Macworld has posted a new article detailing gaming benchmark results for Apple's latest versions of the Mac Pro and iMac desktop systems. The computers were compared to their previous incarnations in gaming tests involving Quake 4 and Call of Duty 4 at low and high resolutions.

Turning to the new iMacs, we see a pretty large spread of graphics performance, with the 3.06GHz 24-inch iMac able to display up to six times as many frames per second as the 2.66GHz 24-inch iMac. The new iMacs ship with one of three different stock graphics cards, with a BTO (built to order) graphics card also available. Unfortunately, we were unable to test the iMac with the BTO card.

The two least expensive iMacs of the four-model family offer integrated graphics in the form of Nvidia GeForce 9400M that shares up to 256MB of DDR3 main memory. This is the same graphics system featured in the Mac mini and across the entire MacBook line. And while it’s a major step up from the Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics used in MacBooks and minis before, the discreet graphics in the two higher-end iMacs outperformed the integrated graphics in every test. In fact, the Nvidia GeForce GT 130 graphics used in the high-end, 3.06GHz 24-inch iMac was faster than the standard Mac Pro models which use the GeForce GT120 graphics, the same as the 24-inch 2.93GHz iMac. As you might expect, the systems using the GT 120 graphics performed similarly, though with 512MB of GDDR3 memory, the Mac Pros were a little faster than the 2.93GHz iMac, which has just 256MB of GDDR3 memory.

Macworld: Newest Mac Pro, iMac Gaming Benchmarks

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