I5 vs. I7

I bought an i7 for speed, power and capacity. I don't have to upgrade anything.

zoz

If you use heavily threaded applications like Handbrake you'll see a big boost with the i7 because of hyperthreading. If you don't (or if that statement doesn't make any sense) then you'll be just as well off with the i5 and save some $'s. Both machines are amazing.

Benchmarks on the two system show the i7 with significantly higher performance, though whether your usage would require or benefit from that performance I can't say. If you want to see the differences, just do a web search for "imac i7 benchmark" and you'll find a number of web pages with various benchmarks. You can then decide for yourself whether the performance improvement is worth the cost.

Regards.

Look at the data.

http://www.BareFeats.com
http://www.MarketingTactics.com/Speedmark/

In addtiton to the hyper-threading previously described to you (that can theoretically double your throughput if running many applications or one or more apps that use the feature), the Turbo Boost on the i7 takes the processor to a higher frequency (3.46 GHz in five 133 MHz steps) than the i5's Turbo Boost (four steps boost). But in practice as has been said, both machines are great performers for an all-in-one desktop.

I have an i7 with 16gb and am delighted with it, wnet for max spec so I did not need to upgrade it. I had my last imac a 24" for three years and my friend has it now.

The i7 is really fast on stuff like handbrake. I also just downloaded the latest update to iWorks and the spinning disk of death on the i7 when using it seems to be gone.

My screen is perfect!