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New iMac upgraded specs...
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solofx7
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Aug 15, 2011, 09:36 PM
 
I just got a new 2011 iMac with the following config:
i7 3.4, 16 gb of ram - yes that much 1tb hdd, 2 gb 6970 video card.
All of these are upgrades, I just do not see the need for a larger hdd at this point. I have 4.75 tb of HDD space.
So far I am loving it, not much other than windows games push the video card. Its nice to just play what I want.

How do y'all feel about your iMac setups?
iMac 27inch 3.4 i7 16gb ram, MacBook Air 11 inch i5 128gb, iMac 27inch 2.8 i7 8gb ram, MacBook Pro 17 inch 2.66 i7, 4gb ram 500gb HDD Seagate XT,
iPhone 4 - Time Capsule 2tb, Apple TV - iPad 2 64gb
     
P
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Aug 16, 2011, 03:24 AM
 
Given that it's two years old by now - i7-860, 12 gig RAM, Radeon 4850, 1 TB WD Caviar Black and aftermarket 120 GB SSD - I'm extremely happy. While it's certainly possible to make the GPU choke on games (the 4850 is lacking in local memory bandwidth), it is usually enough to disable AA and turn down the texture filtering to make it fly at full resolution. Alternatively, I set it at 1280*720 (exactly a quarter of native, so the pixels line up) and just don't bother. Note that this is when gaming under Parallels - rebooting to native Windows speeds things up even further.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
solofx7  (op)
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Aug 16, 2011, 12:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Given that it's two years old by now - i7-860, 12 gig RAM, Radeon 4850, 1 TB WD Caviar Black and aftermarket 120 GB SSD - I'm extremely happy. While it's certainly possible to make the GPU choke on games (the 4850 is lacking in local memory bandwidth), it is usually enough to disable AA and turn down the texture filtering to make it fly at full resolution. Alternatively, I set it at 1280*720 (exactly a quarter of native, so the pixels line up) and just don't bother. Note that this is when gaming under Parallels - rebooting to native Windows speeds things up even further.
How did you get an SSD in there?
The model you have is the model that I am replacing.
I was very interested in an SSD, but the price was an out of control $540 or so
I am going to try some of those tricks on my windows games. I normally run them at full monitor resolution through boot camp.
iMac 27inch 3.4 i7 16gb ram, MacBook Air 11 inch i5 128gb, iMac 27inch 2.8 i7 8gb ram, MacBook Pro 17 inch 2.66 i7, 4gb ram 500gb HDD Seagate XT,
iPhone 4 - Time Capsule 2tb, Apple TV - iPad 2 64gb
     
P
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Aug 16, 2011, 02:12 PM
 
It was a little tricky, to be honest. What I eventually ended up doing was use the included 3.5" bracket and assemble it in the optical drive slot. The optical drive is fixed in a black plastic thingy that you have to remove to get the drive out. What I did was assemble the SSD in the lower right corner of the bracket (the included hole), use the front two holes to fix the bracket to the black plastic, and finally drill one extra hole in the bracket to fix it securely to the black plastic holder. This means that the screws hold three corners of the bracket, but only one corner of the SSD. Since it's a desktop and the SSD isn't going anywhere anyway, it's no big deal, but I used some duct tape between the bracket and the drive anyway just in case.

The worst bit was actually making the connection. The SSD had a regular full-sized SATA port and the optical had a slim SATA port (NOT mini-SATA, that's something else. Slim SATA). I needed an adapter, which was really tricky to source. Delock makes one, and amazon in both Germany and the UK had associates that had it.

Finally I got a slim SATA to USB adapter for the optical, and works fine lying on the desk in front of the iMac. One of these days I'll hack up something funny as a cover.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
solofx7  (op)
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Aug 26, 2011, 02:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
It was a little tricky, to be honest. What I eventually ended up doing was use the included 3.5" bracket and assemble it in the optical drive slot. The optical drive is fixed in a black plastic thingy that you have to remove to get the drive out. What I did was assemble the SSD in the lower right corner of the bracket (the included hole), use the front two holes to fix the bracket to the black plastic, and finally drill one extra hole in the bracket to fix it securely to the black plastic holder. This means that the screws hold three corners of the bracket, but only one corner of the SSD. Since it's a desktop and the SSD isn't going anywhere anyway, it's no big deal, but I used some duct tape between the bracket and the drive anyway just in case.

