IMac 9400 or iMa Ati 2600

hi,
i am looking to buy a iMac, but i am unsure which to buy.
Which is better new iMac's 9400 integrated graphics or the older iMac's Ati 2600 graphics card.
I will be using the iMac for iPhoto, iMovie, Photoshop and some gaming.
thanks in advance
Paul

Forgive me for not referencing this, but I read somewhere that the ATI 2400 is roughly on par with the NVIDIA, but that the ATI 2600 is superior.
The NVIDIA steals from your main RAM and the ATI uses its own RAM (but neither can be upgraded).
In practice, you may not notice any difference. Buy the cheaper model!

Similar Messages

Choosing iMac model. Nvidia 8800 hotter than ATI 2600 ?

I'm just about to buy a 2.8GHz 24" iMac and am trying to decide whether to upgrade to the NVidia 8800 Graphics card or not.
I'm mainly trying to make it as future-proof as I can by putting in a higher spec card now, and also I guess Snow Leopard (with OpenCL) should be able to make much better use of the NVIDIA card than the ATI one.
I'm happy with the cost involved, but I'm concerned that the 8800 (being a more powerful card) may run hotter in normal (i.e. non-gaming) use compared to the 2600.
Could anyone offer an opinion on this? Do you think I'm likely to experience more fan noise with an 8800 fitted compared to a 2600?
Thanks
Steve

It does run hotter, fans are still inaudible unless right next to it (ear pressed where it will feel the heat).... now here's the thing: The fan speed won't increase noticeably even under extreme load.
To answer your question, if I focus on it, I can hear the fans (right now). If I reach up and touch the top (around top left) it's warm to the touch, and I can barely feel a warm breeze coming out
If i were to fire up Second Life (game) for about 10-20 minutes - it gets uncomfortably warm to the touch along the top edge (quick), and I could feel but barely hear more air being pushed out.
Me and a friend launched Second Life from openGL profiler - she (ATI 2600, 2.8/4m) was hitting around 40-50 FPS, I was hitting 120-180 (these were on a private estate (somewhat controlled environmentals), both set to level 3 quality - kinda apples to apples as best as we could).
I can't really comment on the openCL enhancements to come, It's a severely crippled 8800 (GS) - so I'd not put a lot of weight behind the OpenCL acceleration. It's not a Quadro.
I was under no illusions that it was a gaming machine or a production 3D/graphics workstation tho - it's good enough for casual gaming/semi-pro use with some decent capabilities, don't expect too much from it tho.
There is one of the mac fan sites that tracks the average days of refresh - roughly when to expect the next big "refresh" from Apple - maybe someone else can remember where it is... (something like mid jan/late spring roughly - with some exceptions).
Last thing I'd want is to have ordered the 8800 as a CTO (not refundable) to find out 5 days later a 9800 with 1 gig on a slick nvidia chipset was replacing it. And that they had replaced the mighty mouse.
The iMac 8800/3.06 is the quietest machine I've worked with, power wise - even when it is cranked to the hilt, and it gets hot, uncomfortably hot (that makes me jittery - which is why I'm glad I've got AppleCare). I could run SMC fan control or something to keep it cooler, but I'd prefer to see if Apple's got it right.
Anyhow... Good luck with it all. I plan on selling mine - maybe not tho, it would make a cool fishtank. (I'm learning I'm just not an Apple person, tho I'm still trying).

Anybody, here has a "2007-2008 model" - iMac C2D with an ATI Radeon HD 2600, who can RUN FCP X?

Anybody here has a "2007-2008 model" - iMac C2D with an ATI Radeon HD 2600, who can RUN FCP X?
Thanks!
--STRALLENT

http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12248238&#12248238
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2649035&tstart=0

ATI 2600 HD Pro (or XT?)

Dear all
I have now installed everything I need on my new iMac and was playing with it the whole weekend.
What puzzled me was the fact, that running on Windows it said, I have an ATI 2600 HD XT installed and with "Info" on MacOSX it stated an ATI 2600 HD Pro...now what?
And there is the issue of updating the drivers...anyone has informations on when they are being released? On Mac, on PC, Bootcamp 1.5?
thanks
P.S. The new iMac is a BEAUTY!!!

