iMac. Older i7 or new I5?

ding76uk

ding76uk

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Carl
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Am purchasing a new iMac at the end of the month.

I have been looking at the refurb store and have found the following for £1400


Processor 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 (quad core)
Cache 8MB shared L3 cache
Frontside bus 1066MHz
Memory 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; supports up to 16GB
Hard drive 1TB Serial ATA1; 7200 rpm
Optical drive Slot-loading 8x SuperDrive with 4x double-layer burning (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Display 27-inch (viewable) LED-backlit glossy 16:9 widescreen TFT active-matrix display; 2560 by 1440 pixels; millions of colors; IPS technology
Video Built-in iSight camera; Mini DisplayPort output with support for DVI, dual-link DVI, and VGA video (requires adapters, sold separately); supports input from external DisplayPort sources (requires cables and adapters, sold separately)
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB of GDDR3 memory

Would this be faster/better buy than the new i5


this one http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_mac/family/imac?mco=MTM3NDk0NjU

Which I can get for £1549 with educational discount/

The difference in price is not bothering me, I just want to get the best Mac for my Money.

Cheers in advance as always!
 
Depends on usage really, for me the i7 isn't going to do anything more for me than an i5.

In my case I'd go for the new i5 - the reason being I play games on my iMac's, and the i5 has a better graphics card.
 
But you might never make use of the extra speed, for me personally as i dont do any video work or massivly intensive multi tasking the 3.06MHz core 2 duo with 8Mb Ram actually works quicker than the i5 or i7 models at photo processing, but as you do a little video work these might be a better option.
 
I can't compare to the i7, but I have a new i5 and it's fantastic imo. I have upgraded the RAM to 8GB though - PS and LR etc can eat up a fair bit of RAM.

I heard somewhere though in some cases the i7 can run twice as fast - on apps that are optimised to use all the cores - I think Final Cut Pro is one of them. Hearing that made me sort of wish I had splashed out the extra, but in reality I am very happy with mine.
 
I'm running a 27"iMac i5 ( the previous model) and it handles large 1Ds files without any problems. I did look at the i7, but really couldn't see any real advantage over the i5 for what I wanted. I did invest in and additional 4GB of RAM which I think was a better investments .
 
Just checked my i5 and found that all 4 cores are in use when using a fairly intensive task.

Just resized a 56Mb file to 850Mb it took 6.7 seconds. That's no slouch and your i5 will be quicker as mines a quad core 2.66MHz model
 
Chappers said:
Just checked my i5 and found that all 4 cores are in use when using a fairly intensive task.

Just resized a 56Mb file to 850Mb it took 6.7 seconds. That's no slouch and your i5 will be quicker as mines a quad core 2.66MHz model
Click to expand...

That is impressive! I use a 5D2 and process using Aperture 3 and PS. Will be investing in Final Cut for editing purposes.

Not sure what the deal will be with the new Apple announcement this week. Hopefully will be a free upgrade to the new OS and iLife 11 If I buy after the announcement. May just be worth holding out another week or 2 for this purpose.
 
for video editing id be more inclined to go i7 and the slightly slower memory.

youre talking 2/4 cores and 4 threads vs 4 cores and 8 threads (processor model dependant)
 
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I got a Refurb i7 about a month ago can't say i pushed it to limit but photoshop etc is fine

Not done any video editing as such so can't comment probably overkill for me anyway but for me it was choice of i5 new costing more then the refurb i7 as i didn't have access to educational discount.

The newer models have faster memory and more graphics ram thats the only real differance you'll see on a spec sheet
 
I think the i5 will be almost as good as the i7. I doubt you will see much difference in everyday usage.
 
I have the older i7 and it is fast, certainly upgrade the ram to 8GB. Using a Canon Ids MKII I find with big files it uses all 4 cores but if not the hyper-threading speeds up by using the ideal ones to process stuff. The i5 doesnt do this
 
Carl,

My thoughts would be go for the i7 at the present but I would wait to find out what happens tomorrow. There is not much of a difference but for that difference it is worth it and it is likely to last you longer and when you sell it to fund the next machine it is likely to get you more!
 
This might be an interesting read as it covers the different flavours of chip and takes into account their transistor sizes.
 
ding76uk said:
My lucky day today. Looked on refurb store. 2.93 i7 iMac in stock for less than the i5 with my student discount.

Over the moon, should be here on Weds.

Anything I should check over when i get it? Have the new ones been known to suffer the screen problems?
Click to expand...

Don't worry about it, you get the same warranty so if a fault appears then they will sort it.

You will have fun, do you get iLife11 with it?
 
check for dead or hot pixels, yellowing on the edges,.. they are awesome machines, im glad i made the jump just wished i had made it sooner... :D
 
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