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Lop4 · Sep 24, 2006, 10:21 AM

Hello to all of you.

I am going to buy an iMac, but i am not sure of which optiion to choose.
Firstly, i would like to know the speed improvements (if noticable) between 2.0, 2.16 and 2.33(benchmarks??). Then the differences between 128 Mb graphics and 256.
And one last question: how much better is the Xeon MacPro than the iMac.

Thanks,

Eug Wanker · Sep 24, 2006, 10:32 AM

What will you use it for?

Lop4 · Sep 24, 2006, 11:33 AM

Well, many things- including some gaming and photoshop.

Not considering the uses of it, could you generally tell me the speed of the different Processors + Graphic card I mentioned.

iMacfan · Sep 24, 2006, 12:27 PM

As with everything, it depends...

Firstly, you need to decide if you want/need/can afford the 24". With its huge display, Firewire 800 and much better graphics options, it's much more future proof.

So, while the 256Mb option on the 24" gets you a whole new, much more powerful graphics card, all it is on the 20" is more memory - not really much of a boost most of the time.

As for the processor, the speed is pretty linear, so expect less than a 10% bump with each step - worse value than most options.

David

Lop4 · Sep 24, 2006, 01:00 PM

Lets put it this way, my budget could allow the 24", but I need a good reason for it.

The 20" seems to be superior to the 17" only by terms of processor.
But how much better is the 24" than the 20" ?? Basically the only improvements would be the 4" larger screen and an Nvida grapihc card. So the question is, how much better is the Nvida 128Mb card than the ATI-128Mb card?

Can the iMac screens be used as screens for viewing Tv- are they practically the same as the LCD-Tv screens? Cause I heard that they would burn out if they played Tv too much.

Thanks.

Lop4 · Sep 24, 2006, 01:28 PM

Sorry, one last question:

most likely, at the release of Leopard, there will be a new iMac, most likely just like the iPod nano upgrade (more for the money)- and probably the 24" will get 3Ghz Core2Duo. Anyway- do you think iMacs out right now will be able to run Leopard with speed?

nagromme · Sep 24, 2006, 02:09 PM

The nVidia 7600 is much better than the X1600, but the 7300 seems to be in the same ballpark as the X1600. (And 2.33 is only a little better than 2.16 of course.)

See:
iMac Core 2 Duo versus three older iMacs
iMac Core 2 Duo - High Rez gaming
(Those tests don't list an iMac with 7300, but they list a Mac Pro with 7300--and an iMac lacks the Pro's quad cores.)

The best buy for performance I think, since you do some gaming, is the 24" with the 7600 upgrade and 2 GB RAM. The big advantages of the 24" vs. the 20" are the 7600 GPU option, and of course the screen size. (Speakers are more powerful too, but still nothing fancy.)

Speed will vary from game to game and app to app, so there's no one measure you can use.

iMacs from three years ago can probably run Leopard just fine

OS X tends to get faster, not slower, with every release. That could change, but any Mac today should run Leopard very well.

EDIT: What the heck?!? I pasted or dragged raw URLs above... and somehow they now show the actual page TITLE for each link. I did not do that! How did Safari do that??

jamil5454 · Sep 24, 2006, 03:15 PM

Wow, I didn't realize the 7600 was that much more powerful than the X1600. Almost makes me wish I got a 24" instead of a 20". Oh well, I'll get a PS3 instead.

Mac_X · Sep 25, 2006, 09:23 AM

The three things that determine speed should be Processor, RAM, and Graphic card (only for graphic programs). IMO, the RAM is the most important upgrade.

Then i can imagine that 2.33 would only be better for processor requiring apps- like rosetta. But i have no knowledge on graphic cards- since im not a graphic kinda guy. (if any1 could clear that out for me then feel free).

My basic idea is that if u are heavy gamer and want good prestanda go all out and top of the line. Otherwise choose the 20in and upgrade some things.

Lop4 · Sep 25, 2006, 09:32 AM

Im not that heavy of a gamer, and the my computer room isnt that large- so 24" could be quite massive for the distance I'm at.

