I'm going to purchase my 27" quadcore next week! Wanted to know if I have the extra $180 to uprade to the i7 processor or upgrade the RAM to 8gb?
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Upgrade to an i7 or 8gb of RAM?
- Thread starter Drummer210
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This is easy to answer assuming you have the money to spend and don't want to save it up, have debt to pay off, need to buy something else, don't want to get your girlfriend/wife a nice Christmas gift...etc. I would say without a doubt go with the i7. You can always upgrade the Ram yourself to 8gb very easily. If you bought off Newegg, it would cost you as of today $80-90 shipped. If you wait until the spring it will be even cheaper. The issue of changing your CPU yourself is much more complicated. Go with the i7 over the 8gb of ram. /thread
Cool. Thanks guys 
If I end having the extra cash then here I come i7.
I do a lot of music/studio work with Logic so it will help having that extra performance from the i7.
If I end having the extra cash then here I come i7.
I do a lot of music/studio work with Logic so it will help having that extra performance from the i7.
Upgrade the CPU, upgrading the RAM just might give you a .5-1% performance boost, and the i7 likely much more than that.
Plus RAM will likely drop again next Christmas, so you can treat yourself then.
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp16.html
If you buy Apple Care, the chances of a CPU upgrade later drop quite a bit unless you want to get a refund on Apple Care to buy the CPU.
Plus RAM will likely drop again next Christmas, so you can treat yourself then.
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp16.html
If you buy Apple Care, the chances of a CPU upgrade later drop quite a bit unless you want to get a refund on Apple Care to buy the CPU.
Can you even do that?
BTW thanks for that link. That is very informative since I am trying to decide whether or not to upgrade my 3.06 MBP to 8gb of Ram at the moment. I was thinking of doing that and then putting those 4gb into my iMac. However those tests seem to show the MBP 4gb and 8gb don't vary that much, at least in those tests.
if you haven't used the warranty, or made calls, you can get a pro-rated refund on Apple Care.
Might as well get the refund, since you cannot upgrade the CPU without breaking a seal and voiding the warranty.
However, given that Apple is likely using the Foxxcon socket, doubtful that you'll be able to go too far beyond what Apple sticks in even if someone come up with a decent overclocking method.
Im biased, i7 for sure, ram upgrade only costs less than 100bucks if you install it yourself, add two more 2x2gb chips.
well, I am in the minority here.
I am on somewhat of a budget, and picked having 8gb over having a i7. From what I am reading, i7 is for SERIOUS computing/gaming. I visited my local apple store, and the guy there said if I am just using it for video editing, movies, music, web surfing, just normal everyday type of stuff, that the 8gb would be more important then getting the i7. I was not about to spend $200 for a very minimal gain with the i7.
I am on somewhat of a budget, and picked having 8gb over having a i7. From what I am reading, i7 is for SERIOUS computing/gaming. I visited my local apple store, and the guy there said if I am just using it for video editing, movies, music, web surfing, just normal everyday type of stuff, that the 8gb would be more important then getting the i7. I was not about to spend $200 for a very minimal gain with the i7.
Did you get your i5 yet?
I agree. Much better to put $$ towards i7 at this point than memory. Can always get memory later. Can't always upgrade CPU later.
If you look at the geekbench benchmarks, you will see
i5 ~ 6600;
i7 w/ 4GB ~ 8300
i7 w/ 8GB ~ 8450
I know these are benchmarks and not IRL uses, but thats a huge difference with the i7. Personally I am waiting on the i7 and will wait a year to upgrade the RAM, who knows i might get 2x 1333mHz 4GB chips for nice and cheap then!
in a way I agree, but if you look at the latest benchmarks the gain is about 28% on 32bit tests, no one has 64bit tests yet.
I'm glad I ordered the i7, ram is way easy to upgrade the processor, not so much, that way I have no regrets later, other than $200 lighter in the wallet.
Yep 12 months from now, memory for these SO-DIMMs should likely be less than they are now.
Never know whether 2 or 4GB SO-DIMMs are going to be the hot seller, but likely one of them will be. Likely be able to add 4GB for $50 next year during the Christmas sales.
Or bragging rights?
I figure with the amount of crap I usually run, plus several more virtual machines, I'll be soaking up every iota of available processing power from the i7 in pretty short order. And that's just from having a virtual server cluster running for web application development.
both?
What are you using now? It must be excruciatingly slow if an i7 will barely handle it?
Those geekbench numbers are great -- if you spend your whole day running geekbench?
I use my Mac for a lot of things and running geekbench aint one of them...
What are you using now? It must be excruciatingly slow if an i7 will barely handle it?
Those geekbench numbers are great -- if you spend your whole day running geekbench?
I use my Mac for a lot of things and running geekbench aint one of them...
I seriously never understood why people buy ram upgrades when buying prebuilt computers... the prices they charge are astronomical compared to what it costs from a computer parts retailer (newegg).
I'm glad you are going with the i7... as everyone has already pointed out... you can always add in more ram later without any warranty issues but once you break the seal for the processor, you are on your own.
I'm glad you are going with the i7... as everyone has already pointed out... you can always add in more ram later without any warranty issues but once you break the seal for the processor, you are on your own.
I purchased the RAM upgrade, because Crucial is actually charging more than Mac! It was a no-brainer to get it through Mac.
Can I explain?
a 8gb upgrade through Apple is $200.
Going to Crucial, a 4gb kit (single card without having to use empty slots) is $300.
Unless I am missing something here, it's cheaper to go through Mac.
Hmm.. didn't see this on newegg..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134800
assuming this would work with new 27" i7's.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134800
assuming this would work with new 27" i7's.
I'm confused? 8gb upgrade from Apple is (4x2gb sticks) for $200. It comes stock with 4gb (2x2gb). You can get Crucial memory(2x2gb) for ~$89 shipped. Then you will have 8gb of memory. So it is cheaper going though Crucial rather than Apple. Why would you want a "single card without having to use empty slots"??
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148317