The worst bit was actually making the connection. The SSD had a regular full-sized SATA port and the optical had a slim SATA port (NOT mini-SATA, that's something else. Slim SATA). I needed an adapter, which was really tricky to source. Delock makes one, and amazon in both Germany and the UK had associates that had it.

Finally I got a slim SATA to USB adapter for the optical, and works fine lying on the desk in front of the iMac. One of these days I'll hack up something funny as a cover.
very impressive "P"
If I decide to go SSD, I will probably just buy a new iMac. I do not think that my grubby little hands will be able to handle working on the innards on my svelte iMac. but if you want to do it for me for free
iMac 27inch 3.4 i7 16gb ram, MacBook Air 11 inch i5 128gb, iMac 27inch 2.8 i7 8gb ram, MacBook Pro 17 inch 2.66 i7, 4gb ram 500gb HDD Seagate XT,
iPhone 4 - Time Capsule 2tb, Apple TV - iPad 2 64gb
     
Eug
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Aug 27, 2011, 01:03 AM
 
2011 iMac? Luckily you have Thunderbolt.

No need to install an internal SSD. When the DIY Thunderbolt enclosures come out, just stick in a SSD in it and use it as your boot drive. The benefit of such an external drive is that you can use some of the cheaper model SSDs which may have lousy power consumption specs for a laptop 2.5" drive. However, since it's not inside a laptop (or inside the iMac), who cares?
     
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Aug 27, 2011, 03:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by solofx7 View Post
very impressive "P"
If I decide to go SSD, I will probably just buy a new iMac. I do not think that my grubby little hands will be able to handle working on the innards on my svelte iMac. but if you want to do it for me for free
It's not nearly as hard as some of the older iMac models. Removing the glass is trivial - you can do it with a plunger, if you like. Unscrewing the display panel is also easy - eight Torx screws, from straight up. The trick part is lifting the display panel - it's hard to get a hold (I eventually resorted to using a screwdriver and using the edge of the iMac itself to lever it up) and then you can only lift it a little bit before the cables pull on it. Most disassembly instructions tell you lift it just a little bit, disconnect the top connector, lift it a little more, and disconnect the others. I did that the first time (I was in there for another reason), but I found that there is a better way. Just release the cable in the lower right corner, lift the panel up high enough that it's over the aluminium frame and rotate it around a point in the middle of the left side. You will have more than enough space to remove the optical (again, a few Torx screws from the top) and then rotate the panel back in when you're done.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
solofx7  (op)
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Sep 2, 2011, 11:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
2011 iMac? Luckily you have Thunderbolt.

No need to install an internal SSD. When the DIY Thunderbolt enclosures come out, just stick in a SSD in it and use it as your boot drive. The benefit of such an external drive is that you can use some of the cheaper model SSDs which may have lousy power consumption specs for a laptop 2.5" drive. However, since it's not inside a laptop (or inside the iMac), who cares?
I have not looked at the tech specs or anything, but am I to assume that I will have all of the benefits of an internal SSD but it will just be over a thunderbolt port?
It sounds great and I would love to do that one the hardware is out there. I currently also have a MacBook Air and truly see a difference with the SSD memory with booting and such...
iMac 27inch 3.4 i7 16gb ram, MacBook Air 11 inch i5 128gb, iMac 27inch 2.8 i7 8gb ram, MacBook Pro 17 inch 2.66 i7, 4gb ram 500gb HDD Seagate XT,
iPhone 4 - Time Capsule 2tb, Apple TV - iPad 2 64gb
     
Rev2Liv
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Sep 15, 2011, 02:53 PM
 
I built up my CTO Mid 2011 iMac 27" with:

3.4ghz Core i7 Quad
16GB Samsung RAM 40nm class Amazon.com: Samsung MV-3T4G4 4GB DDR3 Laptop SDRAM (1333MHz PC3-10600): Electronics
256GB SSD/1TB 7200RPM HD
1GB RADEON 6970M


I have a slew of accessories, some leftover from previous Mac's and some new. I'm mostly using, Magic Trackpad, Spyder3Elite 4.0, G-RAID 6TB RAID.


2 Huge disappointments are the HD and SSD link speed. The Intel chipset is capable of 6Gigabit operation, but both HD/SSD have a negotiated link speed of 3Ggigabits.
     
