Change ,y new IMAC 27 core i3 3.2

[dummy99]

I have just buy a 2010 imac 27" core i3 3,2. I'm thinking change it for a 27 core i5 2.8 quad, but everyone in apple store told me that i will not feel the difference between this two imacs in normal work. I'll work mainly with office, parallels for develop with .net, some ilife (photo and video).

what do u think? As an alternative i'm going to put more memory up to 12 GB.

 

[brachson]

I have just buy a 2010 imac 27" core i3 3,2. I'm thinking change it for a 27 core i5 2.8 quad, but everyone in apple store told me that i will not feel the difference between this two imacs in normal work. I'll work mainly with office, parallels for develop with .net, some ilife (photo and video).

what do u think? As an alternative i'm going to put more memory up to 12 GB.

you will not feel the difference - and 12GB will not make any difference neither for your use.

 

[dummy99]

you will not feel the difference - and 12GB will not make any difference neither for your use.

but, it will be still a good machine five years long?

for what kind of applications you feel the difference with the Imac i5 quad 2.8?

 

[Miker2k]

The biggest difference I think you might notice on the i5 (and the reason I chose it over the i3) is the optional 1gig 5750 video card.

 

[dummy99]

The biggest difference I think you might notice on the i5 (and the reason I chose it over the i3) is the optional 1gig 5750 video card.

Thanks Miker2k, do you feel the i5 is overheating? or is it similar to the i3 heating?

 

[Miker2k]

It gets hot when I play games under Bootcamp (Borderlands, Black Ops, etc) but the fans spin up and it keeps playing without a problem. All in all it has been a real solid machine. I did just add an additional 4 gigs of ram specifically for doing some virtualization and the thing runs like a top.

 

[MacHamster68]

for what you are doing on the iMac even the i3 is already more then overkill ,
office, parallels for develop with .net, some ilife (photo and video) nothing thats even stressing the i3 processor neither will it stress the graphics card , why does everybody thinks to need 5 times the power thats actually needed for the tasks they plan to do and the argument of some "i might in the future need more power eventually" is pointless , as it would be better and more effective then to get a new Mac in the future when you really need more power
for me thats like buying a porsche for the trip to the shops that are a 5 min walking distance away
if you would do serious gaming (crysis and the like),professional filmcutting , animations like the matrix or so , then ok then you might need the power of a i5 and a bit better graphics card , but parallels, ilife ....nothing a 2ghz core 2 duo iMac could not handle in reality .ok the i5 is some milliseconds faster , but are you really sitting in front of your computer with a stopwatch monitoring every task ?
so yes i agree with the apple store staff that you will not even notice any kind of performance gain even with a stopwatch ,

so save your money get the i3 and spend the money you saved on something useful for your needs , a ssd , a bit more ram, or a holiday....just for example

and in 5 years from now will do exactly the same tasks at the same speed as its doing things now, and it will handle OSX lion too once its available

 

[robertpetry]

The biggest difference I think you might notice on the i5 (and the reason I chose it over the i3) is the optional 1gig 5750 video card.

You can get the 5750 with the i3 for $150. If you game much I think it would be a good investment. Better than jumping $300 to i5.

 

[dummy99]

thanks all for your support.

 

[Miker2k]

You can get the 5750 with the i3 for $150. If you game much I think it would be a good investment. Better than jumping $300 to i5.

Good point, quad core also played into my decision (physical vs HT). In the OPs case the i3 is probably the answer.