Fastest Core i7 iMac model rated best buy

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  • Reply 61 of 80
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by halo1982 View Post


    Buying RAM through Apple Store: Never never never for anyone who has some tech knowledge



    Hard drive through Apple Store in an *iMac*: Everyone should buy the biggest you can afford. Unless you have a couple of hours, two suction cups, and a clean room to keep the dust out from in between the glass and screen when you remove it, disassemble half the computer, and put it back on again.



    Upgrading the hard drive in my MacBook Pro or a MacBook is super easy (just somewhat annoyed that you now have to remove 10 or 12 screws to do it, but it's a trade off given the awesome battery). A Mac Pro is insanely easy of course. The (new) mini isn't made for it, but it can be done easily. But an Al-iMac: I wouldn't upgrade the hard drive on it if you paid me, and I've replaced the screen and more on older MacBook Pros (2x) and iBooks (I'm a bit rough with em). Seriously I can't even comprehend someone who would replace their Alu-iMac's LCD screen. Just seems like PAIN! Well that and dust.

    Maybe I'd do it four years in the future to put a 8TB drive in, but only then if I had 800 cans of air. =P



    I bought my own hard drive to upgrade my new 15" i7, but if you're "in the know" truly, apple lowered it's ram prices. I don't know what they are for other models, but upgrading to 8 gigs of ram on the 15 was about 10 bucks more than the usual cheaper apple ram vendor here in Canada. It was about 400 bucks for 8 gigs of ram at the Apple store. Same price as everyone else. That's never happened before.
  • Reply 62 of 80
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    The i7 seems to be a good chip. I just took delivery of a MacBook Pro i7 and am about to load it with Final Cut Studio 2 so I will be keen to see how it stands up against my Mac Pro Xeon 8 core in crunching HD video.
  • Reply 63 of 80
    reganregan Posts: 474member
    Good comparisons.....but I would have liked to see how the dual core 3.6ghz i5 27" iMac fared in those tests.



    I am deciding between the quad core i5 and the dual core i5 27" models right now.



    A similarly specced dual core i5 27" when you uogradethe gpu to a 5750 actually costs MORE than the quad core i5 27"!!
  • Reply 64 of 80
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    The i7 seems to be a good chip. I just took delivery of a MacBook Pro i7 and am about to load it with Final Cut Studio 2 so I will be keen to see how it stands up against my Mac Pro Xeon 8 core in crunching HD video.



    Keep in mind that the i7 in the MBP is only a dual core (with hyperthreading - 4 virtual cores) while the i7 in the iMac is a quad core (with hyperthreading - 8 virtual cores)



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by 4miler View Post


    I would love to get a new iMac, but how come there's no matte, anti-glare screen? The 1,000+ petitions at the petition site http://macmatte.wordpress.com/comment-page-1/#comments shows there are a substantial percentage - around 20-40% depending on which survey you look at - that need matte screens.



    So 20-40% of the people going to a site demanding matte screens actually want matte screens? is that supposed to be impressive?



    Apple sells millions of iMacs. 1,000 people is not going to make them release a new model. Apple has undoubtedly studied this to death and concluded that the number of people who refuse to buy because of the glossy screen is small enough to be ignored.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by halo1982 View Post


    Buying RAM through Apple Store: Never never never for anyone who has some tech knowledge



    That's no longer true. Today, the price premium for buying your RAM from Apple is modest. You can still save a little by buying your own, but for many people, it's not worth the bother today - even those who would have done so a year or two ago.
  • Reply 65 of 80
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,457member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Groovetube View Post


    I bought my own hard drive to upgrade my new 15" i7, but if you're "in the know" truly, apple lowered it's ram prices. I don't know what they are for other models, but upgrading to 8 gigs of ram on the 15 was about 10 bucks more than the usual cheaper apple ram vendor here in Canada. It was about 400 bucks for 8 gigs of ram at the Apple store. Same price as everyone else. That's never happened before.



