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21.5" i7 vs 27" i7 iMacs

raver001

raver001

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 23, 2011
21
0
UK
Hi I am thinking about buying an iMac in the next couple of days.. I am limited to space so was thinking of getting the 21.5" iMac with i7 Possessor. Is there a big difference between the 21.5" and The 27" iMacs with i7 Possessors? Also I hear that the i7 has hyper threading. Is this the case for both i7 processors or just the one in the 27" iMac.

Would I benefit alot from getting the 27" iMac i7 over the 21.5" i7 as I do alot of video editing and music production.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
 
21.5" models have dual-core i7s and a far weaker GPU. The 27" however, has a quad-core i5 or i7 in addition to the base 27" model, which retains the dual-core i7s of the 21.5" models. The 27" quads get a better GPU, Radeon HD 6970 with 1GB or 2GB of VRAM.
 
adder7712 said:
21.5" models have dual-core i7s and a far weaker GPU. The 27" however, has a quad-core i5 or i7 in addition to the base 27" model, which retains the dual-core i7s of the 21.5" models. The 27" quads get a better GPU, Radeon HD 6970 with 1GB or 2GB of VRAM.
Click to expand...

Um, no. Please, get your facts straight rather than leading a newbie astray. ALL iMacs, regardless of processor, are quad core. Please see here (Apple.com) for more info. The 27" iMacs do have much stronger graphics cards than the 21.5". So, if you need better graphics (gaming, video/photo editing), then go with a 27" (it also has a more color-accurate screen), otherwise, the 21.5" is a great machine. I'm considering buying one myself.

Another difference to note is that the 21.5" iMacs have 1 Thunderbolt port, while the 27" ones have 2. So, without daisy-chaining, you could attach 2 monitors to the 27" while you can only attach 1 to the 21.5" without daisy chaining.
 
adder7712 said:
21.5" models have dual-core i7s and a far weaker GPU. The 27" however, has a quad-core i5 or i7 in addition to the base 27" model, which retains the dual-core i7s of the 21.5" models. The 27" quads get a better GPU, Radeon HD 6970 with 1GB or 2GB of VRAM.
Click to expand...

Hi thanks for the quick response. The apple site actually says that the 21.5" has a 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

Would you or anyone else know if this has hyper threading. ??

Thanks.
 
I have the 21.5 i7. It is faster than any of the 27 inch except the i7, which is about 10% faster than the 21.5. There are many benchmarks if you are curious.

For the kind of use you are going to give it, processor wise the 21.5 i7 will be more than enough. However, you may miss some screen real state for your music apps. The 27 inch monitor has 80% more pixels. But you could also buy the 21.5 and another monitor, like I did.

In terms of graphics power, unless you want to game on it or run any heavy 3D content creation applications, any of them will be fine. The 27 inch i7 has a lot more graphics power if you plan on doing any of those two things, though.

I would invest in the SSD drive. It makes everything a lot faster, and you will notice it a lot in video rendering performance, which is very disk I/O intensive. For tasks other than 3D rendering or heavy math and little I/O, I would say it is more important than the processor you choose.

Any model you choose will be fine. Invest in some non-Apple extra memory. You can add another 8GB for about $60-70, and you will definitely notice it when rendering video.

All this said, the 27 inch is probably better value, for a few hundred dollars you get a much better monitor, a bit more power and an extra TB port. I bought the 21.5 because I wanted the SSD model and there was a very long wait to get it on the 27 inch.
 
Get the 27. I had the 21. When I first saw the 27, I thought, Look at the size of that Monster. If I get that, It will probably wake in the middle of the night and Kill Me!! Now If I see a friends 21 I think I'm glad I didn't get that wimp. They say they should have bought the 27. Pay your money and there is no turning back. (At least for a few years)
 
I was thinking of picking up an iMac myself but just wondering when there'll be a refresh? :)

I was impressed with the display of the 27" iMac but it's HUGE.
 
I apologised that I have the ignored the fact that all iMacs have quad-cores. Guess I'm stuck in 2010. :confused:
 
Rodster said:
I was thinking of picking up an iMac myself but just wondering when there'll be a refresh? :)

I was impressed with the display of the 27" iMac but it's HUGE.
Click to expand...

I dont think they will refresh the iMacs any time soon. They only refershed them a month or so ago.
 
Memory and Hard Drive Question

Hello All,

Wanted to get the iMac 27" 2.7Quad Core.

Questions:

1) I am fairly tech savvy is it worth it upgrade the memory or just get it from crucial? I am assuming to get it from crucial but worried about the warranty being void after i install it.

2) Wanted to find out if i can upgrade the hard drive after i buy, heard that apple made it very difficult to upgrade the internal drive.

Thank you,
 
Loving the 27in. Love having two full size browser windows open side by side, one can be showing Youtube etc, the other for normal browsing, or put the Mail app in there etc. It really is a fabulous screen.
 
roadqueen said:
Hello All,

Wanted to get the iMac 27" 2.7Quad Core.

Questions:

1) I am fairly tech savvy is it worth it upgrade the memory or just get it from crucial? I am assuming to get it from crucial but worried about the warranty being void after i install it.

2) Wanted to find out if i can upgrade the hard drive after i buy, heard that apple made it very difficult to upgrade the internal drive.

Thank you,
Click to expand...

Although I've been a programmer for the last 20+ years I've never been one to tinker with the insides of the machines, but my 27" machine arrived on wednesday with 4gb and I've just installed the 16gb of crucial memory in about 5 minutes, saved myself best part of £400...
 
You get used to the 27" screen very quickly and for photography/video it's the perfect size to be honest. I had a 24" iMac before this and considered the 21.5" but once I saw that real estate I just knew I had to have the 27".
Just buy 8GB of Crucial RAM to add to the 4GB you already have, install yourself in 2 minutes and enjoy. :D
 
Yeah you guys are right about the larger screen size except I abhor the 16:9 format so I may get either a 15" or 17" MBP which are still 16:10 last I checked.
 
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