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Is Intel Core i3 good enough for Silhouette?

G

gpatrick15

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 16, 2008
153
12
Atlanta, GA
I’m in the market for an iMac for my wife’s Christmas present. I had settled on a 2019 iMac with an Intel i5 processor for $1000 at Best Buy. It’s been in my cart at that price for a month waiting on me to purchase it next week. It’s now sold out. However, they have the same model with an 8th gen i3 for the same price.

My wife will mostly use this as a replacement for our aging MBP. The only intensive thing she does is her graphic design on Silhouette and Photoshop, mostly. Would this model be good enough for this?
 
to me this seems far too much for a 2 year old (intel) Mac ...

I do not know silhouette, but if it does run (via rosetta) on a M1 Mac, I would - at the mentioned price point of 1k - definitely recommend a M1 MacBook Air

intel Macs will be phased out in the next months and so will be be software updates (later on)
 
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ChrisChaval said:
to me this seems far too much for a 2 year old (intel) Mac ...

I do not know silhouette, but if it does run (via rosetta) on a M1 Mac, I would - at the mentioned price point of 1k - definitely recommend a M1 MacBook Air

intel Macs will be phased out in the next months and so will be be software updates (later on)
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I thought about that too. I wasn’t sure if the Air would be useful enough, coming from an MBP. If it is, I’ll likely go with that.
 
during these Black Friday and cyber Monday days you should be getting really good deals on the M1 MacBook Air

you would be saving money and be getting much more performance and future proofing
 
ChrisChaval said:
the performance gain of the m1 chips vs. intel is abysmal

(posting from M1 MacBook Air)
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I'm trying to understand this comment. No doubt the M1 is a better performer than the latest Mac Intel but are you saying that the performance gain on the M1 macs is immeasurably low compared to Intel i.e. a very small difference?
 
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CooperBox said:
I'm trying to understand this comment. No doubt the M1 is a better performer than the latest Mac Intel but are you saying that the performance gain on the M1 macs is immeasurably low compared to Intel i.e. a very small difference?
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sorry I just was trying to understand that too ;) lol

I was meaning to say: at the bottom of the abyss there is intel. at the top there is M1

it is the performance of the intel chips compared with the apple m1 that is abysmal

got that mixed up, thank you for correcting me
 
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At this point, go with a M1. Monterey already has extra features that the Intel ones won’t have, and I better this will continue in the next year or 2.

i3 are garbage and they are good just for email and web browsing
 
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i3 is a weak processor. Get the MacBook Air - the M1 is a much, much more powerful chip. It'd also look for deals on the base M1 iMac, you might be able to find one for not a whole lot more than the $1000 price you're looking at, and it would be *so* much better than the old iMac with an Intel i3
 
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Mr. Heckles said:
At this point, go with a M1. Monterey already has extra features that the Intel ones won’t have, and I better this will continue in the next year or 2.

i3 are garbage and they are good just for email and web browsing
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that’s where I’m leaning. M1 Air. I’ve been out of the market on Macs since 2014 so I wasn’t very clear in all the options.
 
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chaospet said:
i3 is a weak processor. Get the MacBook Air - the M1 is a much, much more powerful chip. It'd also look for deals on the base M1 iMac, you might be able to find one for not a whole lot more than the $1000 price you're looking at, and it would be *so* much better than the old iMac with an Intel i3
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If I can find one for the right deal, that would be my choice. I’m still on the lookout. Thanks to you all, my current choice would be the M1 Air. If I can find an iMac for just over budget then I’ll go with that for sure.
 
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ChrisChaval said:
the performance gain of the m1 chips vs. intel is abysmal

(posting from M1 MacBook Air)
Click to expand...
I don't think the word abysmal means what you think it does. You are saying that the performance gain of the M1 vs Intel is terrible. I think you mean to say that the M1 makes the Intel look abysmal?
 
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Mr. Heckles said:
At this point, go with a M1. Monterey already has extra features that the Intel ones won’t have, and I better this will continue in the next year or 2.

i3 are garbage and they are good just for email and web browsing
Click to expand...
au contrail mes ami. the i3 he is referring to has a Geekbench of 3200 multi-core which was what my recently sold MBP 2014 i7 achieved, so it has enough for a lot of tasks. That being said, the M1 MBA for about the same price is more than twice as fast, is portable, and very modern. I went with the MBP 13 M1 for the better speakers, brighter screen, charging, battery and active cooling (although other than to test it, the fans have never come on), and am more than happy, probably would have been just as happy with the Air as well.

But the i3 is fine (sort of), but compared to the M1 is a bad investment. Of course you could also drop a whopping 600 or so and get the Mac mini (assuming you have a keyboard, display and trackpad (beats a mouse every time)
 
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MauiPa said:
I don't think the word abysmal means what you think it does. You are saying that the performance gain of the M1 vs Intel is terrible. I think you mean to say that the M1 makes the Intel look abysmal?
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yes, exactly. I got that mixed up, thank you. I have now edited my post
 
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While I think an M1 Mac is the best value, I disagree that a 2019 i3 iMac will not be sufficiently capable. The desktop i3 processors are not the same as i3s in laptops, which are generally very underpowered in order to eke out battery life.

The most important thing is to NOT get a Fusion drive. This will impact performance more than anything else. They also have a high failure rate after several years.
 
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