Nice, congrats. I also got the 5500XT - are you satisfied with it so far? I'm not a gamer myself, but may occasionally play a game of StarCraft 1 or so....
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Should I return the 10-core?
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Nice, congrats. I also got the 5500XT - are you satisfied with it so far? I'm not a gamer myself, but may occasionally play a game of StarCraft 1 or so....
I agree with you for many workloads but it also depends on the use case and what your workload is using at any time, obviously if you are using a highly threaded application that requires more cores you will get better performance. Most of the time for me and I suspect many others our workloads benefit from faster single threaded and lightly threaded performance.
Then we need to take at the complex nature of Intel CPUs at the moment, sure Apple make it nice and simple on their product page but how do we get that great performance in single threaded and lightly threaded workloads? Turboboost.
There are now 3 turbo modes in *some* Comet Lake CPUs along with the base rate. All-Core turbo, Turbo Boost 2.0 and Turbo Boost 3.0.
Apple doesn't list the exact Intel models they are using and I haven't had time to research it in detail yet however you will see on the Apple page the 8-core is listed as a 3.8 (base rate) boosting to 5.0 and the 10-core is listed as a 3.6 (base rate) boosting to 5.0.
So just from Apples information alone you can see you could have a workload where you are obtaining a higher base rate on the i7, depending on the length of the workload and thermals etc.
Just to add something else in to the mix I thought I saw a video where the reviewer commented that they saw the i7 go to 5.1 GHz in Intel Power Gadget which would make sense as one of the public i7 chips is a 3.8/4.7/5.0/5.1 (base/all core turbo/turbo 2.0/turbo 3.0) however their public i9 which most closely matches what Apple is using does not feature turbo 3.0. If this is the case in the lightest of single thread workloads the i7 would be fastest.
I'm just providing this information out of interest and to educate, the differences are very small but do exist!
I’m sorry this statement is incorrect. Some applications prefer higher clock speed and aren’t optimized for parallel processing. Hence for many users the i7 will work about as well as the i9, if not better for specific tasks.
I’m glad you feel this way. But the only way to objectively measure this is with a benchmark. Show me the benchmark that shows the 8 core outperforming the 10 core, and then we can talk.
Ok, so you are quoting a benchmark that says last year’s i9 outperforms this years i9.
Ummmmm, ok. If this makes you feel better, then go for it. Me, I will wait for some REAL benchmarks.
i would keep the 10 core iMac or you’ll keep on thinking about it once u get the i7 version...u already have the best of the best....just keep it
To answer half of your question: I wouldn't buy any Mac with only 8 GB RAM, and most definitely not 8 or 10 cores with only 8 GB. My 2010 MacBook has more than that.
8 vs 10 cores: With 10 cores, you pay a bit more money for a bit more power. I think you can get Macs from 2 cores to 28 cores. Nobody other than you can say what's the best for you. With the RAM, I can tell you that 8GB is not enough, but you might find RAM cheaper elsewhere. Buying 8GB and adding 16GB may be cheaper and give you 24GB, which is nice.
8 vs 10 cores: With 10 cores, you pay a bit more money for a bit more power. I think you can get Macs from 2 cores to 28 cores. Nobody other than you can say what's the best for you. With the RAM, I can tell you that 8GB is not enough, but you might find RAM cheaper elsewhere. Buying 8GB and adding 16GB may be cheaper and give you 24GB, which is nice.
You should ALWAYS buy 8 GB of RAM in any Mac that is user-upgradable (iMac, Mac mini).
It does. But since it shows the 2019 performing better than the 2020, I call bull. I did a search on Google for that benchmark, and what I found didn’t give me any confidence that is a legit benchmark.
Listen, this argument is as old as time. If someone cannot afford an i9 and want to talk themselves into an i7 because it “performs better”, then more power to them. I honestly don’t care. For the rest of the planet, the more you spend the more performance you are going to get. Which is why it costs more.
Yes because the only reason why someone would opt for the i7 is because they can’t afford the i9. /s
Many are. Some might not. But most folks are looking to spend as little as possible since money doesn’t grow on trees. If you don’t need the 10 core and want to use that money on something else, that’s awesome. I applaud that. But to say that the 8 core performs better than the 10 core and THAT is why you are getting an 8 core, well, that kind of rationalization stretches the brain to places I won’t go.
From what I saw, it runs at a consistently lower GHZ then the i7 due to thermal throttling. When it's pushed it ends up being around 15% more powerful. Hey, if that's worth it to you then knock yourself out pal.
