Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

What GPU in new iMac

B

bas-macfan

macrumors Pomeranian
Original poster
Jun 9, 2010
69
0
Hi everyone,

In the current high end Imac 21.5 inch a ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 256 MB does the GPU work.

When i am looking at the new macbook pro a NVIDIA GeForce 320M for the cheap ones and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 512 MB for the high end does the GPU work.

What GPU will the new iMac have? the same as the macbook pro line or a better one?
 
Hellhammer said:
Not gonna happen with current design. Sure they could use e.g. underclocked ATI 5750 but that's same as mobility 5850.
Click to expand...

No dude, they said they put desktop ones in the imac in the intro video of it on apples website. Im 100% sure the cpu's are desktop based and im pretty sure the gpus are too.
 
The gpus are mobility based while the cpus are desktop based. The problem wouldn't so much the heat generated, but the amount of space they'd need for a desktop card's daughterboard.

http://s1.guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/aVSHuUxm3d5ZLJPN.huge

That is a mobility card's daughterboard. A desktop card's daughterboard would be about the same width, but 2-3x the length.

http://s1.guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/g1q3TMAZD1skKwhG.huge

That is how the mobility gpu's daughterboard relates to the logic board of the iMac.

underclocked 5750 would probably be more like a mobility 5870.
 
Hellhammer said:
Not gonna happen with current design. Sure they could use e.g. underclocked ATI 5750 but that's same as mobility 5850.
Click to expand...


or they could overclock the 5850 mobility to be the mobilty 5870... 5870 is the same compared to 5850.. just different clocks
 
Ace134blue said:
They put desktop gpus and desktop cpus not mobile ones.
Click to expand...

apple is always really misleading.. in the forum it is common knowledge that the gpu in the imacs are mobile.. in the sense that these computer graphics processing units reach to extremely hot levels and also all the other all in one makers use mobility graphics to. ill show you this ifixit teardown..

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac-Intel-27-Inch-Teardown/1236/2

the one on the bottom left is the gpu.. definetely not desktop
 
peakchua said:
apple is always really misleading.. in the forum it is common knowledge that the gpu in the imacs are mobile.. in the sense that these computer graphics processing units reach to extremely hot levels and also all the other all in one makers use mobility graphics to. ill show you this ifixit teardown..

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac-Intel-27-Inch-Teardown/1236/2

the one on the bottom left is the gpu.. definetely not desktop
Click to expand...

Thats not what i meant. Of course it isnt the same physical size as the desktop counterpart. It means it has the same specs as the desktop one. lets look at it this way. A 9600GT has 64 cores.(desktop version) The 9600mgt (mobile) has exactly half the shader cores (32).
Although its not the exact physical size it has the exact same desktop specs and might possibly be underclocked to save heat problems.
 
It's one of the few mobility cards that has the same specs as its desktop counterpart, except for being underclocked. That still means it's a mobility card, though, and it's meant for laptops and smaller form-factor computers that can't handle the heat/size (27 inch iMac can handle the heat of the mobility 4850 overclocked to desktop standards very well, when the fans are running higher)


We're not trying to say the mobility 4850 is a bad card at all by the simple fact that it's a laptop card though, it's one of the elite mobility cards on the market.
 
im not really sure how the new graphics options will add up :O. it really depends on apples pricing relationships with AMD. al the 5650-5750 have lower tdps than the 4670 but again, amd could give cheaper pricings and we can see better cards. i also hope a gt 320m is provided for the base model + upgrade the a gt 330m 512mb i hate 256mb video cards. as for the next model a mobility 5650 is possible 27 inch low end maybe 5750 and then high end 5850. i hope 5750 is provided standard for the high end 25 and a 512mb version is provided for the 27inch as a more justifiable price other than screen size. even if high end imac gets a little speed bump in graphics, ill be happy. but if apple uses 5650 to 5750, it increases the chance of apple putting in faster clocked or higher tdp processors.
 
Ace134blue said:
Thats not what i meant. Of course it isnt the same physical size as the desktop counterpart. It means it has the same specs as the desktop one. lets look at it this way. A 9600GT has 64 cores.(desktop version) The 9600mgt (mobile) has exactly half the shader cores (32).
Although its not the exact physical size it has the exact same desktop specs and might possibly be underclocked to save heat problems.
Click to expand...

How are those "exactly same specs"? It has half the cores, thus it's a lot slower, let alone major underclocking. You cannot compare similarly named desktop chip to mobile chip, they aren't always based on same chip.

For example, mobility 58xx is based on desktop 57xx. Desktop 58xx is A LOT faster than 57xx, but there are no mobility version of it. Another example is NVidia 280M, it's based on desktop 9800 GTX+, not on desktop GTX 280.

It's pretty uncommon that the mobility version is based on same chip as the desktop version. Usually it's based on one level lower, just like mobility 58xx is.
 
It is a shame, Apple does not invest more in getting a decent GPU in their iMacs.

