Purchase advice needed regarding 21.5" retina imac
Currently I have a 15" early 2013 MacBook Pro 2.7 quad i7 with 16gb and 512ssd. It has just had a new screen assembly and logic board and I use it as a desktop machine so the battery is in new condition. Basically it's in new condition and serves my current purposes. However...
I bought this machine to replace a 27" 2012 iMac that I had installed a 512ssd into with a 2GB graphic card. The reason I replaced was not particularly that I wanted a laptop but more that I wanted a retina screen. I have astigmatism but 15" is an ideal viewing distance for me where I do not need to wear glasses. If I sat that close to the iMac then I would see all the screen pixels. However if I sat further back from the iMac so the viewing distance gave me a retina equivalent display, then I'd have to wear glasses. I have been very pleased with the retina screen, in the past I would have considered a 21.5" screen too small, but I find sitting close to the MacBook screen is big enough.
But Apple has now introduced 21.5" retina screens so that would enable the same no glasses viewing distance and give me an big increase in screen size which I find a very attractive proposition. So I have already made the decision that I'd like the 21.5" iMac *if* I do not sacrifice performance and thusly I get to the reason for this post and the advice I need.
The MacBook I currently have has a dedicated graphics gpu and an intel 4000 processor. I have looked at Geekbench (which I'm not sure are relevant) scores and it seems a completely specced up 21.5" would give me what I want, but with an i7 and 16gb Ram upgrade it starts to get very expensive especially as I'd like the 512SSD option. At the moment in Aussie dollars 16gb ram and a 512SSD is coasting 2.3K without the i7 upgrade which adds another 320 bucks. So finally my question is, is if I leave out the i7 will the 21.5" give me better performance or worse performance than the current MacBook I have bearing in mind that the iMac will have a 6200 Iris Pro graphics card but the MacBook has a dedicated GPU Albeit a 3 year old GeForce GT 650M with 1GB ram.
So how will the Iris Pro6200 with i5 compare to the MacBook with GeForce GT 650M and i7 better worse or the same.
I bought this machine to replace a 27" 2012 iMac that I had installed a 512ssd into with a 2GB graphic card. The reason I replaced was not particularly that I wanted a laptop but more that I wanted a retina screen. I have astigmatism but 15" is an ideal viewing distance for me where I do not need to wear glasses. If I sat that close to the iMac then I would see all the screen pixels. However if I sat further back from the iMac so the viewing distance gave me a retina equivalent display, then I'd have to wear glasses. I have been very pleased with the retina screen, in the past I would have considered a 21.5" screen too small, but I find sitting close to the MacBook screen is big enough.
But Apple has now introduced 21.5" retina screens so that would enable the same no glasses viewing distance and give me an big increase in screen size which I find a very attractive proposition. So I have already made the decision that I'd like the 21.5" iMac *if* I do not sacrifice performance and thusly I get to the reason for this post and the advice I need.
The MacBook I currently have has a dedicated graphics gpu and an intel 4000 processor. I have looked at Geekbench (which I'm not sure are relevant) scores and it seems a completely specced up 21.5" would give me what I want, but with an i7 and 16gb Ram upgrade it starts to get very expensive especially as I'd like the 512SSD option. At the moment in Aussie dollars 16gb ram and a 512SSD is coasting 2.3K without the i7 upgrade which adds another 320 bucks. So finally my question is, is if I leave out the i7 will the 21.5" give me better performance or worse performance than the current MacBook I have bearing in mind that the iMac will have a 6200 Iris Pro graphics card but the MacBook has a dedicated GPU Albeit a 3 year old GeForce GT 650M with 1GB ram.
So how will the Iris Pro6200 with i5 compare to the MacBook with GeForce GT 650M and i7 better worse or the same.
Comments
How will the Iris Pro6200 with i5 quad core compare to the MacBook with GeForce GT 650M and i7 better worse or the same.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Pro-Graphics-6200.125593.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.com/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-650M.71878.0.html
https://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks (Retina iMac base = 11690, 2013 MBP = 10867)
The i5 is only 4 thread whereas the i7s are 8 thread so that has some impact on multi-tasking but 4 threads are ok. The SSD and RAM will make the bigger difference than the i7, you can leave it out.