Hi Guys,
I've spent a few hours over the last week trying to find something that works to update the driver. Using the Mobility Modder from Driverheaven I managed to install the Catalyst 7.8 but not the actual driver - you need to modify the INF for this. The only problem is that I can't be sure what the differences are between the mobility 2600 and the standard-computer 2600. I would like to assume it's just a few settings such as power saving and interal/ external displays.
I tried to modify the INF and used the settings for the standard graphics card. It worked fine, but I put the original Apple driver back on because I didn't want to find out I was overclocking the Graphics CPU accidentally.
After using mobility modder I added this line just after the mobility 2300 graphics card entry:
"ATI MOBILITY RADEON X2600 XT " = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN1002&DEV9583
If you notice and compare the mobility and standard entries, the mobilities have the same ati2mtag but followed by M-something rather than RV-something.
This appears to direct the INF to the correct setup of the Catalyst software for that card - as I say, I used the settings for the standard 2600 card and it installed ok. I didn't try any games though.
On another note, I'm resisting doing anything further or testing any games until I have the screen issue resolved - after exchanging the naff 20" screen with it's horizontal shading (a dark shade at the top to a light shade at the bottom - very noticeable with darkish solid colours!) I've found my new (more costly!) 24" is having some problems with picture breakup, though so far only in Vista which I installed via Bootcamp.
I wish Apple would get there act together. It's my first Apple and I was expecting great things! So far, I would have had less hassle if I had built my own computer with Vista on and thats saying something!!
Matt

Freeze ati 2600

hello,
I have occasional freeze and white screen
on my imac 2.8 ghz version 8.1,
with video card ati 2600 HDPro.
I can upgrade the video card?
how can I fix this?
thank you very much

It's difficult to diagose what might be wrong, however you cannot upgrade the video card in your machine. Is it locking up or are you getting a spinning beach ball?

Apple DVI to Video adapter on ATI 2600 looks horrible in Leopard.

We have a number of dual boot Mac Pros with ATI 2600 cards. We have the Apple DVI to video adapter connected to port #2, and cannot get a decent picture on an LCD monitor. Text is not only pixelated under any NTSC 60 Hz resolution, but also aliased, very badly. We've learned to tweak the video fro Quicktime playback, and sometimes have to resort to PAL 50 Hz display to make the problem a little less worse.
I accidentally booted into one of the Tiger partitions on the same box, and behold, beautiful crisp picture on the NTSC monitor via the adapter. No aliasing, no issues at all.
Is there an ATI kernel extension missing in Leopard for improved NTSC playback via the adapter?
Thanks in advance.

No, it won't work with a PC. It requires the video card support the adapter, and since it was made for Apple cards, chances are the PC one won't. You might be lucky, but I doubt it.

Recycling a MacPro's ATI 2600 in a 2.5GHz Quad G5

Hi there,
My friend's Quad G5 has a PCI-e port and Leopard.
What if I put my Mac Pro's ATI 2600 in his machine?
Will it work at all?
Thanks for your help.

That's flashing.
It is a common practice to convert PC cards to Mac compatible cards.
One must, however, edit, or find an edited, ROM of the same family Mac card, and use that to flash to the PC card.
There are also ROM chip size issues, and with new generation cards for Intel Macs, EFI, etc., comes into play.
A good place to find out what cards are being flashed is Mac Rumors.
The forums, though, are mainly concerned with cards used in Mac Pro.
For older machines, Strangedogs still has some active people....
For the G5, the fastest flashed card is a Geforce 7800 GTX.
The 7800 uses a modified ROM from a Mac 7800 GT.
Radeon X1900 and X1950 cards can also be flashed.
The Radeon cards are dumped from a Mac edition X1900.
Quadro FX 4500's are also commomly flashed.
Yep, the ROM is from a Mac edition.
See the pattern?
There needs to be a Mac equivalent to ease the hacking process.
If others could be flashed, I am positive that someone would have done it by now.
I haven't seen even a peep about even a possibility with that card in any of the forums that I read.....
And yes, the 2600 drivers are only formatted for Intel Macs....

