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richsadams Author

Level 1

90 points

27" iMac Haswell i5 vs i7

I'm finally going to upgrade from my '08 24" iMac to a new 27" iMac "dream machine" and need some professional advice. The heavy lifting will be for periodic video editing via Final Cut Pro, After Effects, etc.

Here's what I'm planning on:

RAM: 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM
SSD: 512GB Flash Storage
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5

Here's where I'm torn:

CPU: 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz

CPU: 3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz

In the past there seemed to be a greater difference between the CPU options, but now, the disparity doesn't seem as wide. I checked Intel's site and their bottom line:

"The Core i5-4670K has 33% less cache than the Core i7-4770K and no Hyper-Threading. The Core i7-4770K's Hyper-Threading feature helps by creating four additional virtual cores for a total of eight threads, which increases performance during multitasking procedures."

So I'm not sure which would be the most beneficial in my case, particularly during the "heavy lifting" stage.

I'm stretching my budget as it is but am willing spend the additional $200 for the i7 if it would really make a difference and it sounds like it might, but I'm hoping for some expert advice.

TIA!

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Sep 29, 2013 1:53 PM

46 replies

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Dec 12, 2013 2:42 PM in response to lenn5

N it will not. That is until you reinstall OS X on just the SSD. These 2 drives are tied together. If either has problems you're done.

richsadams Author

Level 1

90 points

Dec 12, 2013 11:37 PM in response to lenn5

lenn5 wrote:

The one concern I have with the fusion drive is will the iMac still run if the spinning drive part of Fusion fails? I ask this because if after the 3 year AppleCare warranty ends and the spinning drive fails it is no trival task and probably expensive to take these new iMacs apart and replace the drive.

As LowLuster said, if either drive fails you'd need to replace the failed drive.

In that sense a failed Fusion Drive combo is really no different than a failed HDD or SSD drive. If a drive fails it has to be replaced. Plus you are correct, replacing a drive (or any other internal part) in a new iMac is not as easy as it was with older models but it certainly can be done.

That said, I've read that the MTTF (mean time to failure) rate for SSDs is twice that of HDDs. In other words, an SSD should last twice as long as a HDD so that would mean that the HDD would fail first. If the average lifespan of an HDD built today is 5 years, an SSD might last 2x as long, but that really depends on actual use for either. Based on that I guess the lesson would be that if you can afford it, a single SSD would preferable to the Fusion SSD/HDD combo of equal size.

I have a 1.2 TB Fusion Drive (1TB HDD plus a 128GB SSD) in my Late 2013 27" iMac. One day one of the drives will fail and statistically it will probably be after Apple Care expires, but that's the nature of the beast I suppose. I didn't mind opening up my 2008 iMac and when the time comes I'll probably open this one up...but I'm not really looking forward to it. When I do I expect the price of SSDs will be such that both the SSD and HDD will be replaced with a single, larger SSD. After seeing how much SSD prices are dropping I'm tempted to do that sooner than later and before either fails...but I'll cross that bridge later.

FWIW after a month or so of putting it through its paces, my new iMac has been awesome.

Feb 1, 2014 6:21 AM in response to richsadams

Hi richsadams,

There is a very large difference between the i7 and the i5, After completing my tests in-store I had no choice but

to go with the i7, in regards to working with videos and photos you will see a big difference in performance. A task

that takes 28 secs with the i7 will take 45 secs with the i5, hyperthreading is no joke, it is a serious weapon.

After I did my in-store benchmarks we purchased the 3.4Ghz i5 / 1TB Fusion / GTX 775M 2GB and the 3.5GHz i7 / 256 SSD / GTX 780M 4GB, we really wanted to see if there would in the real world be a large difference in performance. Eight threads really does make a difference in everything you do, we calculated that over a 10 hour

working day we would save a total of 18 minutes, now that might not sound alot but over the year that works out at

over 11 days more work done with the i7 than with the i5.

Fusion Drive, these are a big improvement over a 7200 rpm drive, however, compared to a full SSD they are garbage, as soon as you end up with more than 128GBs on the drive you will imediately see a performance drop,

even with only 50GBs of data on the drive, it simple does not allocate everything you need to the SSD.

Also the 780M delivers a performance improvment of around 20%.

Finally, Mavericks is very hungrey for RAM you will be needing 16GB, get the standard 8GB (4GB x 2) from Apple

and sell it and buy 16GB (8GB x 2) crucial set.

richsadams Author

Level 1

90 points

Feb 1, 2014 11:02 AM in response to M.a.c.M.a.n

Thanks for the feedback M.a.c.M.a.n. Your observations match up with others here.

Per my earlier post these are the specs for the 27" iMac that I bought last November:

3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7
16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM
1TB Fusion Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5

It's performing flawlessly and is indeed surprisingly fast for video editing/rendering. Under a heavy load (when those four cores are humming) CPU and GPU temps stay very moderate, up maybe 8c to 10c tops. It never breaks a sweat and neither do I!

I had the same thoughts about RAM (buy 8GB initially) but at the time the difference between 8GB and 16GB from Apple and Crucial was only $36 and less than that with OWC and others. DIY to 32GBs really makes sense though. I may pop another 16GB in at some point but it hasn't hit much less than 8GB or so of free RAM so far.