I didn’t say it was worth it. That concept of “worth” is so dependent on your circumstance that is is mostly irrelevant to even discuss. What I said is that 10 core performs better than 8 core. I didn’t bring worth into the equation. Whether the extra $400 is “worth it” is a different discussion. In every single legit benchmark I have seen, the 10 core outperforms the 8 core in both single core and multi core performance. Sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot. That is all I am saying.
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The one thing that everyone seems to overlook is that a benchmark is not really testing how the machine is performing for you in your everyday tasks, but rather a static task that the user probably would never have run in their lifetime. The reality is, you are always comparing apples to oranges whenever you test a machine that isn't 100% identical to another. Yes it may have scored better here or worse there, but then the same could also be said about other differences between the two.
Benchmarks are really just epeen measurements... funny thing is, that epeen is never the same for very long... just like it is in the real world.
P.S. Not really replying to ZBoater here but the whole concept of benchmarks. Can't say that I have ever used a benchmark to sway my decision on anything and I have used computers over the years for many CPU and graphics intensive tasks. In the end, it's never really fast enough because you always find a way to make it slower. A benchmark is only a snapshot in time. Last time I checked, time hasn't stopped.
Are you blind? Look at the results. Clearly the i7 3.8 is better than the i9 3.6 in this test. You asked for results and you were proven wrong.
Let’s try your statement back a couple years ago in the Touch Bar MBP. You could upgrade to the 8 core and see 0 benefit because of the thermal design could not sustain that. So it’s not always 100% of the time the more money you spend, the better performance. In theory, yes that statement is and should be correct, but to say you don’t care and the more you spend = more performance is just not true. You think 128 gb is ram will perform better than 64 gb ram because you spent more and the number is higher? If your not even using close to that amount it’s pointless.
No, I am not blind. I choose to rely on real benchmarks. Have you checked on the source of that one?
I choose something like this.
Man someone is really trying to justify that $400 lmao
I don’t have to justify anything to you. My wife, however, that is a whole other story....]
You guys are too funny, this thread has made my day. As someone who uses a 12 core Mac Pro for my heavy lifting it's not about "not being able to afford an i9 and talking myself in to an i7" it's about discussing the tech and educating people about the complex nature of Intels turbo in 2020 and how of the thousands of different workloads a individual has means that there is no clear cut x is faster than y argument that can be made.
Anyway I did some additional research for you regarding the CPUs so it looks like the i7 is a 3.8 GHz Core i7 (I7-10700K) and the i9 is a 3.6 GHz Core i9 (I9-10910). The i7 has Turbo Boost 3.0 that can hit 5.1 where as the i9 only has Turbo Boost 2.0 and this limited to 5.0.
*awaits the next argument that 5.1 is slower than 5.0 for the lightest single threaded workloads*
Agree, people see ‘10’ and think it must be better for all situations, I wish it were so simple. As has already been outlined, various applications rely greatly on clock speed as they’re yet to be optimized for multithreaded processing, and some processing requires a greater clock speed over more cores. An audio application such as Ableton Live benefits equally from clock speed and multithread processing, depending on how a session is routed. If someone is using heavily bussed channels with many plugins, clock speed is more important. If someone is using many independent channels more cores will be beneficial. Like you say, it’s not a binary situation because one is more expensive, but a fairly complex and nuanced one depending on the use case. I dare say for most cases the i9 will be better, but for some the i7 will be, or will be so close the difference is moot.
I have seen many benchmarks, probably more than you to be honest, for both CPUs and yes of course it’s going to benchmark higher. Just because it benchmarks higher again does not translate into higher performance. Software optimization as well as what your doing with the CPU will justify if your purchase is worth the “upgrade” and if your 10core is actually more powerful than the 8 core. I’m not going to continue to have this conversation your dead set on your opinion and that’s fine however, just know that many many other people feel differently and have facts and data to prove otherwise.
You are correct, some applications are written to take advantage of multiple cores and some are not (particularly older less well written applications). If you spend your entire day in one application that does not take advantage of multiple cores (e.g. a web application or something written in Python), then even the I7 is probably a waste of money. Everyone has different workloads and different usage patterns.
I know it's everyone's personal choice how to live and how to spend their money. However, I have always followed my late fathers advice - if you can't pay cash (with the exception of buying your home) then you can't afford it. For most one of the lower spec models is plenty good enough.