3D GAMES under WINDOWS: iMac 2.8GHz (Radeon HD 2600 Pro) versus iMac 2.33GHz (GeForce 7600 GT) Originally posted August 15th, 2007, by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist Updated August 26th, 2007, with Vista results In this third installment of Aluminum iMac testing, we wanted to compare the fastest Aluminum iMac (2.8GHz) to the fastest version of the previous model of iMac (2.33GHz with optional GeForce 7600 GT). We used BootCamp 1.4 to create a partition for installing Windows XP Pro and the newest BootCamp 1.4 drivers for Windows. We ran PC versions of Prey and Quake 4 and World of Warcraft. On August 26th, we upgraded the two iMacs to Vista Ultimate and reran the game tests. We wanted to see if the Windows or Vista versions produced faster frame rates than the Mac OS X versions: (Our World of Warcraft test is to go to FireTree realm. Our warrior stands next to the totem pole at the entrance to Camp Narache (Red Cloud Mesa). He runs East toward the large tree at the top of the hill. Turns around and runs West back to the totem pole. Using Titan Performance addon, we are able to capture min, max, and average frame rate. All settings were maxed, 24 bit 1X multi-sampling, no vertical sync, no glow effect. We not only get consistent results but we confirmed that this stresses the GPU mightily.) INSIGHT: The most dramatic difference observed is when we ran Quake 4 under Vista versus Mac OS X. Not only did the new iMac 2.8GHz run 6.5 times faster under Vista, but it beat the iMac 2.33 with the optional GeForce 7600 GT -- which was dominating under Mac OS X and Windows XP. We expect to see the Mac OS X Radeon X2xxx drivers optimized by AMD engineers in the near future --- hopefully to catch up with Windows XP Pro and/or Vista's performance. MORE IMAC ARTICLES We have results for 3D Games running on three models of Aluminum iMac versus other Macs. See Cinebench 10 and Motion 3 results for all three models of Aluminum iMac versus others See test results from Photoshop CS3 and After Effects CS3 on all three models of Aluminum iMac and how they stress the memory capacity as well as the CPU. WHERE TO ORDER YOUR IMAC If you live in the USA and plan to purchase an APPLE product, please CLICK THIS LINK or any APPLE DISPLAY AD to help us earn our affiliate commission. It's a great way to support Bare Feats. WHERE TO BUY MEMORY FOR YOUR MAC We always order our Macs with the factory default memory config and then visit either Other World Computing or Trans International to purchase our memory upgrades. Has Bare Feats helped you? How about helping Bare Feats? © 2007 Rob Art Morgan "BARE facts on Macintosh speed FEATS" Email , the webmaster and mad scientist