Quad i5 or Quad i7 Imac

[mattyb240]

I have the opportunity to buy an iMac at a reasonable price! I'm not sure whether or not to go for the i5 or i7?

My main program is Lightroom 3 and a tiny bit of CS5. Presently my Raw images are only 10mb, but in the next year or so I hope to upgrade to a Canon 5dmkII which has 21mp images.

Will Lightroom utilise hyper threading? Is it worth spending the extra for "future proofing". Whilst the difference in price is roughly £100 after I have sold some bits, it is still £100!

I currently have a 2.66 i7 MBP and don't need the portability anymore.

[Designer Dale]

Why not just get a good external monitor and keyboard setup? That MBPro outclasses the '08 machine I use for photo editing. It amounts to a big paperweight next to my 23 in. Samsung monitor, but it's cheaper than a new iMac. Every time I think I need to upgrade, I open iStat Pro and look at my processor usage during an operation. I never seem to use more that 65% of my Core2Duo. I do need more ram, though.

My 2k worth.

Dale

[HBOC]

I went with a base i5 QC iMac and it is quick. I upped the RAM to 8GB. I have a 1Ds (file sizes vary up to 14MB), and will probably get a 1Ds2 before next spring. After working on my files, they quickly climb to 100MB each (after running actions, some NiK work, etc) and I have many files open at the same time, as well as my iTunes library (that is all music and 110GB), Aperture 3 running with Office 2011 and Ai CS4. No hiccups!

[mattyb240]

Thats good to know! I have a great setup with my MBP with a nice Dell external and keyboard and trackpad. As I don't need portability and always like more poke I figured it was worth it. Plus with my discount and selling my MBP I won't be spending any money.

[Ruahrc]

You will get some benefit from the hyperthreading- just up to you as to whether it will be 100GBP worth. I noticed when I use LR with my i7 mini server, when rendering previews it does max out all 8 threads- so at least LR is multithreaded enough to utilize the available cores.

Obviously as it's hyperthreaded virtual cores and not 4 additional physical cores, it's not going to be 2x the speed. I don't know what the efficiency gain is for hyperthreading, anyone know?

Ruahrc

[mofunk]

I'm with Designer Dale on this one... use your money to buy more glass. No need to get an iMac.

[mattyb240]

Originally Posted by Ruahrc

You will get some benefit from the hyperthreading- just up to you as to whether it will be 100GBP worth. I noticed when I use LR with my i7 mini server, when rendering previews it does max out all 8 threads- so at least LR is multithreaded enough to utilize the available cores.

Obviously as it's hyperthreaded virtual cores and not 4 additional physical cores, it's not going to be 2x the speed. I don't know what the efficiency gain is for hyperthreading, anyone know?

Thats good to know as I do render on import, its not my profession so I guess its not critical how fast it renders but I would always like more speed.

Ruahrc

Originally Posted by mofunk

I'm with Designer Dale on this one... use your money to buy more glass. No need to get an iMac.

Even though in theory it would be a straight trade for the quad i5?