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Is the processor upgrade worth it?

westy78

westy78

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 13, 2017
5
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I'm looking at going for either the mid tier or top 27" iMac model. Is the processor upgrade to i7 worth it? Whilst right now, i don't feel i need i7, i'd want to try and protect my investment as much as possible, as i'm pretty sure an after market processor upgrade would be problematic? Any thoughts to help sway me either way?
 
westy78 said:
I'm looking at going for either the mid tier or top 27" iMac model. Is the processor upgrade to i7 worth it? Whilst right now, i don't feel i need i7, i'd want to try and protect my investment as much as possible, as i'm pretty sure an after market processor upgrade would be problematic? Any thoughts to help sway me either way?
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I'm in the same boat. Posted a thread with a poll to ask the group a similar question. You might be interested in seeing how this comes out. It's funny, my every day mac is a pretty slow 7 year old Mac mini, and I don't feel like it's too slow for me. Yet, I find myself in analysis paralysis on the i5 vs i7 issue. Plus the 570/575/580 issue too. When you spend this much money, you don't want to feel like you made a mistake. One thing I know, I love that 5K monitor. That's the easy part of the choosing.
 
jayfromnova said:
I'm in the same boat. Posted a thread with a poll to ask the group a similar question. You might be interested in seeing how this comes out. It's funny, my every day mac is a pretty slow 7 year old Mac mini, and I don't feel like it's too slow for me. Yet, I find myself in analysis paralysis on the i5 vs i7 issue. Plus the 570/575/580 issue too. When you spend this much money, you don't want to feel like you made a mistake. One thing I know, I love that 5K monitor. That's the easy part of the choosing.
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Cool, will take a look at your poll too. I'm also thinking that if i go with the stock config, i can get it tomorrow... i'm just too impatient...
 
westy78 said:
Cool, will take a look at your poll too. I'm also thinking that if i go with the stock config, i can get it tomorrow... i'm just too impatient...
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I hear you on that. I don't think it's worth skimping on getting an SSD though. I don't think any of the models with SSD are stock. Might be wrong.
 
jayfromnova said:
When you spend this much money, you don't want to feel like you made a mistake
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Me too and that's what I'm thinking about, spend such a lot of money and avoid to have any regret. I've nearly chosen the top iMac 27" with updgraded processor and I will buy RAM after but I'm still not 100% sure
 
If you want to save money, like you say you could upgrade it later on so going with the i5 would be fine
 
westy78 said:
Can you upgrade the processor down the road?
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It doesn't appear that way with the 27" model. The 21.5" iMac looks to have both its RAM and CPU upgradable but requires removing the front panel of course in addition to practically taking the thing apart.
 
westy78 said:
I'm looking at going for either the mid tier or top 27" iMac model. Is the processor upgrade to i7 worth it? Whilst right now, i don't feel i need i7, i'd want to try and protect my investment as much as possible, as i'm pretty sure an after market processor upgrade would be problematic? Any thoughts to help sway me either way?
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What are you going to use the imac for?
 
westy78 said:
Can you upgrade the processor down the road?
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If you open it up, you can swap the processor but that will obviously void the warranty. I've never tried it personally but I don't see it causing many problems to upgrade to the 7700K.It is not the easiest of things so it depends whether you think it's worth the savings. Ifixit ow to do it: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+27-Inch+Retina+5K+Display+CPU+Replacement/30515
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PieTunes said:
Also, this video shows the insides of the 27" model. At around 10:00 they talk about the CPU

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They seemed to get the processor and graphics card mixed up as you can see in the comments
 
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epca12 said:
They seemed to get the processor and graphics card mixed up as you can see in the comments
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Gotcha, guess that answers that question. Upgradeable yes, easy, not really. To upgrade the CPU from the i5 to i7 at point of purchase is 200 bucks versus having to buy a boxed/OEM CPU, buying the right tools, opening the thing up, playing surgeon and swapping out the chips, reassembling it all back together, all while voiding your warranty and possibly damaging something. If that's worth it to some people, more power to them!
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btrach144 said:
Please remove this video from your quote. They got the CPU and GPU backwards. CPU looks swapable and the GPU looks sodered.
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Yes in fact the CPU does look swappable and the GPU looks soldered, thanks for the clarification.
 
PieTunes said:
Gotcha, guess that answers that question. Upgradeable yes, easy, not really. To upgrade the CPU from the i5 to i7 at point of purchase is 200 bucks versus having to buy a boxed/OEM CPU, buying the right tools, opening the thing up, playing surgeon and swapping out the chips, reassembling it all back together, all while voiding your warranty and possibly damaging something. If that's worth it to some people, more power to them!
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Got it; looks like a lot more hassle to try and do this after the fact. Thanks for everyone's answers!
 
