2011 imac i5 or 2010 imac i7?

[daleelliott]

i posted this earlier in the wrong spot...

looking to get a refurbished imac from the apple store and can't wait. currently have a really outdated system: PPC G5. using for graphic design business - photoshop, illustrator, indesign, and quark. no video editing at this point.

it sounds like the i7s are "faster" than i5s. but is something released in may 2011 superior to july 2010 and would it likely last longer?

which do you think would work best for my described situation? either one would be a major improvement.

Refurbished iMac 27-inch 2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
Originally released May 2011
27-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display
4GB memory
1TB hard drive
8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics with 512MB memory

Built-in FaceTime HD camera
$1,419.00

OR

Refurbished iMac 27-inch 2.93GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 processor
Originally released July 2010
27-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display
4GB memory
1TB hard drive
8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics with 1GB memory
Built-in iSight camera
$1,569.00

thanks!

 

[aggri1]

Hi,

I would expect that for most of what you're doing, there won't be a difference in speed resulting from having eight 'virtual' cores compared with just the four real ones. A fast disk (SSD) would most likely make a much greater difference in most usage situations. I don't know whether the 6770M graphics are significantly better than the 5750M graphics.

Anyway, that's something which could be argued about ad nauseum. I think that coming from a G5, both will be a vast improvement (I moved to an i5 iMac from a 1.25GHz G4).

I see a major difference between the 2010 and later iMacs being the inclusion of ThunderBolt and the elimination of the ability to act as a DisplayPort display.
* Thunderbolt may well mean that you can use the machine longer by using the hypothetically vast range of high-speed devices that will one day hypothetically use Thunderbolt.
* But with the 2010 model you'll be able to use it as a monitor for any DisplayPort signal (now common on PC graphics cards), so when you get another computer down the track, you'll be able to use it as a screen. The Thunderbolt model will only work as a screen with a Thunderbolt source, which at the moment is another new Mac. Hopefully they will also work with (currently hypothetical) non-Mac Thunderbolt sources, but who knows...

I have the 2010 i5, and am glad about that. I couldn't afford any Thunderbolt devices anyway.

 

[radckh]

But with the 2010 model you'll be able to use it as a monitor for any DisplayPort signal (now common on PC graphics cards), so when you get another computer down the track, you'll be able to use it as a screen. The Thunderbolt model will only work as a screen with a Thunderbolt source, which at the moment is another new Mac. Hopefully they will also work with (currently hypothetical) non-Mac Thunderbolt sources, but who knows...

So are you saying that the 2011 iMacs will NOT allow you to plug a Windows PC into it? I was planning on getting a new iMac soon and was planning on getting a cable to connect my old PC to the iMac just in case I ever need to use it again.

 

[robo456]

That's actually what put me off about the 2011's...

I couldn't plug my xbox into it... AFAIK Kanex hasn't come up with a thunderbolt solution as of yet either.

I still don't quite understand why apple went with the thunderbolt stuff anyway, even this far after launch, isn't there only a handful of stuff that actually can use it?

--rob

 

[daleelliott]

went with the 2011 imac, the apple store didn't have any of the 2010s on its site this morning.

thanks for the feedback

 

[Charcoalwerks]

Wirelessly posted

You're gonna love it. I bought one in November. Upgraded from a mid 2007 MacBook. I put 12 gigs of ram in it too. You'll be amazed at how fast ps and ai open up #

 

[Macman45]

That's actually what put me off about the 2011's...

I couldn't plug my xbox into it... AFAIK Kanex hasn't come up with a thunderbolt solution as of yet either.

I still don't quite understand why apple went with the thunderbolt stuff anyway, even this far after launch, isn't there only a handful of stuff that actually can use it?

--rob

There are cables out their, although I'm not sure about the Xbox stuff. Iwires. Harge an arm and a leg. I fell into the trap of buying an optical cable ( TOS to 3.5mm) from them...bought an el cheapo one and found it came with the little adapters to change it anyway. Grrr.

Thunderbolt really has been a disappointment, my cable has been used once for target disk mode.

I have a 27" iMac, so don't want another display...I'd really hoped they'd have released more peripherals by now...A lame duck? Maybe.

 

[forty2j]

Thunderbolt really has been a disappointment, my cable has been used once for target disk mode.

As new cables/ports go, it's still extremely new, and hasn't really shown up on non-Mac PCs yet. Peripherals will come, eventually.

The whole "use your iMac as a monitor for another video source" problem is one that Apple should really solve, though. There's a lot of demand for it. Crossing my fingers for HDMI-in on the 2012 iMac (though I don't really expect it).

 

[aggri1]

So are you saying that the 2011 iMacs will NOT allow you to plug a Windows PC into it? I was planning on getting a new iMac soon and was planning on getting a cable to connect my old PC to the iMac just in case I ever need to use it again.

No I'm not saying that. I'm saying that you can't feed a DisplayPort (or DVI/HDMI/VGA) display signal into the iMac. You can only feed the iMac a Thunderbolt signal. So in principle, the iMac _SHOULD_ be able to be used as a display for any Thunderbolt PC (though this hasn't yet been demonstrated to my knowledge).

All you need, then, is a PC with a Thunderbolt port, which shouldn't be hard to find since Thunderbolt is such a roaring success and over a year old now...