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Current setup...thinking about some upgrades
Guys,
I hope this post all finds you well.
In August 2008 I purchased a "top of the line" iMac Desktop. Since then I have bootcamped Windows 7 in order that I could get my PC gamer fix. Here are it's stats, for lack of a better term:
3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB Ram, 800 Mhz, DDR2 SDRAM
Bus speed: 1.07 Ghz
Video card: NVidia GeForce 8800 GS with VRAM (Total) of 512 MB.
Windows 7 32-bit
I played Age of Conan for a while and with everything maxed out, I dropped down to around 15 fps....which kind of surprised me. I was hoping someone would be willing to help me "pimp" my Mac/PC and give me advice as to what I could/should upgrade. I am particularly interested in having a top of the line graphics card...so any recommendations/opinions as to what card that may be would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks ahead for any advice you may have to offer.
Best regards,
Lctwo
Comments
Well I have checked out NVidia and ATI websites, and it is pretty simple to discern which cards are the top of the line. My question now is: How can I determine whether my iMac will support those cards?
Nobody knows anything about iMacs
LOL it seems that way doesn't it!
Anyways, I have been researching this matter for most of my afternoon...and here is what I can tell.
Since I have a PCI express i will be able to upgrade my video card, but apparently it will be a bit of a pain in the @ss because it may (or may not) be soldered to the motherboard? I have seen conflicting blogposts, forumposts, articles discussing this issue...so I am not really sure.
If i can make this happen, I am considering the ATI Radeon HD 4870 512 MB GDDR5, as the new Mac Pro's come with it and the Apple Store actually sells them, which makes me feel comfortable about replacing my nVidia.
By the way, here are some of the links I read re: video card upgrades for iMac:
http://www.techdc.com/imac-24-opened-and-upgraded
http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/graphics_card_in_24_inch_imac_are_apparently_upgradeable/
I'm no mac expert, but for what I do know about them the prognosis is not good. They're not built for incremental upgrading.
My experience is that the only video cards that will work are the cards that were offered as options when it was new. That limits your options to one or two cards. Chances are the 8800 was the top-end card when your mac was new, so you probably will need a newer computer.
Macs are great for a lot of things. Gaming is/always will be a compromise though. You might consider building a current PC and trying to install a hackintosh partition.
That being said, I'm currently running a 4 GB system with an 8800 and a 2.4 ghz AMD quad core and can run anything I want. (just not at max settings). This system is 2+ years old and the longest I've ever gone without upgrading. If you decide to go PC instead of Mac, I'd wait until the next-gen AMD chips are out (this year?). Not because they're better, but *if* they're competitive, Intel's prices will come down.
I can also roleplay the tower in a chess game and shout "is that a peasant at the horizon I see? I will smash it I will! Oh damn I broke one of my merlons!". -- maji
You'd be better going to a Mac based forum on information on how to upgrade your Mac PC. To my knowledge, as others have stated, Macs aren't sold to be upgraded (What you buy is what you get, this way they can charge alot more for their higher end models without people buying lower end models and upgrading them to the higher end models). When they're outdated, they're simply outdated and you're forced to buy their new lineup. I'd suggest you buy a Windows PC if you're going to be doing alot of gaming because let's face it, there's nothing a Mac can do that a PC can't do equally as well. I'm not saying this because the whole one is better than the other thing. However, I am saying you get more for your money when you buy a Windows PC and when you need to upgrade, you're not simply forced to buy a whole new computer. Mac = Shady.
Well guys, after exhaustive research of iMac-specific video cards and telephone discussions with local Apple certified technicians, the answer is pretty much this: An iMac owner can only upgrade his/her system's video card if there is an upgrade available for that year and model.
For example, I own a 24", 2008 iMac. At the time of my purchase, Apple offered only two (2) video cards for this model...one standard card (not sure what it was) and one advanced card (the GeForce 8800 GS). I chose the upgrade and thereby have a GeForce 8800 GS, which is the best video card available for my iMac. Period.
So it looks like I am up sh*t creek without a paddle on this one. My one hope was that maybe I could buy and have a tech install the advanced video card built into the current 2010 iMac models (ATi Radeon 4850 HD), but I cannot find that card for sale online and when I called AMD (company that owns ATi?) they said that this card was OEM only and not available as a stand alone.
I guess I have learned my lesson, albeit an expensive one. From here on out, I am going with PC desktop rigs for gaming. I have seen some pretty amazing PC gaming desktops for $3,500 to $4,500. I know there has to be a cheaper way to obtain a quality rig...but man I would love to have a rig with one of those new Direct X 11 compatible graphics cards.
Lctwo
Make no mistake bud, you don't have to buy a 3,000 dollar Windows PC to play the latest games out on the market with maxed settings. If you want to play the latest games on the market a prebuilt rig for about 1500 should cover the job (Around 1,000 if you built yourself). If you just want to play the latest games with reasonable settings it can be had for under 1,000 easily, especially if you go with an AMD build.
These are just my extremely rough estimates though if you're willing to learn a little I'm sure there's a few of us (including myself) here that's willing to point you in the right direction.
Since building or purchasing a new PC is not really in the cards for me right now, I have decided to take a different route.
I have been looking into overclocking my iMac's GPU , and I think that is what I am going to do to get the most out of my machine. I have read extensively on the topic, and apparently the stock GPU levels for the iMac are significantly underclocked by Apple.
What do you guys think? Are there any overclockers on this forum?!
Overclocking GPU's really give next to no performance increases. If you're lucky you may gain an extra 5 fps at best and have to balance out a stable OC to where it's not crashing on you all the time for that minimal increase. Also note, there will be increased GPU temperatures by OCing your GPU, keep this is mind or you'll end up with no GPU at all. Also if you experience artifacts on your screen then you'll know it's time to turn down the overclock.
What's a mac?
I vote sell the mac and build a pc for half the price. A new top of the line mac goes for what? 2-3 thousand? You can build a PC for $800 that will smack the pants off a "top of the line" mac.
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