Refurb iMac - difference between i5 and i7

[michelob tfs]

In the UK and looking to buy a refurb 09 27" iMac. Pondering 2 models at the moment, the 2.66 i5 @ £1259 and the 2.8 i7 @ £1399.

One thing I'm wondering is if the £140 price bump to the i7 is worth it? What are the diffferences between the 2 processors speed wise? I'm mail going to be using this for streaming HD video and similar multimedia tasks.

Thanks.

 

[Hellhammer]

i7 supports Hyper-Threading which can boost by up to 30% in some tasks. What apps are you going to use? i5 is likely fine for you

 

[michelob tfs]

Mainly flash based streaming like NFL gamepass, BBC iPlayer and iTunes, Spotify etc... May do some photo and HD video editing but not much likely and unlikely to do much gaming. Looking at using plex front end too.

Multitasking without slowdown is important to me though as I may have several different video and audio streams from apps running simultaneously while also downloading. My current pc is not capable as for my needs the CPU seems to be constantly 100% utilized (a 2Ghz Core2Duo) mainly due to the resource hungry flash. Also want to ensure that I buy enough processor for future needs as I want this to still be capable 4/5 years down the line.

 

[Hellhammer]

Mainly flash based streaming like NFL gamepass, BBC iPlayer and iTunes, Spotify etc... May do some photo and HD video editing but not much likely and unlikely to do much gaming. Looking at using plex front end too.

Multitasking without slowdown is important to me though as I may have several different video and audio streams from apps running simultaneously while also downloading. My current pc is not capable as for my needs the CPU seems to be constantly 100% utilized (a 2Ghz Core2Duo) mainly due to the resource hungry flash. Also want to ensure that I buy enough processor for future needs as I want this to still be capable 4/5 years down the line.

If that's the case, get the i7 so you can't regret it in the future. 140£ isn't that much money anyway