If you don't want to encode HD videos in a virtual machine those should work perfectly on the i5 as well. No need to buy an i7 just for that.
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Do I really need the core i7?
- Thread starter doxavita
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If you don't want to encode HD videos in a virtual machine those should work perfectly on the i5 as well. No need to buy an i7 just for that.
The new Intel Celeron processor is roughly equivalent to the older Core 2 Duo model CPU's... so unless a first gen Core 2 CPU isn't good enough, there's no reason why you would need an i7... or an i5... or an i3
Regarding those apps I mentioned I would be using: No need for hyper threading then? Only app I could think of that might need more processor would be a chess engine. But it's not like I need the BEST moves figured out...
As the years pass and I start feeling some slow-down in my system, which part would be to blame?
As the years pass and I start feeling some slow-down in my system, which part would be to blame?
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Im on the anti SSD wagon since 98% of you wont need it.
But heres where that price vs performance falls apart.
As long as you have enough ram, even working with 500 meg Photoshop files -- the "speed" of Photoshop isnt increased with a SSD. If you had minimal ram you could use a SSD as a scratch disc (say if you were using a MB Air with its 4 gig ram limit) which would be plenty quick. But you arent.
I just googled and found this right on the Adobe site: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb40443...0state disks
Solid-state disks
Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience, because thats the only time when a lot of data is read from the SSD.
To gain the greatest benefit from an SSD, use it as the scratch disk. Using it as a scratch disk gives you significant performance improvements if you have images that dont fit entirely in RAM. For example, swapping tiles between RAM and an SSD is much faster than swapping between RAM and a hard disk.
If your SSD doesnt have much free space (that is, in case the scratch file ever grows bigger than will fit on the SSD), you can add a secondary or tertiary hard disk (after the SSD).
Also, SSDs vary widely in performance, much more so than hard disks. Using an earlier, slower drive results in little improvement over a hard disk.
Note: Adding RAM to improve performance is more cost effective than purchasing an SSD. If money is no object, you're maxed out on installed RAM for your computer, you run Photoshop CS5 as a 64-bit application, and you still need to improve performance, then consider using a solid-state disk as your scratch disk.
And thats why Im missing the hype over a SSD for 98% of users. Unless you are exceeding the ram in your Mac doing ginormus PSD files and need a SSD as a scratch disk, then you dont really "need" one. Or maybe if you are encoding/transcoding hours of video on a daily basis.
The best way to see that $600 in action is to shutdown, restart and have it open all you apps at login -- do that 5 or 6 times a day so you can "feel" like the $600 was worth it. Of course, like most normal users -- I only reboot every 3-4 months, so the speed of the SSD is lost.
Im going to quote something else from another forum I visit occasionally as well:
SSDs mostly help out in three cases
1) Programs load faster and Windows starts a little faster. Loading large programs like Photoshop or video processors would be improved
2) Enterprise environments with enormous amounts of random reads, like Web servers or databases that mostly service inquiries.
3) If you have a bucket of money and nothing better to do with it, buy one (or more) big enough for your photoshop images and video files. Increase the speed of editing and transcoding.
But if everything is loading fast enough for you, and you are using high-memory-consumption tools like Photoshop and video encoding, consider getting more memory instead.
But heres where that price vs performance falls apart.
As long as you have enough ram, even working with 500 meg Photoshop files -- the "speed" of Photoshop isnt increased with a SSD. If you had minimal ram you could use a SSD as a scratch disc (say if you were using a MB Air with its 4 gig ram limit) which would be plenty quick. But you arent.
I just googled and found this right on the Adobe site: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb40443...0state disks
Solid-state disks
Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience, because thats the only time when a lot of data is read from the SSD.
To gain the greatest benefit from an SSD, use it as the scratch disk. Using it as a scratch disk gives you significant performance improvements if you have images that dont fit entirely in RAM. For example, swapping tiles between RAM and an SSD is much faster than swapping between RAM and a hard disk.
