iMac processor - i5 vs i7?

[Mr-Trainor]

I'm ordering a new 21.5inch iMac but was wondering if its worth the extra £150 to upgrade the processor from quad-core 2.9 i5 to quad-core 3.1 i7.


Uses:
- the usual email/web browsing
- Microsoft office for college
- Macromedia flash for college
- Bootcamp
- Gaming but nothing much, at most maybe a simulation game every now and then [on bootcamp]
- Will be a lot of multitasking


So yeah, do you think I'd notice much difference between the two? Enough difference to make it worthwhile paying the extra £150? Or would you rather spend that money elsewhere, maybe upgrading something else.

[Explorator]

I think iMac processors are just fine. If you're paying like £1000< for it, you may aswell keep it as it is, Too be honest, won't make too much difference, IMO.

[xxMATTGxx]

I don't think it's worth the extra £150. You will probably not see the difference

[mrwoooooooo]

if you were buying a pc the price difference would be £80 not £150 :X

no its not worth it, would only be worth it if you were rendering videos

[iBlueBox]

You wont really notice any differences unless your doing heavy video editing, but still the i5 processors is till pretty good and decent.

[Tomm]

No. Also its not been Macromedia Flash since 2005

I'm ordering a new 21.5inch iMac but was wondering if its worth the extra £150 to upgrade the processor from quad-core 2.9 i5 to quad-core 3.1 i7.


Uses:
- the usual email/web browsing
- Microsoft office for college
- Macromedia flash for college
- Bootcamp
- Gaming but nothing much, at most maybe a simulation game every now and then [on bootcamp]
- Will be a lot of multitasking


So yeah, do you think I'd notice much difference between the two? Enough difference to make it worthwhile paying the extra £150? Or would you rather spend that money elsewhere, maybe upgrading something else.

[Mr-Trainor]

Ok thanks everyone . I actually got better advice here than on the thread I posted at MacRumors . I think I'll stick with the i5 then .

No. Also its not been Macromedia Flash since 2005

Lol, I wasn't sure exactly what it was called but checked at college this morning and the program we use is Macromedia Flash 8. Probably an old version, just like how we use Frontpage 2003 .

--
Oh, forgot to mention Xcode in uses (reason for going Mac in the first place), but I guess that won't make much difference.

[HotelUser]

Oh, forgot to mention Xcode in uses (reason for going Mac in the first place), but I guess that won't make much difference.

I have a 2010 27" iMac with a quad core i5. I've found it extremely powerful and within reason (the exception being running algorithms with stupid time complexity), I've never needed anything better. You wont need an i7 to use xcode, netbeans, eclipse or any other ide you want to use. I treat my machine like a dog, I have 60 tabs open in chrome with multiple browsers open, I never close applications and I never turn the thing off (I sleep it at night and that's it), and it runs great. Never freezes, does what I want when I want it to.

In terms of games you'll also be just fine. If you're a die hard gamer you should build your own gaming machine (just like a Windows user shouldn't buy OEM and should build their own for gaming) but you can play most games on the iMac just fine. Infact there's a lot more games natively for OS X now than when I switched over to OS X. When you get it I suggest installing Windows 7 on your bootcamp partition, but then download parallels or vmware and try running some of your games in in a virtual pc. I thought I would boot into Windows more often when I got this thing, but I haven't fired up bootcamp in over a year. VMware and Parallels can run Windows in a virtual pc from your bootcamp partition and when I play games I just use that. Even though it's simulated I've found that I can play almost any game I want just fine.

[Mr-Trainor]

I have a 2010 27" iMac with a quad core i5. I've found it extremely powerful and within reason (the exception being running algorithms with stupid time complexity), I've never needed anything better. You wont need an i7 to use xcode, netbeans, eclipse or any other ide you want to use. I treat my machine like a dog, I have 60 tabs open in chrome with multiple browsers open, I never close applications and I never turn the thing off (I sleep it at night and that's it), and it runs great. Never freezes, does what I want when I want it to.

In terms of games you'll also be just fine. If you're a die hard gamer you should build your own gaming machine (just like a Windows user shouldn't buy OEM and should build their own for gaming) but you can play most games on the iMac just fine. Infact there's a lot more games natively for OS X now than when I switched over to OS X. When you get it I suggest installing Windows 7 on your bootcamp partition, but then download parallels or vmware and try running some of your games in in a virtual pc. I thought I would boot into Windows more often when I got this thing, but I haven't fired up bootcamp in over a year. VMware and Parallels can run Windows in a virtual pc from your bootcamp partition and when I play games I just use that. Even though it's simulated I've found that I can play almost any game I want just fine.

Thanks for the advice . I don't know if I'll use Parallels or not, I'll probably just use Bootcamp at first. And yea the only reason I'll boot Windows is when I need to use Access/Fontpage - just any program you can't get on a mac really. As for gaming, I rarely play games on my PC as I use my Xbox for that, but may occasionally use one . Nothing much though, and I decided not to upgrade and instead stuck with the i5 .

[HotelUser]

Thanks for the advice . I don't know if I'll use Parallels or not, I'll probably just use Bootcamp at first. And yea the only reason I'll boot Windows is when I need to use Access/Fontpage - just any program you can't get on a mac really. As for gaming, I rarely play games on my PC as I use my Xbox for that, but may occasionally use one . Nothing much though, and I decided not to upgrade and instead stuck with the i5 .

If you just want programs then I would suggest a virtual PC because then you get the best of both!