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i5 or i7 (for my uses)?


  • Total voters
    57
  • Poll closed .

Lukkee24

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 20, 2011
669
355
London
I'm ordering a new 21.5inch iMac but was wondering if its worth the extra £150 to upgrade the processor from quad-core 2.9 i5 to quad-core 3.1 i7.

Uses:
- the usual email/web browsing
- Microsoft office for college
- Macromedia flash for college
- Bootcamp
- Gaming but nothing much, at most maybe a simulation game every now and then
- Will be a lot of multitasking

So yeah, do you think I'd notice much difference between the two? Enough difference to make it worthwhile paying the extra £150? Or would you rather spend that money elsewhere, maybe upgrading something else.
 
Last edited:

50548

Guest
Apr 17, 2005
5,039
2
Currently in Switzerland
I'm ordering a new 21.5inch iMac but was wondering if its worth the extra £150 to upgrade the processor from quad-core 2.9 i5 to quad-core 3.1 i7.

Uses:
- the usual email/web browsing
- Microsoft office for college
- Macromedia flash for college
- Bootcamp
- Gaming but nothing much, at most maybe a simulation game every now and then
- Will be a lot of multitasking

So yeah, do you think I'd notice much difference between the two? Enough difference to make it worthwhile paying the extra £150? Or would you rather spend that money elsewhere, maybe upgrading something else.

No.
 

comatose81

macrumors 6502a
Dec 17, 2009
585
0
Yes... you will forever regret not getting the i7 if you don't. You will spend your days looking up at the night sky and saying, "if only I had just changed the radio button..." Your i5 will laugh at you, knowing that you will resent it all the days of its life, but can't do anything to change it.

Don't suffer... get the i7.
 

Lukkee24

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 20, 2011
669
355
London
Yes... you will forever regret not getting the i7 if you don't. You will spend your days looking up at the night sky and saying, "if only I had just changed the radio button..." Your i5 will laugh at you, knowing that you will resent it all the days of its life, but can't do anything to change it.

Don't suffer... get the i7.

What are you going on about?
 

shortie8512

macrumors member
Aug 28, 2011
32
0
Guildford, UK
Yes... you will forever regret not getting the i7 if you don't. You will spend your days looking up at the night sky and saying, "if only I had just changed the radio button..." Your i5 will laugh at you, knowing that you will resent it all the days of its life, but can't do anything to change it.

Don't suffer... get the i7.

That is exactly how I justified getting an i7 with mine! :rolleyes: I bought my last iMac in 2006 (the basic, first version of the Intel iMac) and on the basis of having that machine for many years I thought I'd get something a bit more beefed up so it'll still be eating small children for breakfast in a few years time...
 

Hexley

Suspended
Jun 10, 2009
1,641
504
Better to have an Core i7 than have no Core i7.

From what I understand it is a bitch to upgrade the processor.
 

Johnf1285

macrumors 6502a
Dec 25, 2010
965
61
Put that money toward something else, maybe some accessories for your new iMac or toward the Fusion Drive, something you would notice the biggest speed increase from.

Your work load is similar to mine and an i5 is plenty. If you were doing some serious video editing or photo editing, I would say go i7.

Sure if you did upgrade the processor, the iMac will retain that it in it's resale value, but to say that it'll future proof things is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. My reasoning is that by the time a CPU with 8mb of cache and multi threading becomes the norm for typical usage, it'll be a whole new socket, new chipset, faster bus speeds, faster ram, faster everything.
 

benwiggy

macrumors 68020
Jun 15, 2012
2,371
179
Uses:
- the usual email/web browsing
- Microsoft office for college
- Macromedia flash for college
- Bootcamp
- Gaming but nothing much, at most maybe a simulation game every now and then
- Will be a lot of multitasking
Email, web, MS Office: Handled by most computers easily since the year 2000.
Multitasking: Introduced on Mac OS 7 in 1991.
Bootcamp: Needs disk space for Windows partition. Otherwise, any Ivy Bridge computer should just about be able to run Windows.
Flash: That will max out whatever CPU you give it.
Gaming: Assuming you occasionally see the daylight, gaming on a Mac is fine.

But seriously:
The one advantage on the i7 would be that you could run Windows in a VM more smoothly. But the i5 Quad-core would still probably be fine.

You're much more likely to notice the effect of having an SSD than the multi-threading from an i7. But good luck with that on the base iMac.

Modern machines are screamingly fast. They have MANY factors more processing power than computers from even 5 years ago. Computing tasks in the same five years have, for most people, stayed pretty much the same.
 

RhinoMac

macrumors newbie
Dec 8, 2012
6
0
Put that money toward something else, maybe some accessories for your new iMac or toward the Fusion Drive, something you would notice the biggest speed increase from.

Your work load is similar to mine and an i5 is plenty. If you were doing some serious video editing or photo editing, I would say go i7.

Sure if you did upgrade the processor, the iMac will retain that it in it's resale value, but to say that it'll future proof things is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. My reasoning is that by the time a CPU with 8mb of cache and multi threading becomes the norm for typical usage, it'll be a whole new socket, new chipset, faster bus speeds, faster ram, faster everything.

I completely agree with Johnf. This article also led me to choose an i5:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/10/core-i5-or-core-i7-does-your-computer-need-the-extra-juice/
 

Lukkee24

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 20, 2011
669
355
London
Ok thanks everyone, I decided to just stick with the i5 - surprisingly, it has already shipped!
 
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