Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Want a 27" imac, C2D or i5

hdsalinas

hdsalinas

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 28, 2006
397
0
San Pedro Sula, Honduras
I am a graphic designer and I want to get a 27" imac. I mainly use the CS4 suite and do some home video editing in iLife.

As a designer I am more interested in screen real state and HHD space than game performance that is why I want the base 27" - plus the lower price fits my budget better.

Now, what am I missing performance-wise between the the C2D and the I5 processors? I use a 2.4GHz 24" Imac at work and i would not say its slow...although with a little bit more than the 2GB of ram that it has would be even better.

As I said before, I am not a gamer I just need something that works great with CS4 and Ilife. Is there a noticeable everyday difference between these two desktops?
 
Last night I went to a local mac reseller and they have the 27" c2d for the equivalent of US$ 2210 and the 21" with 1TB is US$ 1947.

Few weeks ago I saw the base 21" with 500GB at PriceSmart (similar to Sams Club) US$1315. I am tempted to go with this one, but you are right, maybe they bump al the C2D to i5 and I just order the "new" base 27" from amazon.com.

You guys in the U.S. should not complain on how expensive macs are, you get them cheaper than anyone else.
 
fpsBeaTt said:
DO NOT GET ONE NOW. Updates are soon.
Click to expand...

Oh reeeaally. Do you have some kind of inside information?? You ppl kill me. This will be said until they are actually released whether in a few weeks or a few months. It's just silly speculation.
 
theITGuy said:
I don't get it...Americans should pay more for a product designed in the US?!?

-J.-
Click to expand...

Not at all... If anything resellers here should offer more reasonable prices.

I would not mind paying $200 - even $300 over the MSRP that sells in the US but $500 or more is really bad. A friend just bought a macbookPro 13" for $2000. (Take into account the average income per capita here in Honduras of US$4,150.)

Years ago when I purchased my MBP, I ordered it through Amazon (US$1999) saving US$ 947 by not getting it locally.

Now getting back to my main questions, I would like to get the imac within the next 6 months. My current MBP is serving me fine is just that my wife has taken over it since her Windows laptop died a few months ago.

I am aware that at any moment Apple may introduce a new model or bump the specs - or not. I was willing to get any of the current models regardless of this possibility. I just wasn't sure what was the difference between the C2D and the i5 processors. And after searching the web I came across some benchmarks and realized how good these new processors are.

Comparing the new imacs to the one at work and even my own MBP, there is a huge difference. So I think I will wait a little and save a bit more for the i5 Imac, hey maybe they all get the i5 soon.

meanwhile, I might just get an Ipad :)
 
iPad might be a good "holdover" device - but remember that it's not really meant to be a laptop replacement. For roughly the same price, you could potentially get a Mac Mini if you had another monitor laying around to plug in.

That being said, there are a ton of threads around here about the iMac and WWDC conference next week which may or may not announce new iMacs.

The iMac core i5 and i7 processors are solid except for the old, outdated video card. So, if you're into games or other applications that are heavy into the video card, you may want to wait.
 
Seems like you have a reason then! I personally would want the iPad if I did NOT have an iBook right now - but since I do in fact have a working laptop that comes with me whenever I feel I need to be connected, I don't have much use for it.

If I do purchase an iPad, it would probably be the second generation which hopefully has some (more) USB capability (think external CDRoms, HDD, etc) and perhaps some printing options.
 
TMRaven said:
No reason to wait for updated iMacs.
Click to expand...

I agree. I just received my iMac i7 machine today. I won't regret that something new comes out in a couple of weeks or a couple of months. I will have had a chance to make some money with this one and that's what getting this machine was all about. I needed to throw some power at my work and get things done faster.

I was able to load software today and test it out with some real world database work that I do on a daily basis and it is noticably faster than the Mac Pro 1,1 (1st Gen - 2006) machine that I've been using. It has saved me about an hour today of idle time that I would've spent waiting on the Mac Pro lately. I don't think I'm going to miss the Mac Pro at all.
 
It's 90% possible there won't be any new iMac releases in the WWDC. Get the i5... the C2D is out.

cheers!
 
I mulled over the C2D/i5 issue for quite awhile myself. In the end, I went for the baseline C2D, mostly because my computer usage is more RAM-intensive than CPU or GPU. The i5 certainly is more future-proof, but I think the C2D will hold me over for quite awhile. By the time quad-cores become more prevalent and supported by software, I'll have used this C2D for long enough to justify an upgrade.

That was my thinking anyway. But for your purposes, I think you should go i5, unless you're on a tight budget.
 
theITGuy said:
I don't get it...Americans should pay more for a product designed in the US?!?

-J.-
Click to expand...

Actually, the cheapest place to get Apple products is Hong Kong, since everything is Made in China and HK's a major hub. Lot of people intentionally stop over in Hong Kong or find someone who's going to bring back MacBook Pros.

iMacs, on the other hand, are much harder to carry back :p
 
reberto said:
No reason to wait a few days for a computer that can possibly have a much better GPU? Yeah, no reason at all :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Apple won't waste even a second for iMacs with just updated GPUs... The update from 20"&24" to 21.5"&27" was silent so why on earth the next, very minor update would receive some media attention?

Define "much better GPU". Only ATI 5870 is an update, others are more or less the same as 4850
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back