6970m vs desktop gtx470

[FlyPenFly]

Just curious but what sort of performance difference would i see between the two with the 6970m in the imac 2011 with 1gb ram vs a desktop gtx470. Both systems are i7 3.4ghz and have the same 16gb ram.

 

[Qbah]

Just curious but what sort of performance difference would i see between the two with the 6970m in the imac 2011 with 1gb ram vs a desktop gtx470. Both systems are i7 3.4ghz and have the same 16gb ram.

The 6970M is like a severely underclocked HD6850 (680MHz vs 775MHz). A GTX470 is like 50% faster.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6970M.43077.0.html

 

[Lonyo]

Yeah, mobile GPUs are usually AT BEST equivalent of one "step down" in terms of desktop GPUs. Typically they use the same core as the step down, but at lower clocks on GPU and RAM. Sometimes they can also be a cut down version of that core.

e.g. AMD 6900M = 6800 desktop
NV 580M = 560 desktop

Easy to remember general rule of thumb.

 

[-Slacker-]

Still, this has to be the most powerful gaming gpu ever put on a mac ... Impressive, I guess, at least in comparison with other apple products.

 

[Wuzup101]

Still, this has to be the most powerful gaming gpu ever put on a mac ... Impressive, I guess, at least in comparison with other apple products.

IIRC, my powerbook G4 had a Radeon 9700 pro in it - which was fairly powerful for the day (but yeah not close to today's standards).

 

[RussianSensation]

AMD Radeon HD 6970M
960 Shaders, 48 TMUs, 32 ROPs, Core Clocks: 580MHz (6950M) or 680MHz (6970M)
256-bit Memory Bus, GDDR5, Effective Memory Clocks: 3.6GHz
Desktop Counterpart: Radeon HD 6850 (Barts)

GTX470 ~ GTX560Ti, give or take 5%.

So a desktop GTX470 will be about 30-35% faster than the 6970M.

However, that's still mighty impressive for a mobile part! The problem is for 2560 by 1440 pixels, it's not enough power for modern games. But it should play games like Portal 2, WOW, Starcraft 2 just fine. Just don't expect to run Crysis 2, Metro 2033, BF3, SKYRIM on a 6970M at 2560x1440. But in all fairness, a single GTX470 can't do that either.