Macbook pro i7 VS iMac i5

You can upgrade the iMac to an i7. It is a better machine than the laptop.

iMac with i7 upgrade. At least it's partially user-upgradeable. You cannot user-upgrade the MBP in any way.

True. I didn't say it was a freebie. 😀 Keep in mind that laptops us dual-core CPUs while the iMacs, except for the base model, use quad-core CPUs. Ceteris paribus, a quad-core is twice as fast as the dual-core.

For your work, you not only require a good GPU, but also a good CPU. I can't tell you what to spend. You need to make that tradeoff between what you want and what you can afford.

Hi Man,

I can offer comparison of Geekbench 4 Results for:

MacBook Pro 15-inch 2017

2.9GHz quad-core 7th-generation Intel Core i7 processor

Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz

Radeon Pro 560 with 4GB memory

vs

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)

Intel Core i7-6700K 4GHz (4 cores)

AMD Radeon R9 M395 2GB

The iMac is not exactly what you are looking at, but still you can see that for new MacBook Pro in High-End configuration is pretty hard to keep up with about 2 years old iMac. Both machines are running latest version of macOS 10.13.3 with all updates, MacBook Pro is just clean configuration after fresh OS was reinstalled.

The scores are actually links to detailed results from my Geekbench Browser profile.

Hope it helps, so you can have just a clue what to expect.

Have great day everyone,

Bye Manoli

What you're missing in all of that is Screen Size. Bigger screen real estate will make a huge difference to your ease of use on those apps.

Hi guys, MacBook Pro 15-inch is quad-core, too. 😉