Eug
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Sep 15, 2011, 04:28 PM
 
Originally Posted by solofx7 View Post
I have not looked at the tech specs or anything, but am I to assume that I will have all of the benefits of an internal SSD but it will just be over a thunderbolt port?
It sounds great and I would love to do that one the hardware is out there. I currently also have a MacBook Air and truly see a difference with the SSD memory with booting and such...
Sequential read and write speeds should be the same for single-disk SSD over Thunderbolt, and way, way, way faster than USB 2.

I'm not sure about random access times, but my guess is that random reads will be nearly as fast over Thunderbolt as compared to native internally-installed SSDs.

In fact, even USB 3 can achieve 0.2 ms class access times with SSD (which normally is in the 0.1 - 0.2 ms range, as opposed to 10 ms class access times with hard drives), and USB 3 is supposed to be more laggy than Thunderbolt.

What this means to me is that I'd expect Thunderbolt SSD to be as fast for real-world usage as internal SSD.

I suspect the main issue will be cost. USB 3 will be ubiquitous and all the cheap enclosures will be USB 3. Thunderbolt enclosures will probably be horrendously priced when they first come out, and will likely remain pricey for years. Actually, if FW800 is any indication, then Thunderbolt may never become cheap.

For this reason I will not buy any new Mac until it gets USB 3.
     
P
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Sep 15, 2011, 05:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by Rev2Liv View Post
2 Huge disappointments are the HD and SSD link speed. The Intel chipset is capable of 6Gigabit operation, but both HD/SSD have a negotiated link speed of 3Ggigabits.
It doesn't matter. An HDD is never going to saturate a 3 GBps link, but in this case, the SSD won't either. The controllers Apple uses, from Samsung and Toshiba, are chosen for reliability rather than speed. Some quick googling shows that the Samsung is the faster of the two, but that it does not breach 3 Gbps. Most likely the SSD itself doesn't support the newer protocol.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
P
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Sep 15, 2011, 05:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
What this means to me is that I'd expect Thunderbolt SSD to be as fast for real-world usage as internal SSD.
At least as fast. There as PCIe SSDs out there, and they're starting to come down in price. Put one of those in a TB chassie and you could, at least in theory, be faster than a regular SATA-mounted SSD.

Originally Posted by Eug View Post
I suspect the main issue will be cost. USB 3 will be ubiquitous and all the cheap enclosures will be USB 3. Thunderbolt enclosures will probably be horrendously priced when they first come out, and will likely remain pricey for years. Actually, if FW800 is any indication, then Thunderbolt may never become cheap.
TB will be more expensive, but the latest word from IDF is promising: Cheaper, smaller controllers on the way, and Acer and Asus have promised support.

Originally Posted by Eug View Post
For this reason I will not buy any new Mac until it gets USB 3.
Should be here in the Ivy Bridge version anyway. It just may be the one real upgrade in that revision - with the clockspeed ranges for Sandy Bridge-E leaked, I doubt that the top IB will be a big clockspeed boost, and all the other improvements seem to be in the GPU.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Rev2Liv
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Sep 15, 2011, 07:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
Sequential read and write speeds should be the same for single-disk SSD over Thunderbolt, and way, way, way faster than USB 2.

I'm not sure about random access times, but my guess is that random reads will be nearly as fast over Thunderbolt as compared to native internally-installed SSDs.

In fact, even USB 3 can achieve 0.2 ms class access times with SSD (which normally is in the 0.1 - 0.2 ms range, as opposed to 10 ms class access times with hard drives), and USB 3 is supposed to be more laggy than Thunderbolt.

What this means to me is that I'd expect Thunderbolt SSD to be as fast for real-world usage as internal SSD.

I suspect the main issue will be cost. USB 3 will be ubiquitous and all the cheap enclosures will be USB 3. Thunderbolt enclosures will probably be horrendously priced when they first come out, and will likely remain pricey for years. Actually, if FW800 is any indication, then Thunderbolt may never become cheap.

For this reason I will not buy any new Mac until it gets USB 3.
Thunderbolt will always be more expensive to implement than USB 3.0. Because it Wraps up a Bi-Directional PCIe and Displayport protocols it naturally sits higher up on the food chain. Also the host controller in Thunderbolt manages bandwidth independent of CPU so data flow in real time with guaranteed bandwidth.