The things holding me back from getting the 20" instead of 17" are the 2.33Ghz vs. 2.16, and the graphic card. If 256Mb isnt much better than 128Mb, and 2.33 isnt much better than 2.16 I might just as well go for the 17" and give it extra ram, boost it to 2.16 and increase the HD- and not spend that much cash

Chuckit · Sep 25, 2006, 09:34 AM

Originally Posted by nagromme

EDIT: What the heck?!? I pasted or dragged raw URLs above... and somehow they now show the actual page TITLE for each link. I did not do that! How did Safari do that??

It's a feature of the forum software. See the "automatically retrieve titles from external links" checkbox?

nagromme · Sep 25, 2006, 09:58 AM

Never noticed... I've been away too long! That's a great feature.

Re 20 vs. 17: if gaming isn't a big deal to you, and you like the 17" size OK, I'd be tempted to save money and go small. In addition, the 17" has fewer pixels to drive, which means it could run some games faster (at sharp native res) than the 20."

But my feelings on the screen size is that what seems shockingly large at first turns out to be very natural and useful. So if 24" is too expensive, maybe 20" is good compromise.

Lop4 · Sep 25, 2006, 11:00 AM

Screen size is both important and not a necessity at the moment- so 20" sounds good.
At the moment I use a 17" CRT, so 20" TFT will be impressively big. I had to move further away from my 17" screen cause it was disturbing.

I've read that 2.33 isnt that much faster, but i assume it will be more future proof. So now my final decision falls upon spending the ca $200 on a 500GB Hd or 2.33Ghz. With the 2 macs i've used, it gave me the impression that as soon as i consumed ca 50% of the Hd, no matter the HD size, the computer started going visibly slower. In thoery 500GB would give me more space before lag, but the idea of a faster processsor inspires me.... any views?

EDIT: can processor and HD be changed by me? or are iMacs hard to upgrade apart from RAM- cause that would simplify thing in the future.

nagromme · Sep 25, 2006, 11:29 AM

If it were me, unless you just know you never use much HD space, I would get the 500 GB. 2.33 is less than 8% more Ghz, and Ghz is just one factor in processor speed, and processor speed is just one factor in your Mac's overall speed for different tasks. I did buy the 2.33 AND the 500 myself, but if I could only have one I'd get the HD. The speed difference with 2.33 is likely to be very small... and the cost is not!

Some of the test results at Bare Feats for games show exactly the same FPS on a 2.16 vs. 2.33 iMac. Sometimes I'm sure there's a small benefit, but if the GPU is the bottleneck then a faster CPU doesn't help.

HD can be changed but not easily, and may void the warranty. I THINK the CPU is permanently soldered, but I have only heard that from one souce (previous iMacs were not soldered). But even if the chip IS socketed, it would be a difficult and expensive upgrade. Not practical I don't think.

tooki · Sep 25, 2006, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by Lop4

1. Can the iMac screens be used as screens for viewing Tv-

2. are they practically the same as the LCD-Tv screens?

3. Cause I heard that they would burn out if they played Tv too much.

1. Only by buying a USB or FireWire TV tuner for your Mac, such as those sold by elgato.

2. Yes and no. LCD computer displays and LCD TVs both work the same, but ones made for TV use have resolutions optimized for TV display, not high-resolution computer display. So it's better (but not essential) to choose an LCD for its primary purpose.

3. Hogwash. LCDs don't burn out. The backlight fluorescent tubes can wear out after years of use, but that's regardless of what the LCD is being used for (and they can be replaced, though it's not easy). Some newer LCDs have problems with image persistence, where something that was on the screen for a long time (such as the start menu on a PC or the menu bar on a Mac) leaves a shadow on the screen even after the image has changed. If anything, that makes LCDs more suitable for TV than computer use. LCDs do have slight latency, and in TV use, that can make images with fast movement a bit blurry -- but in real life, you never notice.

tooki

quiklee · Sep 25, 2006, 01:38 PM

you don't seem to be in need of any high end speed . . . i say get a nice 20 inch 2.33 ( i always get the fastest available cuz it's not gonna be the fastest forever) . . . should fit your needs perfectly!

tooki · Sep 25, 2006, 02:13 PM

Choosing the extra CPU is nonsense - you're talking about maybe 5% real-world speed improvement (that is, undetectable to a human without instruments), for a very appreciable increase in cost. On the 20" iMac, it's $250 extra (that's 17%!!) for an 8% increase in clock speed that is unlikely to give more than a trivial 4% increase in performance.

That makes no sense. The $250 would be far better spent on extra RAM.

tooki