PieTunes said:
Gotcha, guess that answers that question. Upgradeable yes, easy, not really. To upgrade the CPU from the i5 to i7 at point of purchase is 200 bucks versus having to buy a boxed/OEM CPU, buying the right tools, opening the thing up, playing surgeon and swapping out the chips, reassembling it all back together, all while voiding your warranty and possibly damaging something. If that's worth it to some people, more power to them!
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I can't agree more. I went with the i7/580/1 TB SSD combo and have no regrets. Yes, it's a good chunk of change but I won't upgrade for at least 5-6 years. I still am using my 2010 Mac Pro and I'm typing this reply from my 2012 rMBP and both machines still fully function with no issues. If you divide out the cost of the upgrade by the number of years you will keep the machine, it's not all that bad on a per year cost. Plus it will net more on resale.
 
Firebrand said:
Yeah, and what is your upgrade cycle?
Sometimes it's better to go i5 and save your money for a future device 3-6 years later.
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I'll be using it as my main work device, nothing massively intensive but my current 2010 mbp is really struggling to keep up these days. I have 20+ tabs plus email, word, excel, adobe and webRTC pretty much non-stop. For personal use, i have a ton of images within Photos that my mbp really struggles with and would like the option to play occasional games.

As for upgrade cycles, i would like to see 5 years usage out of whatever i upgrade to. Maybe less if something shiny comes out...
 
dsc888 said:
I can't agree more. I went with the i7/580/1 TB SSD combo and have no regrets. Yes, it's a good chunk of change but I won't upgrade for at least 5-6 years. I still am using my 2010 Mac Pro and I'm typing this reply from my 2012 rMBP and both machines still fully function with no issues. If you divide out the cost of the upgrade by the number of years you will keep the machine, it's not all that bad on a per year cost. Plus it will net more on resale.
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This is exactly what I did. I figure if I can afford it the machine will be useful longer with the best specs I can get.
 
Maybe someone else can chime in...

In any case I'd choose SSD over i7. And if you can't choose, wait a few weeks or months (until High Sierra arrives e.g.
 
westy78 said:
I'll be using it as my main work device, nothing massively intensive but my current 2010 mbp is really struggling to keep up these days. I have 20+ tabs plus email, word, excel, adobe and webRTC pretty much non-stop. For personal use, i have a ton of images within Photos that my mbp really struggles with and would like the option to play occasional games.

As for upgrade cycles, i would like to see 5 years usage out of whatever i upgrade to. Maybe less if something shiny comes out...
Click to expand...
If you just edit photo and not video you won't need i7. Just go with ssd or wait few weeks for refurbished.
 
PieTunes said:
Gotcha, guess that answers that question. Upgradeable yes, easy, not really. To upgrade the CPU from the i5 to i7 at point of purchase is 200 bucks versus having to buy a boxed/OEM CPU, buying the right tools, opening the thing up, playing surgeon and swapping out the chips, reassembling it all back together, all while voiding your warranty and possibly damaging something. If that's worth it to some people, more power to them!
[doublepost=1497370969][/doublepost]

Yes in fact the CPU does look swappable and the GPU looks soldered, thanks for the clarification.
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I think it's worth it a few years down the line when the warranty is over and you want a bit more power. But upgrading through Apple is definitely easier
 
i5 to i7 gets you hyperthreading which can be definitely advantageous with some CPU-bound, multi-threaded loads. Comparing i5 to i5, i7 to i7 you can basically go by clock speed as a first approximation (as long as you're comparing within a processor generation, and the new iMacs are all Kaby Lake if I'm not mistaken). Single threaded CPU bound tasks will also scale roughly with clock speed, regardless of hyperthreading or not.
 
met985 said:
Me too and that's what I'm thinking about, spend such a lot of money and avoid to have any regret. I've nearly chosen the top iMac 27" with updgraded processor and I will buy RAM after but I'm still not 100% sure
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If you're going to spend the money and keep it for a few years, might as well go as big and fast as possible. You don't want to look back in two years and say "man, I should have just ponied up that extra $300 for the SSD/i7/580/whatever."
 
Glockworkorange said:
If you're going to spend the money and keep it for a few years, might as well go as big and fast as possible. You don't want to look back in two years and say "man, I should have just ponied up that extra $300 for the SSD/i7/580/whatever."
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That's also another point but I'd go for the 1 TT SSD and honestly it will cost too much (+ € 720), the 512 SSD "only € 240 which anyway will increase quite a lot the final price.
 
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