While the consoles are my main source for games, I would like to have a better GPU in my Mac. The release of Steam and the future release of Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2 is exciting. I am torn, I hate windows and love Macs, but I can build an upgradeable PC w/ a kick a$% GPU, that I can upgrade in a couple years. If I get the iMac, then I am stuck until I purchase a new machine. I would have ordered an iMac i7 weeks ago, if it was not for the reasons stated above.
 
Apple's not trying to purposefully limit graphics. To be quite honest, they provided the best graphics card they could outside of mobility 4870, as far as ati cards go. The last line of iMacs were introduced before ati introduced the mobility 5k series. Apple chooses to release their computers along new cpu releases and not gpu releases (latest iMacs were intro'd alongside lynnfield)
 
TMRaven said:
Apple's not trying to purposefully limit graphics. To be quite honest, they provided the best graphics card they could outside of mobility 4870, as far as ati cards go. The last line of iMacs were introduced before ati introduced the mobility 5k series. Apple chooses to release their computers along new cpu releases and not gpu releases (latest iMacs were intro'd alongside lynnfield)
Click to expand...

I don't think Apple has really ever been interested in people gaming on their computers. However, I have a feeling that is going to change over the new couple years. I believe Steam is on the foreground of that change as well.
 
My money's on the ATI Radeon 5750 HD (mobile) for the high end and the expected NVIDIA 320M on the low-end. A built-to-order 5870 would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. Not sure about the midrange.

Apple is using some of the better mobile GPUs on the market - they can't just drop in a high-powered desktop GPU considering all of the power and heat constraints.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; fi-fi) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

dwarnecke11 said:
My money's on the ATI Radeon 5750 HD (mobile) for the high end and the expected NVIDIA 320M on the low-end. A built-to-order 5870 would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. Not sure about the midrange.

Apple is using some of the better mobile GPUs on the market - they can't just drop in a high-powered desktop GPU considering all of the power and heat constraints.
Click to expand...

ATI 5750 in high end would be huge decrease in performance. 5850 is the least Apple can use and even it isnt really an update
 
Hellhammer said:
How are those "exactly same specs"? It has half the cores, thus it's a lot slower, let alone major underclocking. You cannot compare similarly named desktop chip to mobile chip, they aren't always based on same chip.

For example, mobility 58xx is based on desktop 57xx. Desktop 58xx is A LOT faster than 57xx, but there are no mobility version of it. Another example is NVidia 280M, it's based on desktop 9800 GTX+, not on desktop GTX 280.

It's pretty uncommon that the mobility version is based on same chip as the desktop version. Usually it's based on one level lower, just like mobility 58xx is.
Click to expand...

..... I know that. I was giving an example of the difference between a 9600gtm and a desktop model differed.
"Although its not the exact physical size it has the exact same desktop specs and might possibly be underclocked to save heat problems."
That ^ was talking about the imacs gpu.....
 
Ace134blue said:
..... I know that. I was giving an example of the difference between a 9600gtm and a desktop model differed.
"Although its not the exact physical size it has the exact same desktop specs and might possibly be underclocked to save heat problems."
That ^ was talking about the imacs gpu.....
Click to expand...

It's not the same chip actually. Mobility version is based on G96 core i.e. desktop 9400 and 9500 while desktop 9600 is based on G94 core. For example, desktop 9600 has 256bit mem bus width while mobile version has 128bit, that already big difference in performance
 
Hellhammer said:
It's not the same chip actually. Mobility version is based on G96 core i.e. desktop 9400 and 9500 while desktop 9600 is based on G94 core. For example, desktop 9600 has 256bit mem bus width while mobile version has 128bit, that already big difference in performance
Click to expand...

What the F*CK ??????? YOUR NOT LISTENING.... Damn..... I know what the hell im talking about and your not even reading what i said right. This has nothing to do with the damn 9600 gpus. I am talking about the iMacs gpu having the exact same specs as the desktop counterpart. The 4850 has the exact same specs as the desktop counterpart. Only difference between the two is the clock speed.

I know the differences between the 9600m and desktop. I only gave one example of the difference between the two which was having half of the shader cores......
 
Ace134blue said:
What the F*CK ??????? YOUR NOT LISTENING.... Damn..... I know what the hell im talking about and your not even reading what i said right. This has nothing to do with the damn 9600 gpus. I am talking about the iMacs gpu having the exact same specs as the desktop counterpart. The 4850 has the exact same specs as the desktop counterpart. Only difference between the two is the clock speed.

I know the differences between the 9600m and desktop. I only gave one example of the difference between the two which was having half of the shader cores......
Click to expand...

Don't give examples that are not true, do your research and stop guessing that they MIGHT be the same chip.

I know mobility 4850 is based on desktop 4850 and has just lower clocks but if we are talking about future iMac, the mobility 5850 is not based on desktop 5850. ATI 4xxx series isn't that normal because most mobility GPUs are based on similarly named desktop chips but that's just one series.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back