This time around, USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt are both backed by Intel ensuring success of both.
     
Rev2Liv
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Sep 15, 2011, 08:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
It doesn't matter. An HDD is never going to saturate a 3 GBps link, but in this case, the SSD won't either. The controllers Apple uses, from Samsung and Toshiba, are chosen for reliability rather than speed. Some quick googling shows that the Samsung is the faster of the two, but that it does not breach 3 Gbps. Most likely the SSD itself doesn't support the newer protocol.
I agree that a magnetic platter based storage will not exceed SATA 3Gb/s anytime soon. That being said, the soon to be released Samsung PM830 line of high performance SSD's comes standard with a 6Gb/s controller and is capable of saturating that line.

I debated with myself heavily about choosing the Apple factory SSD option at $600. having gotten used to the snappiness of SSD's, I was either going to DIY or choose it as an option. OWC offers 2x the performance of stock Apple SSD's. With 6G controller, the OWC SSD can do read/write speeds at over 550MB/s, which clearly surpasses Sata 3G.

http://blog.macsales.com/11854-owc-u...ons#more-11854

In the end I chose the turnkey solution nothing that with everything in place such as brackets and cables, I could upgrade the SSD in the future. If I still own this computer after Applecare runs out in 2014, i'll definitely upgrade around then.
( Last edited by Rev2Liv; Sep 16, 2011 at 01:06 AM. Reason: blah)
     
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Sep 16, 2011, 03:46 AM
 
The snappiness is due to the improved latency (average seek time, which leads to better random read), not to the increased bandwidth. You can have as much bandwidth as you like by setting up a RAID that is wide enough, but latency put into a system can never be taken out. There are several SSDs on the market now that exceed 3 Gbps speeds on sequential reads - if the newer Samsung controller joins them, then great, but it doesn't matter as much as you might think for regular users.

Please note that upgrading the internal, factory assembled SSD in the iMac is VERY cumbersome. You have to disassemble the entire box, down to removing the motherboard, before you can access that position. I'd advise you to look in to Thunderbolt options when you feel that the internal SSD is too slow.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Rev2Liv
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Sep 16, 2011, 06:01 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Please note that upgrading the internal, factory assembled SSD in the iMac is VERY cumbersome. You have to disassemble the entire box, down to removing the motherboard, before you can access that position. I'd advise you to look in to Thunderbolt options when you feel that the internal SSD is too slow.
From what I can ascertain, if one already has a factory installed Apple 256GB SSD, than replacement is much easier than adding one wholesale. The cables and brackets are all in place which means the logic board doesn't have to be removed which is a huge PITA. Removing the glass panel actually just requires one to dig fingernails into the groove between glass and metal to pull it away from magnets. Disconnecting the multiple connectors from the display is slightly cumbersome but just requires one to read the instructions thoroughly in advance. Once glass and LCD are removed, removing optical drive is a snap giving access to factory mounted SSD with cables already in place.

The hardest part is keeping dust and fingerprint smudges away from the LCD. Moreover, the primary reason why the logic board must be removed is due to lack of clearance between the back wall and SATA/power connector ports to snap one in.

I might just go ahead and sell my Apple branded (Toshiba) 256GB 2.5" SSD and mount in a 3rd party 6Gb/s in the stock location. Any takers?
     
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Sep 16, 2011, 07:18 AM
 
Installing an aftermarket SSD in one of the existing bays (optical is where you usually put it) is easy enough. I built a little tray to hold it, but you could probably do it with just duct tape.

The installation instructions I saw for installing an SSD in the Apple bay required removing the motherboard, but that was because you couldn't attach the SATA cable otherwise. If you already have the cable, that may not be required, but the position Apple uses is under the heatpipe for the GPU (amusingly exactly where I theorised I might squeeze one in), and at least on my iMac, I could not reach that position without removing something more than the optical. YMMV.

