New iMac Gaming Questions

[Mondays]

With the new macs out I've been lurking the forums trying to get more information and I'd just like to ask a few questions that pertain to my situation.

Currently I have a Macbook Pro 2.4ghz 4g ram nvidia 8600 GT

I'm looking into purchasing the iMac Quad Core but am having trouble deciding between the i5 and i7. I've read on the forums there is approx. 30% increase in performance. I'm just curious if I would benefit from it.

I play Starcraft 2 and WoW, I also use photoshop and illustrator often.
Would it be worth it to upgrade to the i7 or would I hardly see the change in performance while using these programs?

Or, I plan on picking up at least 2g of Ram from Crucial to sit at 6g on the new iMac, if I just put it at 8g ram would that be a better option?

Thanks.

 

[henrikrox]

This have been answered a bunch of times, HT benefits from applications who take use of all threads. Games doesn't do that... yet.

So i7 in the future will be better then i5. But for games now, you wont see a big difference.

however when spending so much money on a computer you should just go i7

aftermarket ram is so cheap, so just go for 8gb, dunno how heavy you will use photoshop/illustrator but its nice to have.
most games run 32bit, so you cant use more then 4gb, but the extra ram is nice for heavy programs and such

 

[Mondays]

This have been answered a bunch of times, HT benefits from applications who take use of all threads. Games doesn't do that... yet.

So i7 in the future will be better then i5. But for games now, you wont see a big difference.

however when spending so much money on a computer you should just go i7

aftermarket ram is so cheap, so just go for 8gb, dunno how heavy you will use photoshop/illustrator but its nice to have.
most games run 32bit, so you cant use more then 4gb, but the extra ram is nice for heavy programs and such

Thanks.
I know it's been answered before I just wanted to clarify for my situation, it's fairly big purchase and I just wanted to make sure I did it right.
Thanks again for the help those were the answers I was looking for

 

[JHorstmann]

Thanks.
I know it's been answered before I just wanted to clarify for my situation, it's fairly big purchase and I just wanted to make sure I did it right.
Thanks again for the help those were the answers I was looking for

You might want to upgrade the graphics card though?

 

[AlexisV]

You don't need the i7.

You won't notice the difference and you'll only save a few seconds on applying a filter in Photoshop.

Movie editing and video encoding is where the i7 will come in useful, but not for much else. The GPU will run out of steam before this CPU in games.