If your SSD doesnt have much free space (that is, in case the scratch file ever grows bigger than will fit on the SSD), you can add a secondary or tertiary hard disk (after the SSD).
Also, SSDs vary widely in performance, much more so than hard disks. Using an earlier, slower drive results in little improvement over a hard disk.
Note: Adding RAM to improve performance is more cost effective than purchasing an SSD. If money is no object, you're maxed out on installed RAM for your computer, you run Photoshop CS5 as a 64-bit application, and you still need to improve performance, then consider using a solid-state disk as your scratch disk.
And thats why Im missing the hype over a SSD for 98% of users. Unless you are exceeding the ram in your Mac doing ginormus PSD files and need a SSD as a scratch disk, then you dont really "need" one. Or maybe if you are encoding/transcoding hours of video on a daily basis.
The best way to see that $600 in action is to shutdown, restart and have it open all you apps at login -- do that 5 or 6 times a day so you can "feel" like the $600 was worth it. Of course, like most normal users -- I only reboot every 3-4 months, so the speed of the SSD is lost.
Im going to quote something else from another forum I visit occasionally as well:
SSDs mostly help out in three cases
1) Programs load faster and Windows starts a little faster. Loading large programs like Photoshop or video processors would be improved
2) Enterprise environments with enormous amounts of random reads, like Web servers or databases that mostly service inquiries.
3) If you have a bucket of money and nothing better to do with it, buy one (or more) big enough for your photoshop images and video files. Increase the speed of editing and transcoding.
But if everything is loading fast enough for you, and you are using high-memory-consumption tools like Photoshop and video encoding, consider getting more memory instead.
I'm leaning toward the base model i5, here's my thinking...
Take a look at these results from Macworld:
http://www.macworld.com/article/159862/2011/05/bto2011imacs.html
Sure, when importing a camera archive with iMovie, the i7 is "15 percent faster than the standard 21.5-inch 2.7GHz Core i5". That sounds impressive, but the difference is only 11 seconds; 60 verses 71 seconds. For that amount of money I can wait 11 seconds (or maybe 14 seconds since I'm looking at the 2.5 GHz i5).
Second point: The base model iMac is $500 less than the cheapest i7 (an additional $300 gets you the 2.7 GHz i5, another $200 on top of that gets you the i7). If you save $500, you're almost half way to buying a new computer. In five years, take that $500 and put it toward a new iMac.
Around 5 years ago (think Power PC era), my thinking was "get the fastest machine you could afford". These days the base models are so fast, I think people rarely need more, at least for home use.
btw: I bet for your use, 12GB RAM is overkill. 8GB should be plenty. But you can figure that out as you go.
Take a look at these results from Macworld:
http://www.macworld.com/article/159862/2011/05/bto2011imacs.html
Sure, when importing a camera archive with iMovie, the i7 is "15 percent faster than the standard 21.5-inch 2.7GHz Core i5". That sounds impressive, but the difference is only 11 seconds; 60 verses 71 seconds. For that amount of money I can wait 11 seconds (or maybe 14 seconds since I'm looking at the 2.5 GHz i5).
Second point: The base model iMac is $500 less than the cheapest i7 (an additional $300 gets you the 2.7 GHz i5, another $200 on top of that gets you the i7). If you save $500, you're almost half way to buying a new computer. In five years, take that $500 and put it toward a new iMac.
Around 5 years ago (think Power PC era), my thinking was "get the fastest machine you could afford". These days the base models are so fast, I think people rarely need more, at least for home use.
btw: I bet for your use, 12GB RAM is overkill. 8GB should be plenty. But you can figure that out as you go.
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It´s not just a processor wise, it´s also about GPU. If base 27¨ iMac include upgrade option for GPU to make it 6970M, sure hi-end 27¨ would be obsolete since 3.1Ghz i5 really wasn´t great upgrade compared to 2.7Ghz or even 2.5Ghz on base 21¨
For my use, and likely the Original Poster's use (though I don't know anything about CrossOver's ability to use the GPU), the GPU isn't going to make much difference.
For what you are doing, you will most likely never notice the difference.
