In a previous article I guessed that the performance of the Radeon 2600 Pro might not be very good. However, I didn't expect it to be quite as bad as it actually is.
Macworld's benches show that this new GPU is actually slower than the slow GeForce 7300 GT from the previous lower end 24" iMac. In fact, according to Bare Feats' benches, the 2.8 GHz iMac with Radeon 2600 Pro is less than half as fast as the previous top-of-the-line 2.33 GHz model with 7600 GT in some tests, despite the 2.8 GHz model having a faster system bus and a 20% faster CPU.
Some of this may be due to the maturity of the drivers, but it's unlikely that updated drivers will double the performance, which would be needed just to approach parity with the 7600 GT.
This in itself might have been acceptable had Apple chosen to allow us to configure iMacs with a higher end GPU option, but inexplicably, Apple has refused to offer this option.
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13 comments:
Looks like you jumped the gun, in the followup tests:
http://barefeats.com/imacal2.html
Prey in XP on the new iMac is just about as fast as Prey on XP on the older iMac - and furthermore in some other oS X graphics benchmarks, like Core Image, the new iMac is faster than the old by a good margin.
Is the new iMac the bast for games? Perhaps not quite yet, but drivers can help and many gamers would probably be using BootCamp anyway.
Yes, those benches 2600 Pro iMac are not quite as negative, but it should be noted again that the CPU is the 2.8 GHz, a 20% advantage over the 2.33.
The closest thing to an accurate test of the GPU would be to compare the current 2.4 against the previous 2.33.
Also, take a look at this thread. Doesn't look that bad.
My imac 24 with geforce 7600 256Mo is so sluggish with aperture....please apple, optimize your software
Well, what do you expect. The iMac is not ment for professional work. I was talking to some people at the Apple store and they told me if you plan to do any professional work, get a Mac Pro. The iMac uses laptop RAM, the processor is nowhere near as powerful as even a single Xeon processor and the graphics card is also now powerful. Sure, I wish the iMac had the processing power of a Mac Pro at that same cool size, but maybe the Mac Pro tower will get that small in 15 years when all large hard drives will be replaced with thumb size flash drives at 10+ TB.
I'm happy with my new 24". Although the 2600Pro isn't the best for games it kicks ass for video encoding. It's obvious apple wanted to leverage ati's avivo platform to help people transcode things to appleTV, iPhone and iPod. Let's see some benchmarks comparing the old models on that.
i bought a new imac 24 inch screen with a Intel g5 2.4 ghz chip and 2600 Radeon graphics card. Cost all said and done with Apple Care 2,100.00
My JVC GR-HD1u HD video cam is NOT compatible with the new imac. It works on a 10 year old G4 Cube...any PC I tried it on that should support it - and other older g5 Macs... if a Mac is running 10.3.9 it works.... the new OSX 10.4 it won't see the camera and is useless. Since 80% of my reason for buying the new Mac is to edit HD footage - obviously I am very disappointed.Apple shifts the blame to JVC JVC blames Apple... NOBODY accepts responsibility.
I have been using Macs for years... now I am returning this new iMac ( (which will cost me 200.00 restocking fee) and buying a new Alienware PC. This also means I am throwing away 1,200.00 for Final Cut - 1000.00 for DVD Studio Pro - Plus about 3,500.00 more in software for the mac and will have to buy Adobe Premiere for PC ... plus plus plus all total this shift will cost me about 8000.00 thanks alot. FU Apple! I am switching to a PC!
i bought a new imac 24 inch screen with a Intel g5 2.4 ghz chip and 2600 Radeon graphics card. Cost all said and done with Apple Care 2,100.00
My JVC GR-HD1u HD video cam is NOT compatible with the new imac. It works on a 10 year old G4 Cube...any PC I tried it on that should support it - and other older g5 Macs... if a Mac is running 10.3.9 it works.... the new OSX 10.4 it won't see the camera and is useless. Since 80% of my reason for buying the new Mac is to edit HD footage - obviously I am very disappointed.Apple shifts the blame to JVC JVC blames Apple... NOBODY accepts responsibility.
I have been using Macs for years... now I am returning this new iMac ( (which will cost me 200.00 restocking fee) and buying a new Alienware PC. This also means I am throwing away 1,200.00 for Final Cut - 1000.00 for DVD Studio Pro - Plus about 3,500.00 more in software for the mac and will have to buy Adobe Premiere for PC ... plus plus plus all total this shift will cost me about 8000.00 thanks alot. FU Apple! I am switching to a PC!
You know, you could just get a Mac Pro (which is what you needed in the first place for that sort of software/work) instead of switching to a PC... That way you wouldn't be out all the cost of your expensive software.
I have the 24" iMac, and I don't know what everyone is whining about. I play lots of games on it. NWN2, Battlefield 2, The Movies, WoW, Oblivion... They all work fine and look great.
you know why radeon 2600 sucks? because you're using a mac. get with the times.
"you know why radeon 2600 sucks? because you're using a mac. get with the times."
hahahaha... it sucks because it's a bad gpu. and get with the times? yeah, i noticed apple was getting less popular...lol, douche.
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