I use Aperture, iMovie, etc. for most of may photo/video processing. I'm drooling over the 27" iMac, and I'm not sure if the i5 or i7 processors are worth an extra $300-$500 over the Core 2 Duo.
I'm shooting with a 5DII, and the 21MP files are definitely a bear for Aperture to process on my current iMac with 2.16 ghz Core 2 Duo with 1GB of RAM. The 1GB of RAM may be part of the problem, but I'm also highly motivated to get the new 27" display and perhaps 2TB of onboard hard disk space. I also shoot the occasional HD home movie, etc.
Anyway, I'm not all that tech savvy, and I'm wondering if any Mac users out there might advise on whether the i5 ($2000) or i7 ($2200) processors would likely provide noticeable functional improvement over the 3 ghz Core 2 Duo version ($1700) for Aperture, etc.
I'm not a Mac user but I upgraded from a Core 2 Duo 2.4 ghz to an i7 920 with 12 gb of memory and the change is quite remarkable. I have a 50D and a 5D II, which both produce large files.
Go for the i7, you won't regret it. Also get as much memory as you can but not from Apple.
flash wrote:
2TB of on board space? Wouldn't you be better off with that as external for when you need to migrate to a new machine. Better still a NAS or Drobo?
Gordon
You're probably right - is there any speed degradation working from an external drive? Do most of you use an external drive for processing? Or for backup?
Jim Woidat wrote:
You're probably right - is there any speed degradation working from an external drive? Do most of you use an external drive for processing? Or for backup?
I'll have to get familiar with "NAS and Drobo".
Thanks for your thoughts.
I would probably process them on the internal drive and then save them to the external drive.
flash wrote:
2TB of on board space? Wouldn't you be better off with that as external for when you need to migrate to a new machine. Better still a NAS or Drobo?
Gordon
do keep in mind that with newer cameras and the amount we shoot that 2tb isnt that much space.
as an example we shoot 35-40 weddings a year and 50-100 portrait sessions. we shoot raw and this year alone we hit 2.9 tb of images. so 2tb on board is a good way to go.
If time is money... get the i7. It chews through encoding tasks with ease. Much faster clock for clock doing encoding versus the core2duo. The i5 is not bad either... however no hyperthreading and more likely your motherboard will support 6 core cpus in the future with the i7.
Gotta have this one dig at apple though... $300-500 for an upgrade For that price you can buy a complete motherboard and cpu. Okay ..feel better now.
dan727 wrote:
If time is money... get the i7. It chews through encoding tasks with ease. Much faster clock for clock doing encoding versus the core2duo. The i5 is not bad either... however no hyperthreading and more likely your motherboard will support 6 core cpus in the future with the i7.
Gotta have this one dig at apple though... $300-500 for an upgrade For that price you can buy a complete motherboard and cpu. Okay ..feel better now.
The difference between the core2 and the true quad core or more processors is a quantum leap. With Snow Leopard and as more programs go 64 bit (read Aperture) this will translate in to productivity. The most video card you can afford is always a good idea.
As for the $500 premium, I'll stand at the front of the line to bash Apple's pricing but Intel's bump in price on these processors is substantial.
Now, there really seems to be a big improvement over an iMac C2D 2.4 with 4GB ram, up to 2.5/3 times better when all cores used. And that is only with the i5 so expect the i7 to be somehow better.
Get the i5... there's no point is getting the i7 for iMac. Why? Because the two major things i7 offers that i5 doesn't is Triple Channel RAM and the ability to SLi 3 video cards. The two issues are that Apple RAM is dual channel and the iMac doesn't have room for extra video cards. Hence, you really don't get anything from the i7 over the i5 "in the iMac". Now, if you're making your own computer and can hook it up in many ways, then the i7 has benefits over the i5.
Also, try to find an anti-glare matte filter for the glossy iMac screens.
mdude85 wrote:
I would probably process them on the internal drive and then save them to the external drive.
A drawback with iMacs is only one HD.....which means no effective scratch disk as ideally a scratch disk should be on a different drive.
Also ideally, you should have two external drives, and after processing your files on the computer move them to each external drive . This gives the computer HD plenty of free space and you have your files backed up on separate external drives for peace of mind. Probably cheaper as well.