Mac Pro ATI 2600 card comparison -- with and without issues

Starting this new post to help keep the info organized. This is in relation to threads such as
[Mac Pro ATI 2600 Freezing Issue|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1365277&tstart=0] (looks like this got locked on Mar-1?...)
[Weird Mac Pro screen issue|http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=419100]
[Dual Quad-core Mac Pro reboots from sleep|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1353551&tstart=0]
[Reboot After Waking|http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=432869]
[2008 Mac Pro Owner Feedback|http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/2008mac_proreports.html#storytop]
This [post|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6724880#6724880] mentions the possibility that the ATI 2600 cards are manufactured on two separate lines, and that problem cards may be associated with just one of them.
Thought it might be helpful to start posting specific card info and see if a pattern emerges.
There are 3 main places on the bottom side of the ATI card where potentially relevant information is written. There is also info in System Profiler. Please include what you can but at least Part Number, Serial Number (mask the last few digits), and a brief summary of the problem symptoms you are seeing -- or that your system runs trouble-free. Feel free to copy/paste my text as a template.
Please continue placing general comments in the threads listed above, and help keep this one focused on the card info. Thanks.
====================
ATI Radeon HD 2600
-Green Sticker-
PN = 102B3610100
SN = 640752001xxx
RV630 256MB
China
-White Sticker-
ATI-102-B36101-00(B)
2005
D33A27
N136
-Bar Code on opposite edge from ports-
J5751094FYPVA 630T0021(630-8924) CN RV630
-System Profiler-
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x9588
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-B1480A-236
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.236
-Mac Pro Config-
Stock 2 x 4 core 2.8GHz, 2 x 1GB RAM, 320GB HD
Added 4 x 2GB OWC RAM, 1 x 320GB Seagate HD
Apple Cinema Display 20"
-Symptoms-
Started using January 16, 2008
First problem February 9, 2008 (24 days)
Graphics become corrupted, recovers gracefully = yes
Graphics become corrupted, requires hard shutdown = yes
Reboots on wake = unknown (sleep not used)
====================
Hoping something becomes apparent -sailhome

Good idea; here's my data (Reboots from wake, no graphics issues (touch wood):
====================
ATI Radeon HD 2600
-Green Sticker-
PN = 102B3610100
SN = 6407520069xx
RV630 256MB
Made In China
-White Sticker-
ATI102B3610100(B)
2005
D33A27
N136
-Bar Code on opposite edge from ports-
J5751094FYPVA 630T0021(630-8924) CN RV630
-System Profiler-
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x9588
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-B1480A-236
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.236
-Mac Pro Config-
Stock 2 x 4 core 2.8GHz, 2 x 1GB RAM, 320GB HD (Seagate)
Added 2 x 2GB OWC RAM, 2 x 500GB WD HD, 1 x 750GB WD HD
Apple Cinema Display 30"
-Symptoms-
Started using January 18, 2008
First problem (Unknown, within a few days of initial use)
Graphics become corrupted, recovers gracefully = No
Graphics become corrupted, requires hard shutdown = No
Reboots on wake = Yes
====================

ATi 2600 HD and GTX285

Hi guys, got a couple of question...I'm running Resolve and Premiere 5.0 on a Mac Pro 2008 dual 2.8GHz (Mac Version 3.1)..now I install an ATi 2600 on slot 2 and Nvidia GTX285 slot 1. Resolve require that I don't connect a monitor to the GTX285 and use the ATi 2600 as my GUI..everything seem to be working. Does PR automatically recognize that I have a CUDA card which my GTX285..because when i open up the preferences it show that Mercury Engine is set to GPU...is this correct?
When I open Primiere my monitor it is hook up to the the ATi 2600 and nothing is connect to the GTx285..fyi and it show the Mercury Engine is set to GPU. I appreciate any comments..thanks

Hi THanks for the answer...right now the reason i'm using the ATi is that I;m waiting for my Nvidia GT120. I see where u coming to remove my ATi card..but when i switch to Resolve i can't have nothing connect to the GTX285 because it my GPU for processing and RESOVLE require that nothing should be connect to it..if there a monitor connect to this GPU resolve wouldn't run that what Black Magic Design said on it configuration page.
thanks

Spinning colour wheel after replacing ATI 2600 card with NVIDIA FX 4500

Hi Everyone.
I've been using an ATI 2600 card as a temporary replacement for my damaged NVIDIA 7300T card while waiting for my NVIDIA FX 4500 card to arrive.
After the card arrived, I installed it and started the system.
After the initial Apple logo, the spinning colour wheel appeared and remained spinning for 6 hours. I switched off the system for now for fear of overheating or damage.
Do you guys and gals have any experience in this matter ?
How do I solve it and get my Mac started ?
I'm using a 1st Gen MAc bought in March 2007.
Running with 7GB RAM and Snow Leopard 10.6.7
Sincerely,
Azman

Hi Grant,
Thanks for responding.
I bought the FX 4500 card on ebay. The link is below.
http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140524656263&ssPageName=AD ME:B:EOIBSA:SG:1123
The seller said the card was tested fine on a MacPro version 1,1 and OSX 10.6 before it was shipped out to me.
Any thoughts ?
- Azman

Will the ATI 2600 be updated during the iMac's lifespan?

I know it's impossible to upgrade the card yourself, but if I wait a couple months to buy an iMac, is there a chance Apple will have upgraded the card? Say to a mid range ATI 3xxx card once those are released? Thanks.