Disassembling the iMac is nowhere near as hard as it has been made out to be. Use a glass-lifting suction cup or just a plain plunger (like what you clean the drains with) to release the glass from its magnets. Tilt the upper part of it out and then lift it. Removing the display panel is the tricky bit. There are 8 screws, 4 on each short side, that need to be removed with the right Torx screwdriver. That's easy enough, but here is the hard part: you have to tilt the top of the display panel up a little bit, remove one cable, tilt it up further, remove the next cable etc until they're all loose (it's 3 or 4, I forget). Then you can pull the screen upwards and lift it out of position. Hold it along the side to avoid fingerprints. After that it's easy - the optical is 4 screws straight from the top, and the 4 more from the caddy.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Rev2Liv
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Sep 17, 2011, 07:43 PM
 
If it's one area that I can't kvetch enough about it's video. I can't believe a company like "OWC" would do something like storage but not video. I'd gladly pay a premium for improved GPU performance

While the possibility of a Thunderbolt based GPU solution is only theoretical at this point, an MXM solution is off the shelf and by itself as complex as installing an SSD given logic board out during installation.

I agree with the anandtech review that iMac GPU is woeful, even the 6970m. Mobile GPU's aren't geared to run natively at 2560x1440. It's really a matter of money, but i'd like to see OWC or some other company, offer a sub $500 dual GPU MXM based upgrade.

Wait a sec, this site offers MXM upgrades. http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/index.html
( Last edited by Rev2Liv; Sep 17, 2011 at 07:47 PM. Reason: mxm info)
     
Waragainstsleep
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Sep 17, 2011, 08:49 PM
 
I tried swapping a later generation GPU from an iMac into an earlier machine once. It didn't work.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Rev2Liv
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Sep 17, 2011, 09:19 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
I tried swapping a later generation GPU from an iMac into an earlier machine once. It didn't work.
Sweet, do you have a thread on that? I'd love to read more about your effort. thanks!
     
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Sep 18, 2011, 02:55 AM
 
The 6970M is "woeful"? There aren't a lot of them better than that. You can't stuff a 300W desktop GPU in there - there is not enough power from the PSU to even boot, much less cool that heat away. Mobile GPUs are weaker because they have to be, due to heat. I could maybe see them sell something like the current top-of-the-line to users that have three year old model, but most likely they can't source the required BIOS to make it work.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
solofx7  (op)
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Sep 19, 2011, 10:04 AM
 
I must disagree. I have the top of the line video card in a new iMac 27 2gb version and have no issues playing nearly any game at full resolution with everything turned up. There are very few hiccups.
I do admit that a custom gaming PC would be faster and better, but I see no issues with the i7- 2gb video card, and 16 gb of ram combo. I would like to have an SSD to compare, but the price put this machine out of my price range.
iMac 27inch 3.4 i7 16gb ram, MacBook Air 11 inch i5 128gb, iMac 27inch 2.8 i7 8gb ram, MacBook Pro 17 inch 2.66 i7, 4gb ram 500gb HDD Seagate XT,
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Sep 19, 2011, 11:35 AM
 
It seems that the MXM standard allows a maximum of 100W of power for the GPU. That's a fairly low limit, when you consider desktop graphics cards - roughly a 6770, it seems, and the 6970m is the equivalent of a 130W 6850. Current SLI solutions apparently use dual slots, and a "sandwich" in one slot would require external power.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Rev2Liv
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Sep 19, 2011, 02:03 PM
 
Originally Posted by solofx7 View Post
I must disagree. I have the top of the line video card in a new iMac 27 2gb version and have no issues playing nearly any game at full resolution with everything turned up. There are very few hiccups.
I do admit that a custom gaming PC would be faster and better, but I see no issues with the i7- 2gb video card, and 16 gb of ram combo. I would like to have an SSD to compare, but the price put this machine out of my price range.
I chose the 1GB GDDR5 6970m since i'm unlikely to drive more than a single monitor. I did spec the $600 256GB SSD option and while I don't quite regret it, in hindsight, it represents an extremely poor value


Originally Posted by P View Post
The 6970M is "woeful"? There aren't a lot of them better than that. You can't stuff a 300W desktop GPU in there - there is not enough power from the PSU to even boot, much less cool that heat away. Mobile GPUs are weaker because they have to be, due to heat. I could maybe see them sell something like the current top-of-the-line to users that have three year old model, but most likely they can't source the required BIOS to make it work.
Some may consider my statement harsh since the 6970m is top of the line and a huge upgrade over previous generations. Apple has the clout both within the industry and in the marketplace to do anything it wants. It seems to me that most of the acclaim should goto Intel for creating a bitchin' platform comprised of Z68 chipset and Core i7-2600 cpu/gpu. And to ATI for putting out the 6970m. Apple's contribution is in the area of thermal management, since TDP and silent operation are opposites and iMac is very quiet for the horsepower it carries.

