

The reason I kept an eye on the iMac was for my sister. I would go for the Pro if any. My sisters needs lies in the 2D graphics, such as video/photo editing and the occasional web applications. She does not want to do 3D (she will ask me to do it) nor does she game. The GPU and the rest of new iMac is perfect for her needs. It is a fan-f**king-tastic home computer for those needs. She is going to be soooo happy, I just know it!

She got the 2GB 2.8 Extreme with a 750GB HD upgrade. I thought the HD upgrade was silly, but she wanted it - so - heck it's her money.

It was my suggestion to go for the 2.8. I think it's good value. On a MHz per dollar basis the 2.4 and the 2.8 are almost even. All Intel 'Extreme' labeled products are normally 2-4 times more expensive per MHz than their non-Extreme siblings. I think 2.4GHz buyers are paying for the low price of the 2.8 - though that is pure speculation on my part. My sister has a cycle-time of 5 years (!!) for her computers, and I wanted to make sure that it would last.

The 24" screen has a viewing angle of 178-178, meaning it IS a good old 24bit S-PVA panel (most likely Samsung) oh goodie!

Just for good measure I compared it to the Dell XPS M2010 that she wanted to buy before I changed her mind. I souped it up to top specs (@ dell.se), which is still a far cry from the iMac specs (apart from its X1800 GPU ... grrr). The price difference - here in Sweden - was a 1.5 to 1 in the iMacs favor.

The Dell XPS M2010 can be seen here:
http://www.dell.com/content/product...=en&s=dhs&cs=19&a=14~0~61570&navla=14~0~61570

Surely that is the closest PC comes to an iMac class computer - and surely the iMac wins on all accounts - save the GPU.

For all my whining about the iMac I can only capitulate and face that I am not in the iMac target group. Sadly I am not in any Mac target group...

Apple: 1
Me: 0

 

[Eidorian]

Update from my former post: (a ray of sunshine)


And then again...

The reason I kept an eye on the iMac was for my sister. I would go for the Pro if any. My sisters needs lies in the 2D graphics, such as video/photo editing and the occasional web applications. She does not want to do 3D (she will ask me to do it) nor does she game. The GPU and the rest of new iMac is perfect for her needs. It is a fan-f**king-tastic home computer for those needs. She is going to be soooo happy, I just know it!

She got the 2GB 2.8 Extreme with a 750GB HD upgrade. I thought the HD upgrade was silly, but she wanted it - so - heck it's her money.

It was my suggestion to go for the 2.8. I think it's good value. On a MHz per dollar basis the 2.4 and the 2.8 are almost even. All Intel 'Extreme' labeled products are normally 2-4 times more expensive per MHz than their non-Extreme siblings. I think 2.4GHz buyers are paying for the low price of the 2.8 - though that is pure speculation on my part. My sister has a cycle-time of 5 years (!!) for her computers, and I wanted to make sure that it would last.

The 24" screen has a viewing angle of 178-178, meaning it IS a good old 24bit S-PVA panel (most likely Samsung) oh goodie!

Just for good measure I compared it to the Dell XPS M2010 that she wanted to buy before I changed her mind. I souped it up to top specs (@ dell.se), which is still a far cry from the iMac specs (apart from its X1800 GPU ... grrr). The price difference - here in Sweden - was a 1.5 to 1 in the iMacs favor.

The Dell XPS M2010 can be seen here:
http://www.dell.com/content/product...=en&s=dhs&cs=19&a=14~0~61570&navla=14~0~61570

Surely that is the closest PC comes to an iMac class computer - and surely the iMac wins on all accounts - save the GPU.

For all my whining about the iMac I can only capitulate and face that I am not in the iMac target group. Sadly I am not in any Mac target group...

Apple: 1
Me: 0

Anyone who wants to even consider the XPS M2010 has money to throw away.

 

[Mollemand]

Anyone who wants to even consider the XPS M2010 has money to throw away.

Sadly it sometimes seems like she does indeed have money to burn...

 

[Eidorian]

Sadly it sometimes seems like she does indeed have money to burn...

Even back in the Core Duo days the iMac was a much better deal.

We made threads about it! THREADS!

 

[Mollemand]

Even back in the Core Duo days the iMac was a much better deal.

We made threads about it! THREADS!

I KNOW!!! That was what I was luring her with ... Then I forced her to wait for the update

If she had had it her way, she would have bought the iMac 24" G5 on the spot - with all the bells and whistles... Today she thanked me that she didn't - though she did complain about the new design and the glossy screen.

You win some - you loose some

 

[Frisco]

Done! Thanks for posting this. Let's get this up on Digg.