Going out on a limb here -- Im going to guess the i7 is faster -- in everything.
So if you can afford the i7, buy it.
The i7 is a respectable upgrade, but the main bottle neck these days is IO. IF OP is mostly concerned about how fast a machine 'feels' the upgrades would probably run in this order:
SSD: Massive 'snappiness' improvement. Out of OP's price range. Maybe an external ThunderBolt drive can be added down the road
RAM: Moderate 'snappiness' improvement. Best bang for you buck, but it will only get you so far. Adding more then you need won't result in further improvements.
CPU: Low 'snappiness' improvement. Will do little to make your machine feel faster during common tasks, but can make a significant difference for heavy lifting tasks like video encoding or some PS filters.
GPU: Low 'snappiness' improvement. Can make a difference for games or some accelerated PS functions. The jump for 1GB to 2GB probably isn't worth it for a mobile series GPU.
SSD: Massive 'snappiness' improvement. Out of OP's price range. Maybe an external ThunderBolt drive can be added down the road
RAM: Moderate 'snappiness' improvement. Best bang for you buck, but it will only get you so far. Adding more then you need won't result in further improvements.
CPU: Low 'snappiness' improvement. Will do little to make your machine feel faster during common tasks, but can make a significant difference for heavy lifting tasks like video encoding or some PS filters.
GPU: Low 'snappiness' improvement. Can make a difference for games or some accelerated PS functions. The jump for 1GB to 2GB probably isn't worth it for a mobile series GPU.
Id say a good lot of us that post here are smarter than 95% of all apple store "sales" people
Regardless of how knowledgeable the sales associate may be, it's good to keep in mind that they have an incentive to up-sell. I'm not accusing them of being deceitful, but they may exaggerate the benefits.
Well???? How is it? I need to live vicariously thorough you since I'm waiting for SSD's iMac's to ship
Even the i5 one (3.1Ghz) should last me a good 5-6 years, right?
Depends .. r u easily satisifed? r u doing a lot of heavy work and multi tasking.
I still keep my Intel Prescott 3Ghz .. solo core !! I manage to resist the slowness of my PC. I do game .. but not on my PC anymore. This PC is for works only, though almost irresistable, but things get faster when I use Ubuntu.
But not anymore!!! With this new iMac .. I´m tempted to make the big jump. And for me, I think I´ll be satisfied with this iMac for incoming years..
Remember, your computer hardly change. It perform equally as when you bought it. But the next computer would be faster, and that makes you think your computer is slower, while it´s not.
Depends .. r u easily satisifed? r u doing a lot of heavy work and multi tasking.
I still keep my Intel Prescott 3Ghz .. solo core !! I manage to resist the slowness of my PC. I do game .. but not on my PC anymore. This PC is for works only, though almost irresistable, but things get faster when I use Ubuntu.
But not anymore!!! With this new iMac .. I´m tempted to make the big jump. And for me, I think I´ll be satisfied with this iMac for incoming years..
Remember, your computer hardly change. It perform equally as when you bought it. But the next computer would be faster, and that makes you think your computer is slower, while it´s not.
Heaviest app I think I'll be using (not now) would be Dreamweaver and Photoshop, other than that I'll use CrossOver to run my windows apps (Chess stuff mainly, soulseek, word 2010 and winamp), and the usual staff in Mac. I hope CrossOver doesn't rely too much on hyperthreading, as I went for the i5 one (3.1Ghz)... But I think I'll be fine.
This is mostly unrelated to the OP but I wanted to respond to this because the arguments kind of miss the point of having an SSD.
What an SSD is incredible for, compared to traditional HDDs, is many random small reads. That happens to be what you need when doing things like booting the OS or starting apps, and things like that. The effect on normal computer usage is that many things feel instantaneous. Apps load in <1 bounce, and the computer boots and logs in in seconds.
This makes a big and perceptible difference in how it feels to use the OS for day-to-day things, even though it's true that it won't generally help you out for processor and RAM intensive tasks like heavy photoshop processing.