Originally Posted by P View Post
It seems that the MXM standard allows a maximum of 100W of power for the GPU. That's a fairly low limit, when you consider desktop graphics cards - roughly a 6770, it seems, and the 6970m is the equivalent of a 130W 6850. Current SLI solutions apparently use dual slots, and a "sandwich" in one slot would require external power.
Since iMac is 'custom' in many areas, Apple could run a power connector from the PSU. They make SLI laptops. if Apple offered a $600 GPU upgrade, i'd gladly choose GPU over SSD, however not at the expense of noise.
     
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Sep 19, 2011, 02:37 PM
 
Originally Posted by Rev2Liv View Post
I chose the 1GB GDDR5 6970m since i'm unlikely to drive more than a single monitor. I did spec the $600 256GB SSD option and while I don't quite regret it, in hindsight, it represents an extremely poor value
I don't understand where this myth of "more video memory for multiple displays" comes from. It was last true back in the frigging eighties.

Let me do the math. Millions of colors means 8 bits each for red, green and blue, or a total of 24 bits. Sometimes you include 32 bits per pixel to have 8 bits for the alpha channel (transparency). That doesn't make sense in a frame buffer, but, hey let's go full hog and include it to be on the safe side. 32 bits per pixel means 4 bytes per pixel. 2560*1440 pixels* 4 bytes/pixel = 14.0625 MB for the framebuffer for one 27" display. Not GB, MB.

More video memory is used to store more textures, which is mainly useful for 3D gaming. Since the textures can be way larger than what's actually on the screen at any one time, 2 GB can be useful on occasion if you want to game at crazy high resolution. It is completely orthogonal to multiple displays.

Originally Posted by Rev2Liv View Post
Since iMac is 'custom' in many areas, Apple could run a power connector from the PSU. They make SLI laptops. if Apple offered a $600 GPU upgrade, i'd gladly choose GPU over SSD, however not at the expense of noise.
Of course Apple could. They could buy the raw desktop chips from nVidia or AMD and put them on the motherboard if they wanted to. The comment was made in response to what OWC could with an upgrade.

The iMac is currently at the level of a Radeon 6850. There is one notch up on mobile graphics, the 6990m which is an underclocked 6870. (Of course nVidia also has cards, but they run slightly hotter, peak at roughly the same performance, and I honestly don't have the energy to start converting between those insane number schemes. Examples with AMD Radeons this time). If Apple wanted to improve beyond that 6990m, they could:

* Go Crossfire/SLI and just add a second card. This has advantages in that Apple could probably distribute the heat from these cards to separate parts of the box and keep cooling efficient. The downside is that they need to put quit a lot of work into the driver to make that work, and they will have to keep making profiles for new games that come out. This seems extremely unlikely, IMO.

* Overclock. Simpler, but the laws of diminishing returns come into effect pretty soon. A straight overclock increases power draw linearly, but if you have to overvolt it, power draw increases quadratically.

(An interesting point here is that it would be nice with graphics turbo, like Intel has on Sandy Bridge. That way, the GPU could overclock for a split second when that zombie pops up and a lot of new polygons have to be considered but return to regular clockspeeds as soon as things calm down. I hope AMD or nVidia will implement in a future mobile GPU, because it would solve a lot of problems.)

* Make their own graphics card out of a desktop chip, like I mentioned above. The fastest chip then is a GTX 580, with a TDP of 244W for the entire card if my sources are correct - and honestly, you'd have to go over 200W to the 570/69x0 series to make a real difference. The entire PSU for the 27" iMac is 310W. Say that 100W of that is for the current GPU, and you get the rest of the iMac at 210W. That GPU would draw more than the entire rest of the iMac. Can you imagine how loud that would be?