 

[SWC]

I know Apple is using a laptop CPU, RAM and DVD in the new iMac, but from what I can tell the ATI Radeon they are using is the Desktop ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO and not the "M" model.

If someone has more accurate information I'd be happy to see it.

It uses an MXM video card which is a variation on mini pci-express. This information is available in the apple service manual which if you know where to look you can find it

 

[Grenadier]

Done! Thanks for posting this. Let's get this up on Digg.

This is a excellent idea - let us spread the cause.
If anyone has a account there, please, put it up.

 

[SBeardsl]

I know Apple is using a laptop CPU, RAM and DVD in the new iMac, but from what I can tell the ATI Radeon they are using is the Desktop ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO and not the "M" model.

If someone has more accurate information I'd be happy to see it.

As to why Apple might have gone with the ATI 2400/2600 chips over what they had last year. Even if they don't improve on FPS for high end games they do add BlueRay/HD DVD hardware decoding (very important even without internal drives) and DX10 support (so users can boot to Vista and get full functionality). Those features are probably important to a larger % of potential iMac buyers than frame-rates in top end PC games.

More importantly (to those of us who DO care about performance with top end PC games) lets remember its a custom card embedded in a custom system with a custom ROM running custom drivers, we really won't know how it performs until we get some actual hands on reports.

By the end of the weekend some iMac buyers will have had a chance to try out WoW and other Mac native 3D games and hopefully boot into Vista/XP using the latest Boot Camp beta and get real data for some of the current top of the line machine killer games. By the end of next week a couple of the hardware sites will have extensive and carefully controlled comparison tests to really fill us in on the actual performance and then we will know where we are.

Till then I'm not jumping in the pool but I'm not rounding up the local flash mob yet either.

 

[BlackMax]

Even CNET Gets It

The CNET review of the Apple iMac (20-inch, 2.4GHz) is up.

Here is an excerpt from that review. I just hope the folks at Apple read it.

Despite its new ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics chip, the iMac still isn't very well suited to playing 3D games. On our Quake 4 test, at a forgiving 1,024x768 resolution, the iMac turned in an only marginally acceptable 39 frames per second. We were surprised by that, since Quake 4 sits on the tail end of what we consider current 3D games. Comparable Windows PCs from Dell and Velocity Micro perform much better. You should be able to play less-advanced 3D games on the iMac, but we're still disappointed that Apple doesn't want to take gaming seriously.

 

[aliquis-]

Why not make a similair thing asking them to balance the specs of their machines a little better and not only up the megahurts!? Or to actually make machines usable by gamers which would 1) raise the chances for more games on os x 2) sell way more macs to windows people.

Also gamers ARE the people who buy premium stuff, and Apple want to position themself as a premium seller, so why don't they make machines for gamers?

They should remove all TN-panel ****, make sure memory is enough, put in the highest end graphics cards they can which doesn't cost more than a pony or run to hot and lower cpu specs if needed to adjust the price.

Edit: Btw, I don't think the iMac is the right place for a high-end graphics card, they need to just release a consumer variant of the Mac Pro or sell OS X for commodity hardware.

Regular i965 mobo with regular c2d-cpus, regular ddr2-memorys and regular pci-express 16x-slot with whatever card and regular 3.5" hdds is what one would want anyway.

Even better if they only sell the case, motherboard and software and let the user put in whatever cpu, ram, hdd and gfx they want, but that won't happen I guess ;D

The Mac Pro is just retarded for normal people, why on earth would you want "quad core server" with super expensive fb-dimms and weird versions of expensive mac graphics cards?

 

[Mollemand]

Side-tracking a bit (sorry)

They should remove all TN-panel ****

From a gaming point-of-view the TN panel makes sense.

LCD-panels has a problem called input-lag - the time it takes between what happens on the GPU is actually displayed on the screen.

On a S-PVA panel this lag is notoriously high (some 40-60 ms on a 24"). Overdrive technology to improve the response time is known to make this worse. On a S-IPS panel it is lower, but still noticeable (my 23" S-IPS has got a 27 ms lag). Coming from a CRT screen to my LCD gives you the feeling of being slightly drunk, because your mouse movement overshoot with - yes - 27 ms. TN panels are supposed to be much faster.

In a FPS game, this lag will be added to your net-lag, making the window for you to react that much narrower. A guy on an old CRT screen will always have a 40-60 ms head start on you, if you are using a S-PVA. That is NOT a game-winning feature.

I don't have the lag-timings on TN panels because I chose 24bit color over low input-lag. I do graphics - I don't game. I chose the S-IPS tech because it is a good compromise. It has less contrast than the S-PVA panels, but matches the color-reproduction. And best of all: It has less input-lag.

TN is bad on viewing angles, and color depth - but winning on input and response times.