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Ordered Quad i5. After reading all these posts thinking of Switching to i7!

Y

youyou

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 17, 2006
118
33
So as the title says i ordered a Quad i5 27" Imac yesterday. Figured that would be perfect.
After coming on Macrumors and reading everybody's comments it's actually overwhelming how many people got the Quad i7 as opposed to the Quad i5.
Now i'm a sucker for the latest and greatest and because of that i always sell my computers every year or two. Depending on if there's a complete/ somewhat redesign.
Now i don't do video editing or any intensive applicatuons.
Mostly use my computer for basic stuff like browsing, downloading etc.
I do have 15000 songs and 10000 pictures and i do some light photoshoping.
So i know the i7 woudl be overkill but then so would the i5.
What i'm trying to figure out is , is it really that much better??
I know the i7 does hyperthreading ( don't really know what it all means but that's fine. I mean i know it uses 8 virtual cores )
But i'm starting to think that i might regret it eventually. If i'm upgrading might as well go for th i7??
After an educational discount the i5 quad was the perfect price , 1999$ (Canada ) but if i grab the i7 then i have to add an extra 210$. It's not big money but it's not peanuts either...
So i really don't know what to do.
It's just stagering the amount of people that chose the i7 over the i7...
And lastly will my resale value really increase with an i7 over an i5?

Thanks
 
I am personally going for the i7, Not for the speed but for the resale value in 2 or 3 years when its time for a new machine
 
Actually price difference between the I5 and I7 is more than $200 when you factor in the sales tax the Apple Store charges. For me that would be 7% of $2,200 which is $154. So for me we're talking a $354 difference compared to getting the I5 version from various online retailers that don't charge sales tax. As far as I know you can't get BTOs anywhere except from Apple themselves. If you could I'd get the I7 for $2,200 as opposed to $2,354.

I'm not a photographer, professional video editor, or a hard core gamer (for the most part). I use my iMac for web surfing, occasional iLife projects, word processing (with MacSpeech Dictate), streaming internet video, and gaming (no Bootcamp and mostly less graphic-intensive games). So I have to wonder is $354 more for the I7 actually worth it for me? Clearly both the I5 and I7 would be overkill for me now but I'm thinking of future-proofing.

I should add that I have a family member who works for an online retailer and he claims he can get me his 30% employee discount (waiting on confirmation for this). No tax would be involved but they would charge for shipping. However, since he's visiting for the holidays he'd bring it with him in December, saving me the shipping cost. Once again though this would also be the stock I5 iMac but at $1,400 instead of $1,999 from someplace like Amazon or $2,354 for the I7 from Apple.

However until that is confirmed I'm looking at that $354 difference between the I5 and I7. Any thoughts on this?

-PN
 
The speed differences between i5 and i7 are very little. If you aren't doing video encoding etc all the time on your machine then you probably won't notice any difference. Just look at some benchmarks of i5 and i7 from the PC world.
 
madwolf said:
The speed differences between i5 and i7 are very little. If you aren't doing video encoding etc all the time on your machine then you probably won't notice any difference. Just look at some benchmarks of i5 and i7 from the PC world.
Click to expand...

I also like have the latest and greatest, but i just use my computer for web design; therefore, i really have no need for a quad-core processor. I agree, however, the speed differences won't be substantial, but i know it will be a decent amount.
 
youyou said:
Called in and changed my order...
Core i7 it is!
Click to expand...

Seriously specgirl, why would you do that? First you give this long ass lecture about how much of a overkill the standard spec is and then you go and change your order to the top spec. While you were at it, why didnt you just go for the Mac Pro 2*2.93, since clearly money isnt the issue.
 
Eidorian said:
You might be better off without HT for photo editing.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2009/09/08/intel-core-i5-and-i7-lynnfield-cpu-review/10

Though you get higher clocks on the i7 860. *shrug*
Click to expand...
yeah, they make a good point I've seen elsewhere, really the only difference between the i5 & i7 (aside from the 5% clock bump) is hyper-threading. And Intel could have enabled HT on the i5, they just didn't for marketing reasons. No wonder Apple and Intel get along so well. ;)

I remember there were some Mac Pro users that wanted to turn HT off back in the summer because it was slowing down some apps, maybe SL addressed that outside of Grand Central. Dunno.

In the current state-o'-Mac, you have to wonder whether it's worth spending $200 (for a part that costs only $90 more than the i5 by the way) for potentially getting up to 20% more real-world speed through HT, an increase which really doesn't exist currently except in benchmark form on the Mac.

Judging by the posts and polls, many believe it is. :rolleyes:
 
Hyper threading is also a bad sign on quite alot of Audio Programs as well, they dont like it for some strange reason..

So not that i want an imac anytime soon, but anyway to turn it off? im guessing in the firmware or sommat right??

PTP
 
Arcadie said:
I am personally going for the i7, Not for the speed but for the resale value in 2 or 3 years when its time for a new machine
Click to expand...

I would disagree with this. I just sold a iMac 3 years 8 month old that was top of the line when it was released. My take home was $675. You will not make up the $200 it costs to move to i7, especially since there is almost no difference between the i5 and i7. All that will matter in 2 to 3 years is that you are selling a Quad Core.
 
Paulyboy said:
Actually price difference between the I5 and I7 is more than $200 when you factor in the sales tax the Apple Store charges. For me that would be 7% of $2,200 which is $154. So for me we're talking a $354 difference compared to getting the I5 version from various online retailers that don't charge sales tax. As far as I know you can't get BTOs anywhere except from Apple themselves. If you could I'd get the I7 for $2,200 as opposed to $2,354.

I'm not a photographer, professional video editor, or a hard core gamer (for the most part). I use my iMac for web surfing, occasional iLife projects, word processing (with MacSpeech Dictate), streaming internet video, and gaming (no Bootcamp and mostly less graphic-intensive games). So I have to wonder is $354 more for the I7 actually worth it for me? Clearly both the I5 and I7 would be overkill for me now but I'm thinking of future-proofing.

I should add that I have a family member who works for an online retailer and he claims he can get me his 30% employee discount (waiting on confirmation for this). No tax would be involved but they would charge for shipping. However, since he's visiting for the holidays he'd bring it with him in December, saving me the shipping cost. Once again though this would also be the stock I5 iMac but at $1,400 instead of $1,999 from someplace like Amazon or $2,354 for the I7 from Apple.

However until that is confirmed I'm looking at that $354 difference between the I5 and I7. Any thoughts on this?

-PN
Click to expand...

Your math is wrong. 7% of 200 is 14. So its $214 more not $354

Jason
 
If you aren't doing things that will make use of multiple processors (i.e., things like web surfing), then you'd probably get more bang for your buck in terms of processing power with the 3.3 GHz C2D.
 
Well, the issue is how long are you going to keep this iMac? Because you may want to consider whether to future proof or not. Sure, there may be no real applications today taking advantage of HT... but you have no idea what will be available 2-3 years from now. Personally, I'm going for the Ci7, because I intend to keep it for 4-5 years... of course, that's a fools game to some degree... a lot can change in 1 year, let alone 5 - and make your machine totally 100% obsolete, whether it's i5 or i7 - the difference between the two in 5 years, will be zero.
 
MWPULSE said:
Hyper threading is also a bad sign on quite alot of Audio Programs as well, they dont like it for some strange reason..

So not that i want an imac anytime soon, but anyway to turn it off? im guessing in the firmware or sommat right??

PTP
Click to expand...

Is this all HT? On both Win and Mac OS? And on all machines? MP? Under 10.6.?
 
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