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27' i3??? Most Unpopular Model? Need Suggestion!!!

O

Orange™

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 24, 2010
267
0
SORRY FOR THE GENERIC POST!!! :rolleyes: You're all sick of it by now but I call upon the masters for advice! ;)

I'm looking at buying the base 27' i3 imac for $1699...

Haven't seen any threads on this particular model or any videos about it's performance. As my signature suggests, I already have a 2.53 Intel Core 2 Duo MBP and was wondering if the speed increase would be substantial for an upgrade or should I keep saving away for the i7! (If I were to save up, I would forgo the i5(maybe:eek:))

Any help would be greatly appreciated! :eek:
 
If I were to spend that much money on the computer and screen size, I'd personally want to power it with the lynnfield cpus and mobility 5850 with its GDDR5 vram.
 
It all depends on what you need it for. If you aren't doing a lot of processor-heavy tasks, then the i3 will do you just fine. Doing basic stuff won't be any faster on an i7 than the i3, and that is a difference of $500 I believe. Now, if you are into video editing, that's when you'll want to go with the i7 (or i5 quad), but it sounds like the i3 will serve your needs well.
 
doesn't it depend on your computing needs?


If you need greater power and speed for photography work or video editing or even serious gaming etc.... perhaps then you will benefit from upgrading to a more spec'd out machine.

Now, if all you are doing is internet surfing, PowerPoint, word processing, email and iTunes....you probably don't need the upgrade.

And if you don't know if you need the upgrade....you probably don't.
 
you could always get a i7 refurb for the same price but it sounds like the 27 i3 would be good enough for you. I ended up getting the i5 quad for myself as was concerned about future proofing. With problems I had with refurb I was able to get 5% off so that helped justify the $300 upgrade to i5 quad.
 
I picked up the i7 because I knew I wanted to game with it (SC2, etc) and eventually produce some music on it as well. The performance on this thing is amazing. However, like the other posters said, if you don't think you'll be doing any processor intensive tasks, don't bother and get the i3.
 
Just bought a 27" i3 iMac

I bought one of these from Amzon.com last week for my brother. It was $1650 with free shipping and no tax. It works great and it had no screen tint or noise issues that I have read others complain about.

We decided not to spend the extra $300 on the i5 quad or the $500 extra on the i7 because we had already spent $500 extra on the bigger screen and the graphics update. However, if Apple would have made the iMac available with the i7 but without the graphics update for $1,899, then we probably would have spend our money on that one instead.

There's always a next step up and you have to draw the line somewhere. Even though he does use mostly heavy programs like Logic, Photoshop and some gaming, as he's not a professional user, the i3 will probably be fine for the most part. He did pretty well on a single core iMac G5 for the last few years.
 
Just bought one last night for my mom. She just browses, email, and that is about it. No flaws whatsoever!
 
Another way to look at is, imagine just a year ago people were paying top bucks on a 3 Ghz C2D iMac. Now your "entry level" i3 is faster.
 
I was to lazy to read the entire thread. But have you looked into the Refurb 2009 i7. It is priced at $1699US and you get a much better machine then the i3.
 
Hate those 27-foot monitors...

Nobody's pointed out that the 27' i3 is unpopular because most people don't have a big enough desk? Or a big enough room? Or a big enough house?
 
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