Its really not all that hard. Everything is behind the screen instead of the back. All you do is pop off the glass in the front and you have access to the computer. I did it when I bought my new iMac. It had some kind of smudge or smear on the inside of the glass, I just took a suction cup and the glass screen popped right off. Its held their by magnets. I was just cleaning the glass but when you look at it the screws are there to remove the LCD panel and get at the innards of the computer. I always wondered how they made it such a seamless design, now I see how, they went thru the front. Genius, imo.
I'm also surprised Apple went with ATI. They have a history of very buggy drivers so frankly I'm not surprised about this freezing issue being GPU related. Every new ATI card I got when I had my PC had some kind of driver issue. I do think Nvidia's cards run a lot hotter than ATI's though, which is probably why Apple chose them.

Firefox in bootCamp (imac wtih ATI 2600 XT)

Running bootcamp (windows XP) on an iMac with the ATI radeon 2600XT. Firefox looks terrible. Buttons do not appear, pull down menus are transparent, so I can often not read them (since the underlying text is visible). I am assuming this is a video card issue since at home I have nearly the saem iMAC with the 512MB Nvidia, and I do not have this problem with firefox in bootcamp. Also, early on I was having weird red text issues in firefox (which was a known problem with the ATI card, I believe, and fixed with a display properties "appearance" adjustment I think).
obviously this is not a critical issue, but I really prefer firefox and would just like it to look good/correct. Anyone else see this and/or have a solution? thanks
Windows XP SP3
Firefox 3.0.5

Thanks Kappy,
This is true I found out. The hardware is missing more modern 'components' which drivers cannot fix.
Bill

IMac 2.66 Radeon HD 2600 Pro: some Excel files won't display in ppt decks

Running Leopard 10.5.8 and MS Office 2004
Two iMac (8.1) 2.66 GHz with ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro video won't display some Excel files in PowerPoint decks, but iMac 1.83 GHz Core Duo will display o.k. as will MacBook Pro, MacBook, etc. Installing a trial version of Office 2008, both iMac 2.66 GHz display the PowerPoint files o.k.
I could downgrade the users to Intel iMac 1.83 GHz, or buy two copies of Office 2008 and support them, neither of which is a great solution.
Looking for a simple fix or workaround on what seems to be a video card issue. Don't seem to see this problem or a fix on the ATI site. I've googled this but haven't run into a similar issue.

Well, Office 2008 is only $110 USD at http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-2008-Home-Student/dp/B000X86ZAS/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1251560959&sr=8-1
That seems the least expensive solution to me.

We need new OpenGL updates for ATI 2600 cards!

I am now on game number two where I cannot run it because my graphics card drivers are out of date. The last time Apple had ATI Radeon 2600 graphics card uppdates was in 2010. OpenGL have had many updates in their gaming structure since then. ATI have 'no' updates that work on the iMac.
May I please ask that Apple implement an update that will bring great running iMacs with Radeon 2600 GC's up to date.
Kind regards,
Bill
LHC

Can I upgrade the video card in my 2009 iMac with the new ATI 2 GB VRAM card?

I am looking for more video RAM for video, CGI and animation work in Blender.
I may purchase Final Cut Pro X in the near future and I need to make sure there is enough video RAM to be able to work with this version of FInal Cut.
I, currently, use Final Cut 4 Express and though this runs fine, through Rosetta, on my current setup, I fear this much newer version may need more graphics power than I have, now.
I, also noticed some lag when working with Blender.
No where near as much graphics or video/animation lag as when I using Blender on my old G4m but it's still slightly noticeable.
I realize I may have to install this myself.
Can I purchase, somewhere, Apple's 1 or 2 GB ATI card seperately or from a third party vendor and install, myself.
I have seen posts that tell that the 27 inch iMac has a removable video card and is not soldered to the logic board like in the 21 inch models.
If true, is there a complete procedure for the iMac breakdown, installation of the video card and reassembly procedure?
My iMac only has the stock 256 MB VRAM graphics card.
If the take down looks more difficult than I feel I can attempt, I have an Apple authorized reseller, repair facilty here, in my area.
Could I purchase the card and have them install it for a fee?
ThanX for all of the info and advice, in advance
Michel

You will need to check if your model originally was offered with a custom build option that included a different graphics card. If so, you may be able to have it done; here is a fellow who managed to do it on a 2011 iMac (graphics card not soldered) and the model originally offered a better card option:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18919734#18919734
Is this yours:
http://everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-2-duo-3.06-27-inch-alumin um-late-2009-specs.html
In particular, click on the link in this section of the specs:
I'd check either with Apple and/or an AASP to see if it can be done with yours or if yours is one of those where it is part of the Logic Board/soldered to it.

IMac 9400 or iMa Ati 2600

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