Old i5 Vs New i3 for PS and Logic Studio?

[PhelpsiPhan]

Hey guys, just need your advice on something

I am looking to do alot of recording with Logic Studio, and was wondering which would be better? are the old i5's still a lot faster than the new i3's? I will also be doing a bit of photoshopping and Premiere

Thanks

Jonathan

 

[Shanewilliams]

Good question! I was actually about to start a thread asking a very similar question. I havent owned an apple desktop since I had a apple IIgs many years ago. Ive been looking at the new 27in I3 iMac for $1699 and then ran across the refurbished I5 iMac for $1529. basically its a 2.66 i5 refurbished vs a new 3.2 i3 other then that the specs seem to be very similar. My needs are very similar to the OP. I use cs5 on daily basis as well as aperture from time to time. At the moment i am using a 2.0ghz macbook with 2.5gb of ram. It actually does fairly well for its age, but its very time and cpu consuming when i start encoding a DVD. Usually around 93% CPU usage according to istat. Ive got a newer macbook(late 2009) but its strictly for work purposes so Im not allowed to do anything else on it so i really cant compare what a faster cpu will do. Will I notice a significant difference between the i3 or i5 and my macbook? also, would the newer i3 be faster then the refurb i5?? thanks for any input!!

 

[alust2013]

The refurb i5 would be considerably better for both of you, since Logic and encoding are both pretty processor heavy. The i5 is a much faster processor for tasks like that