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Making a purchase w/i the next 3 hours. NEW i3 or REFIRB i7? !

R

rgp19699

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 13, 2010
46
0
Choice #1
New 27" imac i3 3.2 with edu discount and purchase of itouch, which I will sell to offset price. (Likes: faster Ram, latest design, SDXC.) $1599
Refurb 27" i7 QUAD core 2.8. No discounts. (Likes: the obvious; quad core.) $1699 (Apple guy says probably new, *by "new," I mean just prior to this refresh* have a couple hundred in stock.)

Use: General and intermediate/amateur video editing. HD rendering, some effects, but no green screen stuff or 3D. Will probably use an external HD for a scratch drive.

Notes: Yes, I posted most of this in the Audi thread but I'm down to the wire and I didn't know if some of you guys would read that one... Hellhammer? Dudeman? I've been following you for weeks in the "Still waiting" thread. Advice, pleeeze? Thanks in advance for any advice.

Also, b4 I get flamed, I looked through the entire first page of threads and didn't see any comparing the refurb i7 with the new i3, - just the i5 comparison.

Lastly: I am especially confused about the Graphics cards in each of these machines. I've been following the Mobility thread, but can anyone just tell me which is better for my purposes?
 
Encoding is purely a CPU thing not a graphics card thing. The quad core i7 is the second fastest processor (the first being the new i7).

You should definitely do the i7, you will see a difference
 
Thx, Greg. That's kind of what I thought. Anyone else? From what I understand I won't be using the i7 to its fullest "extent," however; and there is (with the discounts) about a $250 price difference...
 
Get the best you can afford. To me the latest thing (July 2010) will carry you further into the future before it itself becomes obsolete.
 
rgp19699 said:
Also, b4 I get flamed, I looked through the entire first page of threads and didn't see any comparing the refurb i7 with the new i3, - just the i5 comparison.

Lastly: I am especially confused about the Graphics cards in each of these machines. I've been following the Mobility thread, but can anyone just tell me which is better for my purposes?
Click to expand...

Well with 2 different i5 CPUs it is slightly more confusing until Barefeats releases updated speed tests.

Something people were asking for, more options, but also means more work for salespeople and consumers in checking speed tests to see what they want to buy for the money. i3, dual core i5 with HT, quad core i5 without HT, and i7, plus a few GPUs tossed in.

However, for $100 over the i3 the i7 is a slam dunk upgrade. Hard to beat.
 
Their refurbs ship fast. I ordered the 27" iMac i7 $1699 refurb early this afternoon and got an email from Apple saying it will be arriving via FedEx tomorrow! That's fast! I'm in the bay area.
 
Dudeman or Hellhammer are you out there?

Thanks so much, everyone. I have some time left now so I'm not going to order tonight. I am heading over to Best Buy right now, tho. Lord, please help me retain control... :)
It's almost unanimous that I should go for the i7; assuming when I add up all my resources I can make it work without getting the discount(s.)
A question for Mangrove (hope that's your nic, when I try and arrow back I lose this response,) you seemed to indicate that you thought the new refresh would be more "future proof." If I understand you right, don't you think the fact that the refurb is a quad i7 and the new one is a dual core i3 would ameliorate this issue? Or cancel it out, in other words?
 
Get the i7, I did the same thing today. :) Certainly faster than the i3, and more future proof as software is written to take advantage of more and more cores.
 
OK, I'm there, and I'm pumped. Thx all. I also asked them if the refurbs were late models, and he assured me they were all built in 2010... but I'm going to try to get one built after March if I can.
And Emerald, you are so lucky! I'm only in Oregon, but they're saying next Thursday, or I can pay $35 for Tuesday... which I'd only do because I've had probs with "free delivery" before, and if it doesn't get there early as promised, you can get your $ back. But they aren't offering overnight... at least to my area.
 
rgp19699 said:
OK, I'm there, and I'm pumped. Thx all. I also asked them if the refurbs were late models, and he assured me they were all built in 2010... but I'm going to try to get one built after March if I can.
And Emerald, you are so lucky! I'm only in Oregon, but they're saying next Thursday, or I can pay $35 for Tuesday... which I'd only do because I've had probs with "free delivery" before, and if it doesn't get there early as promised, you can get your $ back. But they aren't offering overnight... at least to my area.
Click to expand...

Is there a way to tell when your iMac was made?
 
My refurb was built in May 2010 according to that website. That means it is less than 3 months old and already found its way into the refurb store.
 
In terms of the March thing, I read somewhere on this forum that the units produced after March did not have as many display problems as the early imacs.

And yeah, my local Best Buy DOES have the new imacs. However, they only have the i3's in both the 21" & 27". What was interesting is that I called and asked for a guy I knew and he said they hadn't shown up in their stock yet; the only reason he knew they had them is that he had physically put them up. I called today because at that point I was pretty sure I was going to get an i3 and he told me another truck was there and they were unloading it right then. He was supposed to call me back and let me know if any of the quad i5's came in, but didn't. Buy that time I had decided on the refurb.

So, I'd definitely call your local BB store and ask. I remember when I was trying to find a WII back in the day I'd stop in several stores every day and ask. I got lucky doing it that way. Anyway, BB is allowed to offer the education discount OR the itouch offer, but not both. So in my mind, since I was probably going to flip the itouch it was going to cost me about $150 (the resale value I placed on the 8G) if I bought it from them instead of the online Apple store (we don't have a brick and mortar store where I live,) but I would have gotten immediate gratification buying it from BB. :D
 
Get the i7. Especially now that the Refurb i7 is the same price as a new 27'' i3. Slightly slower GPU but I doubt you will notice much difference.
 
Gregintosh said:
My refurb was built in May 2010 according to that website. That means it is less than 3 months old and already found its way into the refurb store.
Click to expand...

Well, I am not 100% certain but I believe Apple sells leftover stock via the Refurb store. So chances are good your iMac is not even refurbished.
 
Remember that Apples video editing applications, iMovie and Final Cut Pro cannot take advantage of more than two cores (and that's if you are lucky, usually it only uses one, found this out the hard way from I upgraded from a 2.8 core2duo to the 2.8 quad i7).

The dual core chips will be faster for now since they are higher clocked, but that should change over the next year when Apple releases updates to Final Cut Studio and iLife (hopefully).
 
I am reading the post wrong or did the OP say he was going to Best Buy to purchase a Refurbished iMac? Is that possible?
 
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