i5 or i7

[electricdreams]

purchased a refurb i5 base, the most intense thing I use it is recording, Cubase with VST's.. so far works ok, will I see a performance boost with any of the i7 minis'? the i5 is dual core but shows 4 threads, the i7 will show 8?.. is that a big step up?

[COrocket]

The i7 quad will show 8 threads. If the software fully utilizes multiple cores, the i7 has almost double the processing power, according to passmark benchmarks. I'm not familiar with Cubase/VST's, so I can't comment on how much it will help you specifically.

[Mr. Retrofire]

Originally Posted by electricdreams

purchased a refurb i5 base, the most intense thing I use it is recording, Cubase with VST's.. so far works ok, will I see a performance boost with any of the i7 minis'? the i5 is dual core but shows 4 threads, the i7 will show 8?.. is that a big step up?

Refurb what? 2011, 2012?

iAssume you mean the i5 Mac mini 2011, which has the Intel i5-2415M processor.

The i7-2620M (Mac mini 2011) reaches 4006 points, while the i5-2415M (Mac mini 2011) reaches only 3378 points. The i7-3720QM (Mac mini 2012) reaches 8468 points.

(100 / 3378) * (4006 - 3378) ≈ 18 % faster
or
(100 / 3378) * (8468 - 3378) ≈ 150 % faster

So the i7 Mac mini 2011 is ≈ 18 % faster than the i5 Mac mini 2011, and the i7 Mac mini 2012 is ≈ 150 % faster than the i5 Mac mini 2011. The i7 Mac mini 2012 is only a little bit slower than the i7 iMac 2012.

Or in other words: The i7 Mac mini 2012 with a Samsung 830 SSD or Samsung 840 Pro SSD and 16 GB RAM is a little beast.