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i5 processors on new iMacs?

G

goodlittlesquid

Guest
All the new iMacs come with i5 processors. The only machine that will be upgradable to an i7 is the highest end 27" model.

I am not a gamer and could care less about graphics, thus, I was planning on getting the lower end 27". However, I am a graphic designer/illustrator and I want to be able to have multiple photoshop files open with 15+ layers, Illustrator, HD video streaming in Safari, and also iTunes plus maybe contacts and calendars all running simultaneously.

Is it worth busting my budget and springing for the highest end 27", just so I can upgrade to an i7? Will I notice the difference, or are i7s really only for gamers? Please help!

(p.s. I plan to max out the RAM. 3rd party, of course. Does getting an i5 with 32gb RAM make sense? Again, I need this machine for 2D professional graphic work. Not video, animation, or gaming.)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
niuniu said:
I do more than what you're talkin about with a 9400m, 2.3Ghz C2Duo and 4GB Ram.

You really don't need an i7 with 32GB RAM by the sounds of things. PS/iTunes/Safari etc is casual these days. Base models handle that.
Click to expand...

running CS6? So you think I'd be more than ok if I got the low end 27" with say 16 GB RAM??
 
The i7's are more for rendering and curing cancer. GPU is much more important than CPU for the majority of games.
 
Are there any professional graphic artists out there (not video editing or gamers) planning on getting the new iMac? Which model are you going for??
 
goodlittlesquid said:
All the new iMacs come with i5 processors. The only machine that will be upgradable to an i7 is the highest end 27" model.

I am not a gamer and could care less about graphics, thus, I was planning on getting the lower end 27". However, I am a graphic designer/illustrator and I want to be able to have multiple photoshop files open with 15+ layers, Illustrator, HD video streaming in Safari, and also iTunes plus maybe contacts and calendars all running simultaneously.

Is it worth busting my budget and springing for the highest end 27", just so I can upgrade to an i7? Will I notice the difference, or are i7s really only for gamers? Please help!

(p.s. I plan to max out the RAM. 3rd party, of course. Does getting an i5 with 32gb RAM make sense? Again, I need this machine for 2D professional graphic work. Not video, animation, or gaming.)
Click to expand...
You can do all that with the mac mini. the current one, let alone the new one.

goodlittlesquid said:
Are there any professional graphic artists out there (not video editing or gamers) planning on getting the new iMac? Which model are you going for??
Click to expand...
Yes, i want the new 27 inch with a lot of ram, fast drive for os and applications and an external usb 3.0 drive for my files.
 
goodlittlesquid said:
Are there any professional graphic artists out there (not video editing or gamers) planning on getting the new iMac? Which model are you going for??
Click to expand...

Seriously considering it and haven't decided yet.

Honestly, I currently do design, web dev, and some 3d animation on a 2007 Core2Duo iMac...anything new is going to be blazing fast in comparison.

That being said, my old machine is a bit slow on some things but with the addition of an SSD it's just fine for general day to day use.
 
goodlittlesquid said:
Are there any professional graphic artists out there (not video editing or gamers) planning on getting the new iMac? Which model are you going for??
Click to expand...

Isn't the soldered ram issue enough to point you to the 27"? I'm a video editor, so sorry, but photoshop is a ram hog and will eat what you through at it, and it also seems Adobe CS is better at using CPU/GPU cores in each iteration. I would assume the 27 is on this release suddenly the one to go for, it can be user upgraded to 32g as well.

I feel that Apple are slowly de-professionalising parts of the product line, or at least bringing planned obsolescence into the equation.
 
I'd like to know about this too.

I do photo and video editing I'm not planing on gaming on the iMac.

So I was thinking about going with the lower 27" and just upgrading to the Fusion drive (by the way they just call it 1TB on the apple website does this mean 1tb total memory or 1tb HDD and 256GB SSD so actually 1tb256gb?).

Is the processor on the lower 27" going to be fast enough, GPU also?



(I am planing on probably upgrading to 16GB RAM, 32 sounds like overkill for the vast majority of people)
 
RAM is upgrade able to 32 GB. The web site states this.







CASLondon said:
Isn't the soldered ram issue enough to point you to the 27"? I'm a video editor, so sorry, but photoshop is a ram hog and will eat what you through at it, and it also seems Adobe CS is better at using CPU/GPU cores in each iteration. I would assume the 27 is on this release suddenly the one to go for, it can be user upgraded to 32g as well.

I feel that Apple are slowly de-professionalising parts of the product line, or at least bringing planned obsolescence into the equation.
Click to expand...
 
goodlittlesquid said:
running CS6? So you think I'd be more than ok if I got the low end 27" with say 16 GB RAM??
Click to expand...

Low end 27inch with 8GB RAM and either Flash memory or the Fusion drive. 5 years from now and it will still be fast.

Stick with 8GB RAM until you genuinely are getting slowdown from maxed RAM usage (use a monitor to check your RAM usage) then if you need to upgrade yourself to 16GB later (the 27inch model is user upgradeable for RAM).

Even if you decide to play games on it, the GTX 660M has great FPS, even on high and ultra mode on games like BF3, Dishonoured etc CoD games running in Ultra mode in 60FPS.

The Geekbenches will be out by this weekend - then you'll know just how great these machines are, even the basemodels. Don't listen to the negativity in the meantime.
 
The models on DEFAULT are i5. The 2 higher end ones (For 21.5" and 27") Are configurable. i5 are still great processors. Plus, they are higher GHz than the previous models. No complaints here.
 
A lot of people seem to get stuck on numbers, instead of facts. The i5s are more than adequate for the majority of you.
 
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