So...no, I don't think that we will get much more than we have today - unless AMD or nVidia make a quantum leap in mobile graphics performance, like that graphics turbo I was talking about.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Sep 19, 2011, 04:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
The entire PSU for the 27" iMac is 310W. Say that 100W of that is for the current GPU, and you get the rest of the iMac at 210W. That GPU would draw more than the entire rest of the iMac. Can you imagine how loud that would be?
Do you know which model of CPUs are used in the iMacs? Apparently the Sandy bridge TDP can be anything from 35W to 95W. Obviously the lower end of that range would mean there was room for a much bigger GPU than 100W.
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Sep 19, 2011, 05:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
I don't understand where this myth of "more video memory for multiple displays" comes from. It was last true back in the frigging eighties.

Let me do the math. Millions of colors means 8 bits each for red, green and blue, or a total of 24 bits. Sometimes you include 32 bits per pixel to have 8 bits for the alpha channel (transparency). That doesn't make sense in a frame buffer, but, hey let's go full hog and include it to be on the safe side. 32 bits per pixel means 4 bytes per pixel. 2560*1440 pixels* 4 bytes/pixel = 14.0625 MB for the framebuffer for one 27" display. Not GB, MB.
I'll point out that 64 MB of video RAM (G4 1 GHz Titanium in 2002) would mean that Exposé would stutter with even just the single built-in laptop screen, even with just surfing, if I had a lot of Safari windows open. (I counted and I'd get the Exposé stuttering after about 14 or 15 windows.) Dual monitor was even worse.

With 256 MB RAM on a later iMac it was much better but I could get it to bog down if I opened tons of windows over dual monitor.

Apparently it's even worse if you load lots of ginormous Photoshop images simultaneously.

AnandTech - How Much Video Memory Do You Need in OS X?

Each window gets treated as a 2D OpenGL surface and all of the character and image rendering, blending and display happens on the GPU. The GPU is much faster at all of this than the CPU so it made sense. The result is much lower CPU and system memory usage. What it also means is that the amount of video memory you have matters.
     
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Sep 20, 2011, 04:41 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Do you know which model of CPUs are used in the iMacs? Apparently the Sandy bridge TDP can be anything from 35W to 95W. Obviously the lower end of that range would mean there was room for a much bigger GPU than 100W.
Regular desktop i7-2600 in the top model, ie 95W. My old 2009 model has an i7-860 with the same TDP.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Sep 20, 2011, 04:46 AM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
I'll point out that 64 MB of video RAM (G4 1 GHz Titanium in 2002) would mean that Exposé would stutter with even just the single built-in laptop screen, even with just surfing, if I had a lot of Safari windows open. (I counted and I'd get the Exposé stuttering after about 14 or 15 windows.) Dual monitor was even worse.

With 256 MB RAM on a later iMac it was much better but I could get it to bog down if I opened tons of windows over dual monitor.

Apparently it's even worse if you load lots of ginormous Photoshop images simultaneously.

AnandTech - How Much Video Memory Do You Need in OS X?

Each window gets treated as a 2D OpenGL surface and all of the character and image rendering, blending and display happens on the GPU. The GPU is much faster at all of this than the CPU so it made sense. The result is much lower CPU and system memory usage. What it also means is that the amount of video memory you have matters.
I'm well aware of how Quartz Extreme works. Having more video memory lets you have more windows open without using the RAM as backing store, but that's independent of the number of screens. You can have hundreds of windows open but not visible on a single display. The way I work is that I keep the same number of windows open no matter how many displays I have, and the multiple displays just mean that I can see more of them. I thought about mentioning this, but honestly, 1 or 2 GB of video RAM is way more than what QE needs. The upgrade is for 3D gaming.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Sep 20, 2011, 07:21 AM
 
Well, one of the main points of having multiple screens is to have more windows open. The way you work isn't necessarily the way everyone else works, and as mentioned super high resolution images can become a problem in OS X if there is insufficient memory, esp. if you're running apps like Photoshop.

1 GB is fine for the vast majority of OS X users, but there is a possibility that for a subset of OS X users, 1 vs. 2 GB would make a difference, esp. since triple screens are now a viable option even with consumer Mac hardware.
     
Rev2Liv
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Sep 20, 2011, 01:56 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
I'm well aware of how Quartz Extreme works. Having more video memory lets you have more windows open without using the RAM as backing store, but that's independent of the number of screens. You can have hundreds of windows open but not visible on a single display
Are the secondary and tertiary windows stored in a frame buffer? If not, are they drawn on the fly?
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Sep 20, 2011, 02:35 PM
 
Ehm... I think we have some confusion here. The frame buffer is a copy of the exact data that is to be drawn to the screen when the next refresh happens. The size of this is always height*width*color depth, and has been since... forever. The first bitmapped display, probably. Back in the eighties, this was ALL the video memory was used for, which is why you needed a better graphics card for bigger displays (each card only ran one display back then).

