iMac ATI Radeon X1600

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sandausandau
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
i like the addition of DVI out on this model, which was seriously lacking in the old iMac. And having H.264 decoding is smart.



I'm only familiar with nVidia cards, 6600, 6800, 7800 Ultra, GT, etc. Where does this card fit in that range? Between the 6600 and 6800 or below the 6600?



thanks!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    t'hain esh kelcht'hain esh kelch Posts: 1,274member
    I read a few reviews, and as far as I can see its about comparable to a 6800 and x800, which is pretty darn good!



    It was beating them both in a few tests, and stayed a bit behind in most tests though. Still impressive though.

    It was better in the lower resolutions of course.
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  • Reply 2 of 10
    sandausandau Posts: 1,230member
    thanks. i use a 6600GT 128mb card in a game machine and it runs CS:Source at 35-40fps at 1280x968 on a Dell 20" LCD.



    I'm looking to replace my Mac Mini with a beefier iMac but I don't want a cruddy card in it since it can't be replaced. I don't expect this iMac to game right out of the box (no game binaries that I know of support the intel) and running Doom under Rosetta probably isn't good....but I'd love to see the reviews on that!
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  • Reply 3 of 10
    banchobancho Posts: 1,517member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sandau

    thanks. i use a 6600GT 128mb card in a game machine and it runs CS:Source at 35-40fps at 1280x968 on a Dell 20" LCD.



    I'm looking to replace my Mac Mini with a beefier iMac but I don't want a cruddy card in it since it can't be replaced. I don't expect this iMac to game right out of the box (no game binaries that I know of support the intel) and running Doom under Rosetta probably isn't good....but I'd love to see the reviews on that!



    Blizzard plans on having universal binaries for World of Warcraft available as part of a patch by the end of this month.
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  • Reply 4 of 10
    sandausandau Posts: 1,230member
    love to see Steam support Half-Life 2 on an Intel Mac....that's more my style.
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  • Reply 5 of 10
    cory bauercory bauer Posts: 1,286member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Bancho

    Blizzard plans on having universal binaries for World of Warcraft available as part of a patch by the end of this month.



    And Apple has Doom 3 benchmarks on their iMac website, with the fine print stating a beta Universal Binary version of Doom 3 was used, so it must not be far behind either.
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  • Reply 6 of 10
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    One important point about this new X1600, is that it provides hardware decoding for MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and h.264. Does anyone know if by chance Apple enabled this feature with 10.4.4?
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  • Reply 7 of 10
    gregmightdothatgregmightdothat Posts: 1,709member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by PB

    One important point about this new X1600, is that it provides hardware decoding for MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and h.264. Does anyone know if by chance Apple enabled this feature with 10.4.4?



    I don't know if it's enabled in 10.4.4, but ATI just released the drivers for the H.264 decoding right before Christmas. It only supports up to 720P though... for 1080P or multiple streams you're still using the CPU.
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  • Reply 8 of 10
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by gregmightdothat

    I don't know if it's enabled in 10.4.4, but ATI just released the drivers for the H.264 decoding right before Christmas. It only supports up to 720P though... for 1080P or multiple streams you're still using the CPU.



    What drivers are these? Windows only, may I assume?
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  • Reply 9 of 10
    gregmightdothatgregmightdothat Posts: 1,709member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by PB

    What drivers are these? Windows only, may I assume?



    http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2645&p=2



    I don't know if they're Windows only or not. What I was trying to say is that H.264 support *just* came out, so it probably isn't in 10.4.4.
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  • Reply 10 of 10
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by gregmightdothat

    http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2645&p=2



    I don't know if they're Windows only or not. What I was trying to say is that H.264 support *just* came out, so it probably isn't in 10.4.4.



    Based on my experiences playing 720p content at Macworld (See "Intel Mac's Performance? Anyone at Macworld?" thread) I'm pretty sure 10.4.4 has GPU H264 support. Now I wish I played the 1080p clips so I could see if the CPU can handle it... something for tomorrow!
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