Which graphic card for imac

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

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Going to get one soon, may be this month, or in 2 months most likely. I have already decided to get the 24" one, but not set on which one. The price difference is £300 for the 2 models.

So i have a few question for those that have the imac 24" or anyone in the know. The machine will be used for Surfing, watching Videos, Music, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. No games.

1 - Is the 0.33 Ghz worth it? How much is that faster in real world?
2 - Is the better gfx worth it if i dont play games? and does it help in video decoding or photoshop?
3 - is the Image Quality between the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 much different?

Thanks
 
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Go on, get the best one! You know you want to!

On a more serious note, you probably won't notice the speed increase in processor speed. If you don't play games then i would say leave the graphics update but if you upgrade to Snow Leopard there is a lot of overhead for graphics prowess in it i've heard.

Do you need 1TB of storage? If you want 1TB of storage i would say stretch to the top model instead of upgrading.

I'm not sure the 24" comes with a 9400m does it? If it does, avoid the 9400M like the plague. Personally i hate it, it makes the GUI very stuttery.
 
Logsi said:
I'm not sure the 24" comes with a 9400m does it? If it does, avoid the 9400M like the plague. Personally i hate it, it makes the GUI very stuttery.
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I'd just like to pick up on this - I use the 9400M on my MBP most of the time and certainly don't have any GUI stuttering.
 
I like to add, i have 1.5TB of external storage already which i will also use on the mac. HD space is not a problem or a factor in this purchase. :)
 
Feek said:
I'd just like to pick up on this - I use the 9400M on my MBP most of the time and certainly don't have any GUI stuttering.
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It just doesn't seem to run as nice and smooth as 9600m. Spaces zooms out and it stutters and iTunes stutters.

Maybe I'm just being nit picky...

Yeah, as said, get the best you can afford. I did with the unibody and i haven't regretted it once. Only wish that it was 2.93GHz though so i could say it's still the best!
 
The ATI 4580 (not mentioned I know) is reported to have system-freezing issues.

Just incase you plump for the extra upgrade, it's worth noting that it could be that way until a firmware update is pushed out.
 
Get the 4850 simply because snow leopard will have a significant speed boost and more power with a better GPU as it uses open CL, which needs a good GPU. Also as you will keep it a while no doubt, get it, the speed jump from the 120/130 --> 4850 is worth the cash.
 
Combat squirrel said:
Get the 4850 simply because snow leopard will have a significant speed boost and more power with a better GPU as it uses open CL, which needs a good GPU. Also as you will keep it a while no doubt, get it, the speed jump from the 120/130 --> 4850 is worth the cash.
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That's £500 I didn't budget for ! :(
 
Edit- Ignore that, must read the OP properly.

As said above, go for the best you can afford. Either will be fine for what you will be using it for.
 
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