Imac with 6970 for gaming?

culvers

culvers

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Just wondering if a new imac with a 6970 card would be any good for gaming versus a windows build, something like the "Titan Supersaurus" http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-190-OE&groupid=43&catid=2040&subcat= (if i went for the supersaurus i would probably get it with the gtx570)

Does the supersaurus come wifi enabled? I was checking out the costings, and once i bundle in a monitor keyboard, operating system, and mouse, it is not that much cheaper than an imac (purchased with edu discount)

Cheers
 
How much is the imac? Whats its specs? What sort of gaming you intend? You able to build yourself as that would save you quite a bit...

On a broad note though I would go with the windows pc, you can upgrade it in the future, change out parts when and if needed, its more compatible and for gaming its cheaper, as in imac games cost more.... and less choice....
 
Jasonst888 said:
How much is the imac? Whats its specs? What sort of gaming you intend? You able to build yourself as that would save you quite a bit...

On a broad note though I would go with the windows pc, you can upgrade it in the future, change out parts when and if needed, its more compatible and for gaming its cheaper, as in imac games cost more.... and less choice....
Click to expand...

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_mac/family/imac/select?mco=MjIwNTQyNjE

The most right hand side one.
 
As a Mac user, if I was planning on gaming again, I would build a PC instead of going with the top 27" iMac. I would have severe reservations about just how good the mobile version of the graphics would be at running at 2560x1440 (so much so I would probably run in Windowed mode instead at a lower resolution), it's ability to dissipate heat during long gaming sessions and OSX ability to run games with older OpenGL libraries. There's been a definite improvement in Lion graphics performance over Snow Leopard since they moved from 1.6.13 to 1.7.4 OpenGL libraries. But a lot of Mac users bootcamp as games run better again under Windows on Apple hardware.
 
No contest the pc.....

Faster cpu, Better HDD, Also got a SSD for the os which will make the whole pc really fast!
Imac is only a 1gb version of the 6970, which is not great on a screen that size! Do you need a 27 inch screen? or could you go smaller?
 
The 6970M is essentially a downclocked desktop 6850. Unless you're planning on playing Source games and not much more, you'll be fine, but a minimum for decent settings at 2560x1400 is ~GTX480/6970 level and above.
 
for £1650 you can get WAY better than that with PC's, especially if your happy to build it yourself:

YOUR BASKET
2 x MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £254.99 (£509.98)
1 x Dell Ultrasharp U2311H 23" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey £229.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £173.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Asus P8Z68-V Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
1 x Silverstone Raven 2 RV02B Full Tower Case - Black £129.98
1 x OCZ Z-Series 850W '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £99.98
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £50.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £44.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A) £39.98
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
Total : £1,595.84 (includes shipping : FREE).

*edit*
heres the best comparison of the cards i could get for gaming:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php
6970M passmark score: 2653
single GTX 570: 3555

you have two GTX 570's so you'll get ~90% improvement over 1 570 (SLI isnt perfect), so that would equate to a score of ~6800. much better than the 6970M.

passmar isnt the best test in the world, but its the only thing i have found to compare these cards because they are so far apart
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the responses - wow didn't realise it was the mobile version of the 6970!

At the moment my gaming is done on an acer laptop (acer 6930g with nvidia 9600m gt) which worked well for a year or two, but is useless for gaming now as it cuts out after a few minutes of gaming, i think its due to the heat, maybe the fan is busted. Needed a laptop as i was moving around for work a lot, but now I'm in one place all the time so can get a desktop.

I have minimal tech skills so dont want to mess about upgrading or anything, want something that I can plug in and go. I was attracted to the imac as it was all in one.

Any ideas on a good screen, keyboard, mouse, and headphones to choose if i get the supersaurus? I would like a large screen (preferably with speakers) but doesn't have to be 27inches, and not cost the earth :) Will i need anything else with this option (e.g wifi cards?)

Is it worth going for the gtx580 over the gtx570? (bearing in mind I'm not made of money)

I guess I was tempted by the imac because i have recently picked up and ipad 2 and iphone 4, and been using my girlfriends macbook a lot, and really enjoying it. But I pretty much only want the desktop for gaming (games like diablo 3 and swtor *drool*)
 
Agree with Reaper here, good build mate, that build would be awesome and blow the imac away in pretty much every task, especially gaming.

But if you dont want to build then the Titan Supersaurus would still be good, grab the above mentioned u2311h and job done you have an amazing gaming machine. :D
 
Reaper 392 said:
for £1650 you can get WAY better than that with PC's, especially if your happy to build it yourself:

YOUR BASKET
2 x MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £254.99 (£509.98)
1 x Dell Ultrasharp U2311H 23" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey £229.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £173.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Asus P8Z68-V Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
1 x Silverstone Raven 2 RV02B Full Tower Case - Black £129.98
1 x OCZ Z-Series 850W '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £99.98
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £50.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £44.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A) £39.98
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
Total : £1,595.84 (includes shipping : FREE).

*edit*
heres the best comparison of the cards i could get for gaming:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php
6970M passmark score: 2653
single GTX 570: 3555

you have two GTX 570's so you'll get ~90% improvement over 1 570 (SLI isnt perfect), so that would equate to a score of ~6800. much better than the 6970M.

passmar isnt the best test in the world, but its the only thing i have found to compare these cards because they are so far apart
Click to expand...

I would rather spend a bit less, but could probably stretch to that, however I really wanted to avoid building it myself, and dont have any friends or family who have the ability to help me, so was looking at the overlockers prebuilt rigs, and thought the "supersaurus" looked good (with a gtx570) despite having a silly name :P
 
building a computer is pretty much plug in and play. its almost impossible to put something in the wrong socket as everythig is designed to only fit in the right place

the only thing i could see anyone doing wrong would be to put two ram sticks in the same channel (each channel has two sockets) or to put the graphics card in a slower slot. all that will result from this is slightly lower performance
 
Reaper 392 said:
building a computer is pretty much plug in and play. its almost impossible to put something in the wrong socket as everythig is designed to only fit in the right place

the only thing i could see anyone doing wrong would be to put two ram sticks in the same channel (each channel has two sockets) or to put the graphics card in a slower slot. all that will result from this is slightly lower performance
Click to expand...

Don't forget the classic forgetting to put in motherboard standoffs! :p
 
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