ATI vs Nvidia in iMac??

The7artist7 · #1 November 27th, 2006, 04:51 PM

Hi Guys - will be soon buying one of newest intel iMacs and am wondering if someone can help me understand the difference between the ATI 256MB upgrade in the 20" and the Nvidia GeForce 256MB upgrade in the 24"?? I've no idea about what means what in the graphics-card world apart from the obvious bigger means better as far as MBs go.

What I'm trying to work out is do I shell out the extra for the 24" as I will be doing quite a bit of animation (non-3D) and illustrator/photoshop large graphics files etc.

Basically, is there any performance advantage with the 24" apart from the extra desktop space?

I would be upgrading either machine to 2GB Ram with the 2.33ghz processor and the 256MB upgrade to the graphics card.

The only other question is: what height is the viewable screen on the 20" and the 24"?

Thanks in advance!

Greg

Sirtovin · #2 November 27th, 2006, 10:11 PM

256 ATI just means better graphics power... Say if your gaming... or doing really advanced movie making with your intel Mac... It always helps to max out the video at the time of purchase... I found out to late when I brought my intel Imac 20"... The 2.0... Not the Dual Core 2, that I can't upgrade to 256 ATI memory... its built onboard... so I got 128mb graphics card.

Personally for you I'd consider MacPro and a maybe a 22 inch Samsung monitor.

Lt Major Burns · #3 November 28th, 2006, 04:16 AM

i'd go 24". that screen is just gorgeous. if you can afford to max it out, go with the 24". mac pro's are nice, obviously, but you are adding a grand on the price.

The7artist7 · #4 November 28th, 2006, 08:22 AM

So, yes, more performance with 256 and yes the 24" iMac is drool-worthy :P

But - why on earth do Apple put a Nvidia graphics card in the 24" instead of the ATI cards they have in the rest of the iMac range?? is there some other performance upgrade with the Nvidia over ATI cards - a friend of mine said it was because Nvidia was cheaper for the same perfomance to save money in the high end machines? Thing is, if that's the case why don't they use Nvidia in the whole range and charge us less!

Also what actual height are the viewable screens on the 20"& 24" iMacs? Due to the fact they are widescreen I really don't want to lose height compared to my Lacie 19"

Lt Major Burns · #5 November 28th, 2006, 08:58 AM

a 24" LCD is a 24" viewing area. view area is something that CRT's took with them to the grave. the resolution on those screens is a full 16x10 HD screen, 1920x1200. i have also heard that apple screens >23" have Hi-def processors in them, meaning that they decode H.264 video in hardware. which means that a 24" will play HD movies much faster than a similar 20". i can't verify this though, but i've heard that this is true/.

The7artist7 · #6 November 28th, 2006, 09:42 AM

Thanks Lt M.B. - I didn't need much to overcome my pang of conscience at spending the extra for the 24"! In the big scheme of things it will be well worth it for me to have the extra screen space and with the HD improvement over smaller screens, well... quite simply

!

ElDiabloConCaca · #7 November 28th, 2006, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lt Major Burns

a 24" LCD is a 24" viewing area. view area is something that CRT's took with them to the grave. the resolution on those screens is a full 16x10 HD screen, 1920x1200. i have also heard that apple screens >23" have Hi-def processors in them, meaning that they decode H.264 video in hardware. which means that a 24" will play HD movies much faster than a similar 20". i can't verify this though, but i've heard that this is true/.

There is no "hardware acceleration" in the monitor itself -- that would be a function of the graphics card.

Lt Major Burns · #8 November 28th, 2006, 12:30 PM

i thought that may be the case, hence why i couldn't cite my examples. someone on here said it. i forget who. but they said that the 23" actually had far greater H.264 performance than the 20". i couldn't work it out.