I had installed an SSD in my earlier iMac and of course saw a huge improvement in speed. I was very spoiled by that and was worried about a drop in performance with the Fusion drive. The SSD in my new iMac is full and for the most part the Fusion drive is pretty much matching the performance of the SSD only drive with respect to opening applications and day-to-day tasks. It took a few weeks but it has really "learned" what I use most. I may opt for a 1TB SSD in another year or two (maybe larger as prices drop!), but for now the Fusion is doing great.

I have a couple of external HDD's and one external SSD scratch disk attached via Firewire (Thunderbolt adapters) and they are all über snappy too. USB 3.0 is awesome as well. So I'm quite content with my new baby's performance.

Thanks again!

Feb 1, 2014 1:48 PM in response to richsadams

Hi Rich, your welcome, that was the first time I posted anything but after I read your question I felt the need, I was

originally told my Apple Tech that I could simply use the GHz difference between the i5 and i7 to work out the

improvement, some of the things they come out with are insane.

All of are Macs were i5 and I was simply amazed at the performance improvement just through creating the illusion

of twice the cores, crazy but very effective, we now have 3 work stations all rocking 3 displays each, all 3 of our

iMacs are the same spec as yours except for the Drive where we went for 256 & 512 SSD.

Good to know that the 1TB Fusion is working out, unfortunately we just had 2 much being used constantely for a

128Gb SSD to work correctly. For us the ram difference was $80.00 and we sold Apples 8GB (4GB x 2) for $90

on ebay.

We did try a 3TB Fusion drive but zeroing the drive takes over 30 hours and the thought of that eveytime we need

a repair is a real no no.

I would not bother with an internal SSD upgrade, we now have 6 LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt SSD and they are

stunning, they use such a small amount of power that we can run 3 of the Belkin Ultra Slim 4 port Hub

(un-powered), awesome.

One question, we have found that USB 3.0 is providing a read speed of 443MBs on the SSD drives and Thunderbolts best read speed is only 382MBs, have you experienced the same ?

Thanks.

richsadams Author

Level 1

90 points

Feb 1, 2014 7:13 PM in response to M.a.c.M.a.n

I can't speak to the Thunderbolt speeds as I don't have a Thunderbolt dock or enclosure...just can't justify the price.

My bare SanDisk SSD in my Voyager S3 3.0 USB dock consistently reads at about 420MB/s with writes around 290 MB/s. The SanDisk is going on two years old though so I would expect a newer/faster SSD to do a little better.

FWIW the Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter is pathetically slow with an SSD...well under 75 MB/s read/write and even slower with an HDD. About the only thing it's good for is grabbing smaller files that aren't accessed very often. I do wish they would have kept one Firewire 800 port on the new iMacs.

Enjoy your setup...sounds awesome!

BChaff

Level 1

0 points

Feb 23, 2014 1:39 PM in response to richsadams

Rich,

Some questions, your time permitting:

You are using the newest iMac with the 4GB 780M, right?

Are you are using After Effects CC or CS6?

[For CC]

Tapping the After Effects logo at top left of the program, in the drop down menu, tap on Preferences. In this window, tap on the second item down, Previews. Look to the right, under Fast Previews, for the button, GPU Information. Tap on that. You will get another window labeled, GPU Information. Again, under Fast Draft, and next to Ray-tracing, tap on the button that reads, CPU. Do you see your GPU there ready to be accessed?

As far as I know, adobe has not white-listed this GPU yet, so without a hack, that card is potentially not being used. It sure would be great if you would let us know if you see it. If you do see it, you have to tap on it to let AE know you want to use it.

Ironically, I want to get this very iMac but with the 512 flash, and to order Video Copilot's, Element 3D and the GPU is already on their white-list. So one would be using an unsanctioned card in the host program [AE] but the plugin [E3D] would be using it?

Please let us know. But please let me know.

Thanks.

Brian

Feb 23, 2014 2:58 PM in response to BChaff

Hi Brian,

We have become very irritated with Apple, Adobe and Intel, not one of these

companies can provide a straight answer regarding how the i7 in a real world

scenario improves your daily performance over an i5 with the below software.

Our original tests have confirmed that the i7 does create an overall improvement

but in the real world no one is using a filter or rendering every second of the day.

We have just finished creating 62 different tests that will clearly identify the

benefits of using the following software packages.

Adobe CC (Light Room / Photoshop / illustrator)

Adobe CS5 (Light Room / Photoshop / illustrator)

Rhino CAD

3DS Max

Solid Works

Modler 3D

As of Monday the 24/02/2014 we will start testing the following machines,

3.4GHz i5 / 16GB RAM / 256GB Flash / GTX 775M 2GB

3.5GHz i7 / 16GB RAM / 256GB Flash / GTX 780M 4GB

3.4GHz i7 / 32GB Ram / 1TB Fusion Drive / GTX 680MX 2GB

3.5GHz i7 / 24GB RAM / 1TB Fusion Drive / GTX 775M 2GB

Unfortunately we do not use After Effects, but in the next 7 days we will be

putting are results on the message board.

