i3 vs i5
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D2's iMac is giving up the ghost. It's more than 8 years old, and I think the GPU is failing. I'll take it in for diagnostics later today.
Thinking of replacements, I'm looking at either a Mac Mini or an iMac. A Mac Mini separate monitor might be more economical, and she already has a laptop.
Getting an i5 processor is about a $200 premium. She just watches movies, web stuff, etc. Nothing graphic intensive. That should be good enough, right?
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Get the i3. It's a waste of money to pay $200 more for a faster cpu. She'll never notice a difference with the applications you describe. If something feels slow, it's not the cpu that will be the bottleneck.
Get the i3. It's a waste of money to pay $200 more for a faster cpu. She'll never notice a difference with the applications you describe. If something feels slow, it's not the cpu that will be the bottleneck.
That's sort of what I'm thinking. I'd rather spend the $$ on some after-market RAM (32 gig) and a bigger SSD.
The other thing is that her current (dead) Mac is a 2012 i7 that I handed down. Things have gotten a lot better in 8 years.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Get the i3. It's a waste of money to pay $200 more for a faster cpu. She'll never notice a difference with the applications you describe. If something feels slow, it's not the cpu that will be the bottleneck.
That's sort of what I'm thinking. I'd rather spend the $$ on some after-market RAM (32 gig) and a bigger SSD.
The other thing is that her current (dead) Mac is a 2012 i7 that I handed down. Things have gotten a lot better in 8 years.
Get the i3. It's a waste of money to pay $200 more for a faster cpu. She'll never notice a difference with the applications you describe. If something feels slow, it's not the cpu that will be the bottleneck.
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The other thing is that her current (dead) Mac is a 2012 i7 that I handed down. Things have gotten a lot better in 8 years.HW has gotten a lot better in 8 years. Website SW has gotten worse for the most parts. Lots of highly inefficient scripts and trackers got added to many websites, so casual "web browsing" burns much more CPU cycles, especially if she frequents websites with lots of dynamic/interactive contents. This is just going to get worse over time. May be help her install a good ad-blocker and anti-tracking plugin, perhaps.
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Get the i3. It's a waste of money to pay $200 more for a faster cpu. She'll never notice a difference with the applications you describe. If something feels slow, it's not the cpu that will be the bottleneck.
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The other thing is that her current (dead) Mac is a 2012 i7 that I handed down. Things have gotten a lot better in 8 years.HW has gotten a lot better in 8 years. Website SW has gotten worse for the most parts. Lots of highly inefficient scripts and trackers got added to many websites, so casual "web browsing" burns much more CPU cycles, especially if she frequents websites with lots of dynamic/interactive contents. This is just going to get worse over time. May be help her install a good ad-blocker and anti-tracking plugin, perhaps.
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I hear that Tandy TRS 80 is pretty sweet...
