“We place a high value on our multitasking test, as it reflects how many people tend to work, but on single applications, the 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo chip helps push the iMac comfortably past its Windows-based competition. If you anticipate running particularly demanding multitasking workloads, you may want to consider going for the quad-core Core i5 or i7 iMac. Otherwise, the majority of you should feel confident that the iMac is the fastest all-in-one on the market, and you would be hard pressed to find a mainstream workload (or combination of workloads), that would bog this system down,” Brown reports.
Full review here.
[Attribution: AppleInsider. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Might have to save 8% on i7 tomorrow. For some weird reason my 24″ iMac is a lot slower after Snow Leopard upgrade. Tired of spinning beach ball especially in adobe cs4 apps. But those apps put food on the table.
isn’t it a pity, when you “have to” upgrade?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
My i7 sings a beautiful song…
My 2004 iMac works great to this day. Only issue I see now is when I upgraded to a nikon d60, there’s a .5 to 1.5 second lag to view a pic as it loads. This isn’t end-all buuuut maybe, just maybe it’s a perfect excuse for a new iMac
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
How’s your i7 really doing? I want one badly, but the postings around the web about light leakage, DOA units, cracked screens, etc., are putting me off a bit.
What’s your verdict?
@ @marko:
I wouldn’t let a few isolated cases worry you too much. This happens every time Apple has a new product – a few dozen people get faulty units and post about it all over the net. An i7 iMac is definitely on the horizon for me… um, my business, that is. (I can’t wait to see how much faster Final Cut renders will be vs my 2.1ghz Macbook =)
BTW, mw: returned – The few bad iMacs were probably returned and replaced with good ones.
Our new i7 is in transit from China, says it’ll be here Monday, woot woot! Oh the plans we have for the HD, yea!
I wonder how many dead i7 iMacs there REALLY are?
I mean, engadget reports the problem, and the story gets repeated and repeated by blog after blog. I saw one “news” report that said support forums are “quickly filling up” with reports of the problem. I think that’s a bit of a stretch of the truth from what I’ve seen, yes people actually have the reported problems, but the forums are always busy with all sorts of problems and discussion, but they’re hardly overwhelmed by this single issue IMO.
it’s funny how negative stories especially about Apple get amplified over the net, without any sort of quantification of the details or statement of the facts. I heard someone on a podcast say another guy was lucky to get a good 27″ iMac, but I think in fact it’s the opposite – some people were UNlucky to get lemons or suffer damage in transit.
in any case, Apple seems to be pretty good at making such kind of thing right on an in-warranty machine. I wouldn’t worry about it if you need a new machine
FWIW I’ve had my i7 iMac for a week and a half and it’s running perfectly. (mine was ordered online and shipped from China, travelled halfway across N.America and back to west coast via courier and arrived without broken screen) It’s sooo fast. my >40k photos in iPhoto load quickly and scroll & zoom crazy fast. a quick video encoding test shows at least 4x speed improvement over an old core2 duo MBPro. Haven’t had the time to compare to my c2d 24″ iMac but I expect similar results
I think it’s worth it to go for the i7 over the 3GHz C2D
Just got a 27″ iCore7 iMac from the first batch and no problems so far. I usually try to avoid the ‘bleeding edge’, but my 5 + year old Dual G5 was on it’s last legs and I couldn’t wait any longer. Had been debating on wether to go with 2- 22″ screens or one 30″ with a new MacPro. The iMac’s 27″ screen is beautiful, and so was the price!
Compared rendering speeds on Form•Z (program will take advantage of multi-cores and multithreading when rendering) – about 75 minutes on a Dual G5, 25 minutes on a year old, 8 core PowerMac, and about 24 minutes on my new iMac!
@Cascadians Mine is en route from China and is supposed to be here Monday, too!! It’s in Alaska now. Very excited! Wonder if Apple will cut me a check for the difference I paid and the Black Friday price??
Buying an i5 and MacBook Pro tomorrow. Can’t wait! Finally replacing my trusty PB 12″ G4, which will replace the dead eMac for my kids.
I’ll buy one of those 27 ” i7 iMacs for my birthday in March.
Really looking forward to that!!!
When I bought my current 24″ iMac in 2007 it arrived with a cracked screen. More of a ding than a crack. Apple replaced it right away. The second one sounded like the HD was about to go out. It was really loud. They replaced that one.
I think the third one was the one I kept. Point is, they stood behind their product and made it right. They were easy to deal with too. Things happen. How a company deals with it when it does makes all the difference. BTW, the current iMac, running just fine.
Hmm…Our i7 went from China, to Alaska, then…to Memphis? Come on the anticipation is killing us.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> Our computer flew over and past us. Come back soon new computer. Come. Back. Soon. *tear drop falls*
Have ordered two i7’s for my lab but was told it will take weeks to get them…Canada is always slower to get new Macs. So much for free trade.
my 27″ i7 was not DOA. it is a thing of beauty!
Bought a 27″ i5 yesterday and it is also a thing of beauty! If you can afford to pick one up I highly recommend this system. The speed and ability to run multiple tasks without a hint of the spinning beach ball popping up is simply fantastic. And there is not enough room to describe the incredibleness of the screen! Amazing!
Went to the local Apple store yesterday and purchased a 27′” iMac i5. Used a fresh Time Machine backup of my 24″ Core2Duo to transfer data/application . . . and was up and running FLAWLESSLY on the new machine within 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Just now added an additional 4GB of memory (from an MBP 17″ 3.06GHz upgraded to 8GB) and now have the fastest, most beautiful machine I’ve ever owned (since 1984).
Gawd, but I could not possibly be happier right now! Go Apple!