for DESIGNERS: Duo or i5?

[sbirdy]

27" with 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo OR 2.66GHz Intel Core i5....
Not sure which iMac will be best for my specific needs:

• Web and graphic designer
• Will use computer for both business and everyday personal activities
• Most used programs for work: Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop (a little Flash), Coda (web development), Firefox
• Most used programs for personal: iPhoto, iTunes, Adium (chat client), Firefox

I’ve been reading up on the processors but haven’t been able to draw a solid conclusion. It’s clear that the i5/i7’s severely outperform the Duo when it comes to gaming... but considering the programs I’ll be running... is it worth it? Would it be more beneficial to spend the money bumping the 4GB of memory of the Duo to 8... or the 3.06GHz to 3.33? Or is the Duo, even with all the best upgrades, just not going to run the design programs as well?

Any technical reasoning you may have... as well any as personal experience... would be much appreciated.

Thanks for your time!

 

[lomolomo]

hi there

with the core 2 duo you have plenty of power for photoshop and illustrator, however if you ever consider to start working on video or anything 3d, you should go for the i5 as it also has a faster video card....

Works just fine:
3.06 GHZ with the ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB (Ram you still can add later on..) + extended warranty


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However with all computers, the mightier the processor the longer it can perform the latest software.....

I have a 24" from last April and it still works fine with the whole CS Suite, however if you do video encoding or rendering that's where you need fast processing power and ideally more ram....

 

[vaderhater245]

keep in mind. CS5 for mac "should" be multi-core and 64bit when it gets released.