Later, when 3D rendering came onto the scene, the renderer had to find the textures quickly (textures are the patterns that are pasted onto polygons). Going to main RAM was too slow, so manufacturers started storing textures in local RAM on the card. Pretty soon all of this RAM, framebuffer and texture RAM, flowed together into one pool to be used as required. It is possible, from AGP onwards, to use main memory directly for textures, but this is much slower.

Now, Quartz Extreme is really just a way to use the 3D rendering hardware for the compositing task. Compositing is when you figure out which parts of a window are visible and write them to the frame buffer. "Windows" is a bit sloppy, to be honest. "Content of windows" is a better term. Basically, each region of a window is made into a texture, and handed off to the GPU for the compositing task. When you click a window, the CPU only tells the GPU that the order of the polygons in the scene has changed, and the polygon that you clicked on jumps to the top. When the program wants to update the content of a memory, it writes that to one of several buffers, and tells Quartz to update the data in video memory.

The GPU will keep whatever texture it feels is necessary in video memory, and read the rest directly from main memory (there is always a copy in main memory). More video memory will let you have more windows in the video memory, decreasing the risk of having to fetch one from main memory, but by the time you're at 1 GB of RAM, it would take a LOT of windows to get to this point.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Sep 21, 2011, 01:55 PM
 
I'll admit that the video frameworks/subsystem in Mac OS X confuses the heck out of me, especially when Apple rebrands open source alternatives. Quartz 2D, Quartz 2D extreme, Quartz Extreme, Quartz GL, Open CL/GL, Core Image, Core Video, QuickTime, QuickSync (Intel), etc etc.....

At the same time, I care more about using a computer as a tool, rather than geeking up on the latest tech specs/hardware.
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Sep 21, 2011, 03:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by Rev2Liv View Post
I'll admit that the video frameworks/subsystem in Mac OS X confuses the heck out of me, especially when Apple rebrands open source alternatives. Quartz 2D, Quartz 2D extreme, Quartz Extreme, Quartz GL, Open CL/GL, Core Image, Core Video, QuickTime, QuickSync (Intel), etc etc.....
I agree, it's confusing as F. You forgot QuickDraw and Core Animation, BTW.

(Quartz is both the compositing engine and the native 2D drawing language in Mac OS X 10.0. Quartz Extreme is the hardware-accelerated compositing engine in 10.2 and up, at which point the drawing language was renamed to Quartz 2D. Quartz 2D Extreme was the first attempt to make the graphics language hardware accelerated in 10.4. In 10.5, the confusion caught up with Apple and it was renamed Quartz GL - so the third name for the same thing. Because of various bottlenecks in modern hardware, hardware acceleration has never been enabled by default - only on a window-by-window opt-in basis. QuickDraw is the old, less capable but always hardware accelerated 2D drawing language from Classic MacOS. Quicktime is the video encoding and decode engine also imported from Classic Mac OS. Core Image, Core Animation and Core Video are frameworks that build upon lower-level technologies to make it easier to make high quality image operations, video and animations - frequently making use of hardware acceleration from Quartz GL. OpenGL and OpenCL are APIs for graphics and GPU math from the Khronos group, both of which are implemented in Mac OS X along with many other operating Systems. QuickSync, finally, is an Intel technology for using the GPU in Sandy Bridge-class CPUs to quickly encode video.)
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Sep 23, 2011, 01:33 PM
 
That's some good info. Thanks! What is done on the CPU and what is 'accelerated' and offloaded onto the GPU? Meaning, is the 2d crap offloaded to GPU or is it drawn directly from the CPU. I'm super confused about how all those API's fit in with one another and what CPU and GPU handle both together and separately.
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Sep 25, 2011, 03:45 PM
 
in the default installation on any modern Mac, all 3D is on the GPU, composting is on the GPU and most 2D drawing is on the CPU. Video decoding is generally a mix and how much of the pipeline is on the GPU is dependent on the exact GPU. Stuff that uses Apple's preferred frameworks (like Core Animation) does 2D on the GPU as well.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
   
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