    It has happened before -- back in the mid-90s when RAM prices spiked and Apple was sitting on a large set of fixed price contracts or inventory.



    OWC's prices look notably better than Apple's at the moment for higher density sticks.
  • Reply 66 of 80
    slavslav Posts: 2member
    "Future-proofing" is rather laughable concept handy for sucking the most money out of a consumer -



    Ah high end macbook pro costs almost 3 times more than a base model. A good way to "future-proof" yourself is to save the 1000 or 2000 in upgrades and save that money for an entirely new system in 3 years years.



    I can promise in 3 years most will care little if they splurged for the i5 or i7. Lacking usb3, firewire 69,000, 3d displays, or whatever wizardry comes along.



    High end machines make sense for the at this point 1% of mac users who are making their living editing video.
  • Reply 67 of 80
    nagrommenagromme Posts: 2,834member
    That answers that: i7 + SSD for me. (Down with spinning platters!)
  • Reply 68 of 80
    I find it hard to believe that the best value iMac for the average user is the most expensive and most powerful. Most users, given their modest needs, would be better off getting the base iMac and saving themselves $1000. Anything else is overkill and good marketing.



    With all due respect to Barefeats, their obsession with pure performance is irrelevant to most people's needs. Unless you have a specific reason for an i7 iMac you are wasting your money. Benchmarks are a useful guide but price per Ghz is not a very helpful way to determine whether a computer will serve you well over its expected lifetime.
  • Reply 69 of 80
    gary54gary54 Posts: 169member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by stillman View Post


    I find it hard to believe that the best value iMac for the average user is the most expensive and most powerful. Most users, given their modest needs, would be better off getting the base iMac and saving themselves $1000. Anything else is overkill and good marketing.



    With all due respect to Barefeats, their obsession with pure performance is irrelevant to most people's needs. Unless you have a specific reason for an i7 iMac you are wasting your money. Benchmarks are a useful guide but price per Ghz is not a very helpful way to determine whether a computer will serve you well over its expected lifetime.





    Bingo. It's the high end models that lose the most value when it comes to replacing your system. On the other end of the spectrum, used mini's sell for damn near what you paid for them. Unless you have specific need for a high end system, its all hot air and ego boosting.



    The folks at BF are obsessed with faster is better. Is it?
  • Reply 70 of 80
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Slav View Post


    Ah high end macbook pro costs almost 3 times more than a base model. .



    It's really amazing how people can tell outright lies and expect to get away with it.



    13" base model is $1199. Upgraded model is $1499.



    15" base is $1799 and upgraded is $2199.



    17" base is $2299, upgraded to i7 is $2499.



    None of those look like 3 times the base model.



    Now, if you compare a 17" with SSD, loaded with software, maxed out on RAM, and so on, then it's probably 3 times a base 13" - but that's a foolish comparison. If you need 8 GB of RAM, you would need it on either system. If you need SSD, you should included it on both systems you're comparing.
  • Reply 71 of 80
    crunchcrunch Posts: 180member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Crunch View Post


    If you had to choose upgrading the CPU -OR- the GPU on the lower-end 27" model, would you choose the



    ATI Radeon HD 5750 w/ 1GB GDDR5 VRAM over the ATI Radeon HD 5670 w/ 512MB GDDR3 VRAM



    -OR-



    Quad Core i7 2.93GHz (turbo up to 3.6GHz) over the Quad Core i5 2.8GHz (turbo up to 3.33GHz)???



    Both upgrades are $200 each.



    I'm quoting myself here because my earlier post is misleading in the sense that you cannot upgrade the lower-end 27" model to a Core i7 at all.



    In fact, ALL configurations of the lower-end 27" model are DUAL-core ONLY, while ALL configurations of the higher-end 27" iteration are QUAD-core ONLY!



    I didn't realize that and reading through a few other posts on other blogs and forums, I see that this oversight is made more often than one might think.



    The upgrade from the lower-end 27-incher to the higher-end one is actually a pretty good choice, as you get BOTH the higher-end graphics card with GDDR5 dedicated graphics memory as well as TWICE the amount of it, AND you not only go from a Core i3 to an i5, but you ALSO GET an upgrade from a dual-core to a quad-core CPU!



