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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

May 9, 2015 3:21 AM in response to Red Jacket Mike

In April 2014 I decided to go for a new late-2013/early-2014 model i7 3.5 27" 3Tb Fusion with 8Gb RAM.

As some folks say, it is apparently a very tricky job to remove the bonded screen to change the main drive, and would nullify the warranty, so I decided to choose the 3Tb Fusion so that would give me plenty of storage.

The Fusion drive is very fast, (similar to a Samsung EVO PRO 512 that I have) but it obviously has loads more space. I was very surprised that it was as fast as this. Really surprised in fact, but I thought it might seem to slow down as time went by....with more programmes installed etc. NOT the case. It is as fast as ever, a year later. A brilliant design.

As regards RAM, I had decided to upgrade it myself, rather than pay over the odds for Apple RAM. It is easy to do, via a door on the back of the machine. I used 32Gb of Crucial memory to speed the machine up, but also so that I never have to upgrade it again. ave never regretted getting the highest spec I could. To be honest, I think the speed increase of the machine with this much RAM is probably minimal, but the fact that I have mega amounts of it means that I am confident about the machine when I am using lots of programmes / complex files. And it has to last me.

Although I live in the UK, I bought mine from Atelco in Germany via their website, they are a reliable and well known European Apple dealer, and I specced the UK English keyboard which was a purchasing option. No issues with the supplier, the machine or the spec at all.

I also bought a used USB Superdrive.

No regrets then, but I did spot an Applecare package going cheap on 'the bay' which gives me another 2 yrs warranty and peace of mind.

A highly recommended machine.

27" iMac Haswell i5 vs i7