21,5" i5 or 27" i5 Quad-Core (refurb late 2009)

[diegobgr]

Hi all.

I'm going to get my iMac next week.

Well, the thing is I will use it for photo editing, gaming...

I can get the new iMac 21.5" i3 or i5 or for the same price of the 21,5" i5, a refurb of the 27" i5 Quad-Core, with the 4850.

I want the machine to stands at least for 4 years. I know that it won't be able to run games in some years, but it happen with every computer.

 

[Gregintosh]

I guess if gaming is important to you I'd sacrifice a bit of speed to get the better graphics chip. Photo editing isn't really intense so i5 could be overkill (if you were doing video editing, it'd be a different story though).

To make it simple and not over analyze too much I'd say go with the iMac that has the best graphics as that will be best for games.

Photo editing being the 2nd most important task doesn't matter since all iMacs can handle it just fine, though you probably want the 27" screen so you can have all the space you want for editing (though honestly, the 21.5" is big enough if you are just doing it for fun and not a job).

 

[diegobgr]

Yes, 21,5" is big enought.

But the price of a new i5 21,5" is almost the same of a 27" i5 Quad refurb.

And the 4850 is still better than the 5670, or not?

 

[zedsdead]

Yes, 21,5" is big enought.

But the price of a new i5 21,5" is almost the same of a 27" i5 Quad refurb.

And the 4850 is still better than the 5670, or not?

I would go with the 27" i5 Refurb. The processor is the same class as used in the current model, just slightly lower clocked at 2.66 veresus 2.8. The 4850 is better, yes. Also, the extra screen space is amazing. Also, it's a Quad-Core. It is annoying right now that almost no apps take advantage of the extra cores, but that should be changing over the next year or so.

 

[diegobgr]

Thanks.

More opinions?