Some questions about iMac upgrades

[AnimaLeo]

This is all for the 21.5inch iMac.

ok, first of all, is there any difference between the i3 and i5 apart from that it's faster? Is it really work the £160 for 0.40 GHz? How much difference does it make?

Also, what's the difference between the two graphics cards? I admit, I don't know anything about graphics cards.

The applications I use are: Adobe Creative Suite, Final Cut, Safari, etc.

 

[Hellhammer]

i5 is about 10% faster in GeekBench. If you are buying the iMac for work purposes, then I would pay the extra as more speed means more productivity which means more money. If it's for home use, then the i3 should be just fine. The apps you're going to use won't benefit much off the GPU

 

[AnimaLeo]

Is that 10% speed increase just for rendering though? Or is it for loading apps quicker, being able to apply more filters in photoshop without it slowing down as much?

 

[Hellhammer]

Is that 10% speed increase just for rendering though? Or is it for loading apps quicker, being able to apply more filters in photoshop without it slowing down as much?

It's for anything CPU intensive such as rendering. Loading apps is HD intensive and better CPU won't help in those. Applying filters is more RAM intensive I think. In many cases, you won't notice the difference between i3 and i5. 8GB RAM upgrade will be bigger improvement

 

[AnimaLeo]

One more question. I get 1 year free repairs right? So does that mean after 11 months I can buy apple care and then get another 3 years on top of it? So 4 years in total? Or does it only count from when I bought the Mac?

 

[Al3x87]

No,i think you will have 3 years guranty, not 4,but 3

 

[ttopp]

On the AppleCare u get three years total from when u buy the comp. So if u wait 11 months you only get cover for 2years 1 month after that. The first year just gives u additional phone/ software support