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UserName

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 11, 2004
83
2
A weird one for all the Mac Gurus out there...

Just checked the serial number info of my 4 months old iMac i5 at www.appleserialnumberinfo.com and several other similar websites, and it's reported as being an i7 model. Funny thing is that when I double check with Techtool Pro 5.0.7, my iMac is still reported as being an iMac Quad-Core Intel Core i7 27". What gives? :eek:

And yes... "About This Mac" is reporting my iMac correctly (2.66 GHz Intel Core i5) :)

Any reason why this would happen?:confused:

Thanks in advance :D
 
Download iStat Menus and see if the cpu section shows 8 cores instead of 4.
 
is it a refurbished computer. maybe they upgraded you.

Nope :)

It's not refurbished... I bought it brand new through the Apple Store.

Download iStat Menus and see if the cpu section shows 8 cores instead of 4.

iStat Menu is showing 4 cores so it MUST be an i5. But I still don't understand why Techtool Pro 5.0.7 is still reporting it as an i7!!!

Can anyone shed some light on this little mistery? :D
 
Nope :)

It's not refurbished... I bought it brand new through the Apple Store.



iStat Menu is showing 4 cores so it MUST be an i5. But I still don't understand why Techtool Pro 5.0.7 is still reporting it as an i7!!!

Can anyone shed some light on this little mistery? :D

he is kinda wrong. the i7 has 4 cores.. it s quad core.. the only processor that has 8 cores is none.. only 2x quad core intel xeon
 
he is kinda wrong. the i7 has 4 cores.. it s quad core.. the only processor that has 8 cores is none.. only 2x quad core intel xeon

yes, but the i7 has hyperthreading, whereas the i5 does not. Not entirely sure if that would result in it appearing that there are 8 cores or not though. If about this mac says it is an i5 though, I am pretty sure it's an i5. Maybe your s/n got screwed up.
 
yes, but the i7 has hyperthreading, whereas the i5 does not. Not entirely sure if that would result in it appearing that there are 8 cores or not though. If about this mac says it is an i5 though, I am pretty sure it's an i5. Maybe your s/n got screwed up.

So Apple screwed up my serial number? :eek:

How???
 
yes, but the i7 has hyperthreading, whereas the i5 does not. Not entirely sure if that would result in it appearing that there are 8 cores or not though. If about this mac says it is an i5 though, I am pretty sure it's an i5. Maybe your s/n got screwed up.

macs will show the physical cores, threads will show up in Activity Monitor however.
 
Plenty of software treat virtual cores from hyperthreading as physical cores, iStat menus is one such program. So if you only see 4 cores on iStat menus, and your "about this mac" says it's an i5, then it's an i5.
 
Ehm.. what does System Profiler tell you? I believe that is quite accurate as long as you run an actual Mac and not a hackintosh.
 
- Open Activity Monitor
- Click the CPU tab
- Double click the little CPU usage graph

On an i7 iMac a window with 8 graphs will pop up, on an i5 it will contain 4 graphs. Pretty sure it's just an i5 though...
 
- Open Activity Monitor
- Click the CPU tab
- Double click the little CPU usage graph

On an i7 iMac a window with 8 graphs will pop up, on an i5 it will contain 4 graphs. Pretty sure it's just an i5 though...


Checked!!! Activity Monitor is showing 4 cores. My :apple: iMac is definitely an i5.

So... why is my serial number wrong then? :mad:
 
Yep

Plenty of software treat virtual cores from hyperthreading as physical cores, iStat menus is one such program. So if you only see 4 cores on iStat menus, and your "about this mac" says it's an i5, then it's an i5.

Boinc/Seti at Home is another one - I get eight workunits all crunching along at the same time on my Mac i7.
 
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