i5 vs i7 upgrade? Worth the $200?

xgman said:

Is the $200 hit worth it for a 27" 3.2 i5 to a 3.4 i7? Real world noticeable in a variety of uses?

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Probably not if you actually have to ask! Only people with heavily threaded programs will notice the difference.

Depending on the take it could be the difference of 10-20 seconds. No a huge deal for most. If you do a lot of Photoshop or other heavy CPU tasks you'll notice it. If you use your machine for office type jobs you won't. But this years i5s are nearly as fast as last year's i7 so they are no slouches.

For most people, probably not. I went i7, but it probably won't be a great value. I did it more to attempt to future proof the machine, as I want 6+ years out of a nearly $3,000 machine. I'm starting to do some photography, so at least I'll use it a bit more than general users.

xgman said:

I ordered the i7 for mine for heavy use. The 2nd one i ordered with an i5 which will be used more for gaming and then multipurpose. I did get 680's on both. Would the i7 make games play any better or is it mostly in the vid card at that difference?

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Actually some Games run slower on a same specced i7 because they don't play well with the SMT. Most games are not optimized to run on more then 2 cores. A fasted clocked processor will still be faster of course but this is a marginal increase and probably imperceptible in actual gameplay.

i7 is just not worth it.

I just figure take the cost and divide it by 3 years minimum and then you are only paying:

66.00 a year
5.50 a month

so why not!

BUt then again..don't ask me how in debt I am using this type of justification for everything

bgsnmky said:

I just figure take the cost and divide it by 3 years minimum and then you are only paying:

66.00 a year
5.50 a month

so why not!

BUt then again..don't ask me how in debt I am using this type of justification for everything

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This is how I justify these types of purchases to my wife

xgman said:

Is the $200 hit worth it for a 27" 3.2 i5 to a 3.4 i7? Real world noticeable in a variety of uses?

Click to expand...

Actually you will pay $400 extra for the i7 upgrade because the lower ind 27" does not offer the i7. So you will have to get the high end 27" for the i7 option