    It definitely would make ZERO sense to upgrade both the CPU *and* GPU on the lower-end 27" iMac, as that upgrade is $50 MORE expensive, *AND* while you are getting a Core i5, it is still only DUAL-core i5, and NOT a QUAD-core i5!



    For Apple to offer this upgrade could almost be interpreted as a little sneaky, which is why I am making such a big deal out of the correction of my own post!



    Cheers everyone!
  • Reply 72 of 80
    dacloodacloo Posts: 890member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    QFT



    Yet another abbreviation.



    - Quantum Field Theory

    - Quantitative Feedback Theory

    - Quality Family Time

    - Qualified Funeral Trust
  • Reply 73 of 80
    swiftswift Posts: 436member
    I buy the most I can afford, after a major upgrade. Usually, I'll get the second version. Then, two to three years later, I buy the new top model I can afford, and finance it with the sale of the old model. A friend who is a Photoshop jockey got a MacPro, complete with custom drives, for $2500.
  • Reply 74 of 80
    avidfcpavidfcp Posts: 381member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by stillman View Post


    I find it hard to believe that the best value iMac for the average user is the most expensive and most powerful. Most users, given their modest needs, would be better off getting the base iMac and saving themselves $1000. Anything else is overkill and good marketing.



    With all due respect to Barefeats, their obsession with pure performance is irrelevant to most people's needs. Unless you have a specific reason for an i7 iMac you are wasting your money. Benchmarks are a useful guide but price per Ghz is not a very helpful way to determine whether a computer will serve you well over its expected lifetime.



    It's aleways been like that so they can get the most out if the consumer. Every machine starting with low range just lack a feature you can get if you go up a little until the next thing you know, your walkibg out with the Apple version of top of the line.
  • Reply 75 of 80
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Robin Huber View Post


    I have a pet peeve about the new line up. I have a 24" iMac that is just perfect for me size-wise. To upgrade, I must either get a smaller screen or pay for more screen space than I want or need (or that may even fit under my shelf). In short, 21 is a step down and 27 too big for many people. I am going to wait and see what happens next round before deciding on an upgrade. Maybe they'll offer a midsize screen.



    As the new iMacs are 16:9 ratio the 27" is, at 20.4" high, not quite as tall as the old 24" (20.5") so if the 24" fits under your shelf then the 27" will too.



    Of course if you are restricted by width then that's a different story as the 27" is 3.2" wider.
  • Reply 76 of 80
    jonnyboyjonnyboy Posts: 525member
    in spite of this advice, i went for the quad-core i5. i'm no video renderer and this will be perfectly adequate for my needs. sold my mid-2007 24" for 45% of the price i got it for as well, so i'll certainly be hoping to get a similar return on this investment in a minimum of 3 years time
  • Reply 77 of 80
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SendMe View Post


    I'd say that nobody who buys the i7 will have any regrets whatsoever. The first time they want to convert a movie into Apple format to watch on their iPad, they will be amazed at how fast it goes.



    Will they? Seems like it would depend on what app you use for the conversion. If you use handbrake, sure (four cores plus the four HT cores), but if you use iTunes (which is more likely for most "ma and pa" users) it only uses one core.
  • Reply 78 of 80
    backtomacbacktomac Posts: 4,579member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post


    Will they? Seems like it would depend on what app you use for the conversion. If you use handbrake, sure (four cores plus the four HT cores), but if you use iTunes (which is more likely for most "ma and pa" users) it only uses one core.



    Since when did iTunes start encoding video?
  • Reply 79 of 80
    jonnyboyjonnyboy Posts: 525member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by backtomac View Post


    Since when did iTunes start encoding video?



    select video > advanced > create x version
  • Reply 80 of 80
    backtomacbacktomac Posts: 4,579member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jonnyboy View Post


    select video > advanced > create x version



    Did not know that.
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