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persolo

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 7, 2005
18
0
Hello,

I'm wondering whether I should buy an i7 iMac 8GB now and get the 9 month payment extension or wait until after summer before I take the plunge.
The reason I consider buying now is that my Macbook Pro 2.33GHz is really struggling running Aperture 3 with my new camera that produces 14MB Raw files. It is painfully slow. Besides I'm also running low on disk space now that the camera also take video (I have 320GB).

After looking at the Intel roadmaps I'm really uncertain that there will be any new revisions of the iMac this year that really matter performance wise.

Any thoughts on the matter is very welcome. Should I take the plunge now?


Cheers,

Persolo
 
There isn't coming anything new from Intel before 2011...

High-end will remain pretty same so just buy now
 
The reason I consider buying now is that my Macbook Pro 2.33GHz is really struggling running Aperture 3 with my new camera that produces 14MB Raw files. It is painfully slow. Besides I'm also running low on disk space now that the camera also take video (I have 320GB).


I don't know how much RAM you have in your notebook, but I wouldn't want to use Aperture on a computer with less than 8 GB. Aperture can take full advantage of a quad core system, but RAM is even more important. If it feels slow, increase your system memory first.

The 27" i5/i7 iMacs are awesome computers. I've recently purchased the i5 model because it was the only available quad core iMac in a 200 km radius around my home, otherwise I probably would have opted for the i7 version as well. Although, in all honesty, I doubt that you really feel a real difference in the performance of the two. It's mostly a price difference.

Anyway. I'm also using Aperture 3 on the iMac with Snow Leopard running in 64-Bit kernel mode with a second 24" display connected to the iMac, and Aperture feels very fast on that system. It actually feels a good deal faster than it did on the Mac Pro 1,1 Quad Xeon that I had before the iMac, and the iMac doesn't produce a tenth of the noise level that the Mac Pro produced. The loudest thing in my room currently is the external Seagate Barracuda hard disk.

Although I think that your MacBook Pro is a very good computer that should be fast enough for anything that you want to do with Aperture, I also know that Aperture really begins to be fun on a quad core system with sufficient memory and two large screens. So it's difficult to answer. But I think you should first consider the option of adding more memory to your notebook before you go and spend more than two grand on a new computer.
 
They might bump it to 2.93 in a month or three but I doubt it as it's twice the price of the present one and Apple didn't get 40 billion in cash by being generous. So I'd say this is as good as it gets in the foreseeable future.
 
Thanks

Thank you for your suggestions and thoughts. As my MacBook Pro os already maxed out I ordered the iMac. My current situation hinders my photography so I thought it would be a relatively good investment.
 
Not sure where you are in Germany Winni, but it must be beyond the black stump to be more than 200kms from something better than an imac i5. Especially since a phone call will get one delivered to your door :p

Good news for you persolo, is that when (in a few years from now) the i7 imac begins to feel slow you'll be able to get into the EFI (mac BIOS basically) and give the clock speed a bit of a kick in the pants. Should be able to scale up to +3.5GHz inside an imac.
 
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