Thanks,

Kris.

richsadams Author

Level 1

90 points

Feb 23, 2014 5:09 PM in response to BChaff

Hi Brian. Yes, my iMac has the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GPU.

I wish I could help you out, but I only used Adobe AE CC briefly a couple of months ago. It performed fine, rendering was very, very fast, but I didn't have a reason to commit to their annual program. FWIW I used to use a number of Adobe's products but I'm not a fan of their move to the "exclusive cloud" based model so I probably won't be using it anytime in the near future either and will stick with FC Pro X, Motion, etc.

Perhaps someone else will chime in with the specifics that you're looking for.

FWIW the iMac's Core i7 has been terrific when it comes to rendering video content...using all four cores is a huge improvement over my old Core 2 Duo. The GPU hasn't hesitated to deliver stunning graphic playback either. Neither the CPU or GPU heat sensors (monitored in iStat Menus) have indicated any strain at all. Very nice so far.

Best of luck!

BChaff

Level 1

0 points

Feb 25, 2014 2:26 AM in response to richsadams

Rich,

Thanks for getting back. Maybe someone will comment. How are you geting FCPX to save only to a drive you have set up other than the hard drive? I set up a folder on a different drive and FCPX keeps saving to the main hard drive. Additionally, having to close the program to save my work rather than wait for 15-minute intervels and the software, coded by humans, to save it. FCPX is fast and could have been a monster, but if I am working fast and liking the results, if at several minutes it just crashes, I have lost everything. Insane. And FCPX lacked features even iMovie had for a while.

Kris,

I am not interested in bashing adobe, intel and the rest of these playground antics performing companies. I just want to get work done and know there is a plethora of shannigans going on so I am trying to keep ahead or on top of stupidville. I am just getting what works and making a living.

Besides, if I or anyone else wants to point any fingers, we can start and end with ourselves in the mirror. We, the common man, has allowed all of this to be born and maintained.

Brian

richsadams Author

Level 1

90 points

Feb 27, 2014 2:46 PM in response to BChaff

Hi Brian. Apologies for the late reply. So much to do...

Although prices are getting better, I'm still waiting for Thunderbolt enclosures, docks, etc. to enter the realm of my pocketbook's reality so I ended up using an SSD connected via USB 3.0 as a scratch disk for FCP. I haven't tested it but it appears to be close to FW800 transfer rates. USB 3.0 is certainly faster than using a TB/FW800 adapter.

I can't recall the exact setup, but I just pointed FCP to that disk/folder at some point and things have been working fine.

It's been stable for me but if FCPX is crashing it sounds like there's something wrong. Perhaps reinstalling it might help?

I know what you mean about the "updated" FCPX...although Apple continues to reinstate some of the features that were "must haves" in the older versions. I expect that will continue. Send them some feedback (I did): http://www.apple.com/feedback/finalcutpro.html

Anyway, we've gotten a bit OT here (which is refreshing on this thread now and then 😉) so...

Cheers!

richsadams Author

Level 1

90 points

Feb 27, 2014 3:00 PM in response to richsadams

Nice article on the new iMacs and finally some bench tests on custom-ordered models like some of ours...

http://www.macworld.com/article/2087460/late-2013-imac-review-faster-than-before -but-the-gains-over-last-year-are-modest.html

Since I couldn't justify a new Mac Pro I was pleased to see how well my 3.5GHz i7 held up against the Mac Pro.

It even slightly edged it out in several others including the Cinebench test.

chicmec

Level 1

4 points

May 7, 2014 11:52 PM in response to richsadams

Thanks richsadams !! You never knew that you helped me a lot by initiating this discussion!

I've been using an old iMac since 2008 (24") and it's time, and justified, to upgrade mine. I was struggling between i5 and i7 (where the price difference is still acceptable) ... and choosing between Fusion drive or SSD (where the price difference is rather significant).

By serendipity, I found this discussion. I think I'd follow you:

3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7
16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM
1TB Fusion Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5

THANKS to all comment/advice of you folks. 🙂

richsadams Author

Level 1

90 points

May 8, 2014 8:38 AM in response to chicmec

Thanks for the kind words chicmec. However I have to defer to the experts that helped me make my buying decisions...and I am very grateful for their help as well.

BTW, I just purchased an additional 16GB of RAM (Crucial from Amazon) for a total of 32GBs. I may not have needed it, my new iMac never really broke a sweat with 16GBs, but, well, you know. 🙂

Enjoy your new iMac...I know I am!

Jul 2, 2014 4:30 AM in response to richsadams

This thread has had a lot of great info for me; I'll be purchasing a new iMac within the next few weeks, and I'll be going with the 3.5GHz i7, the standard 8 GB of RAM (I'll upgrade to 16 or 32 from OWC), an SSD drive (not sure of the size yet) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5.

I'll use it mainly for FCPX and Photoshop and Lightroom CC 2014. I should see significant performance increases, since I am upgrading from the original 2006 Mac Pro (1,1). I'll eventually add an external thunderbolt enclosure and a 2nd Apple Cinema Display.

27" iMac Haswell i5 vs i7