12-04-2009, 10:42 PM
earache wrote:
Got one on order thru Apple using wife's Edu discount. Was the fastest way to get one. We should have it just in time for xmas. For me the i7 was important since I do a lot of 3d and rendering work. Want to move off my PC to the iMac for rendering. I use Maxwell which is multi-core aware. Can't wait.
I'm curious to see real-world tests on the i5 vs i7 iMacs. The main difference is the i7 has hyperthreading, the i5 does not. Some people confuse hyperthreading with "cores." They think seeing 8 bars in Activity Monitor is better than 4. Really it's more like four bars cut in half. One bar maxed out on an i5 is about twice as fast as one bar maxed out on an i7.
I'm curious what speed apple has them running at anyway. They're using slow RAM and the multiplier shouldn't be over 21.