Over kill ??

[Trout74]

I recently posted asking about a 2.8ghz i5 quad core, refurb. to run CS5 for my wife's photography business. And from the responses, I concluded it was sufficient. But fora couple hundred more I can get this:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/G0JP0LL/A?mco=MTkwMzU2MzQ

is this overkill? or will we see a speed difference and minimally future proof our investment?

Thanks.

Trout

 

[TMRaven]

No you won't see a major speed difference. Once you got that sufficient number of 4 cores and cpu clock that the i5 lynnfield has, you'd wanna start focusing on ram and hdd speed (best scenario would be to get ssd)

 

[Tomorrow]

If you decide the i5 is adequate, you could spend the extra money on a Time Machine drive. Just a thought.

 

[toxic]

take that $200 and have OWC add an eSATA port.

SSDs are still more for feeling faster than for increasing productivity since applications usually don't access the hard disk much.

 

[Trout74]

take that $200 and have OWC add an eSATA port.

SSDs are still more for feeling faster than for increasing productivity since applications usually don't access the hard disk much.

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is a eSATA port, and how will it help us?

thanks,

trout

If you decide the i5 is adequate, you could spend the extra money on a Time Machine drive. Just a thought.

I do already have a 1TB G-grive external hard Drive, if that is what your referring to.

thanks,

 

[toxic]

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is a eSATA port, and how will it help us?

thanks,

trout

eSATA allows much faster data transfer than FW800. this allows you to have data stored on externals without getting bottlenecked by slow transfer speeds.

 

[Golfwolf]

I recently posted asking about a 2.8ghz i5 quad core, refurb. to run CS5 for my wife's photography business. And from the responses, I concluded it was sufficient. But fora couple hundred more I can get this:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/G0JP0LL/A?mco=MTkwMzU2MzQ

is this overkill? or will we see a speed difference and minimally future proof our investment?

Thanks.

Trout

I was considering the 2.8GHz i5 recently, also the 2.8 GHz i7 in a late 2009 model, both of which were refurbs. I actually decided to purchase a refurb i7 2.93 GHz same as the one in your link last Saturday. It will be overkill for what I do but the extra $200 was not a lot more and worth it to me. Future proofing is not really possible these days, I believe this hardware will be more than sufficient for me for the next few years though, good luck with your decision. I received the iMac on Wednesday, my first Mac, this thing is awesome!!!!

 

[jazzer15]

Another possible option is to look at the late 2009 i7 2.8 ghz refurb. I believe the price is about the same as the Mid 2010 i5 refurb. You give up the newer video card (not sure if this will be important for your wife's business assuming she is just doing still photography -- maybe someone else will comment) and get the added performance boost of the i7 if it is ever needed (the i7 has four cores and unlike the i5 is also hyperthreading which gives it an additional virtual 4 cores). Of course it is not the "latest" machine, if that matters.