Help! New 27" Imac - Dual Core Or Quad Core For My Needs..., Would the 3.33 Ghz suffice? Options

[uvbnskoold]

Hi there community,

I have asked this question of many other people and forums but no one can give me a straight answer.

I compose music using Logic Studio and all included sounds, VSTs and a lot of different libraries (EW/QL samples) with very little live recording.

I want to upgrade my system (currently using a dual 2.3 Ghz PowerMac G5 with 8 GB of RAM) to one of the new 27" iMacs - definitely going to go 16 GB of RAM and a 2 TB HD, but I'm torn as to processor.

I just don't know whether the 3.33 Ghz Dual Core processor will be adequate or I should wait and get one of the Quad Core i7 processors for about $500 more money, but I'd have to wait.

For what I do, will the processor make a huge difference? What I've been told is that processor only matters for audio encoding (which I am not really doing a lot of) or video work/rendering... not really applicable to composing with samples using Logic.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Uvee

[lunar 1]

Hi there community,

I have asked this question of many other people and forums but no one can give me a straight answer.

I compose music using Logic Studio and all included sounds, VSTs and a lot of different libraries (EW/QL samples) with very little live recording.

I want to upgrade my system (currently using a dual 2.3 Ghz PowerMac G5 with 8 GB of RAM) to one of the new 27" iMacs - definitely going to go 16 GB of RAM and a 2 TB HD, but I'm torn as to processor.

I just don't know whether the 3.33 Ghz Dual Core processor will be adequate or I should wait and get one of the Quad Core i7 processors for about $500 more money, but I'd have to wait.

For what I do, will the processor make a huge difference?

Yes.

What I've been told is that processor only matters for audio encoding (which I am not really doing a lot of) or video work/rendering... not really applicable to composing with samples using Logic.

This is quite incorrect. LOTS of things are CPU hogs. Just open up the Activity Monitor to see how busy your G5's processor gets.

Any thoughts?

While the i7 looks like a significant step up from Intel's Penryn (in Core 2 Duo), I think you'd be quite pleased with either.. You -will- outgrow the dual core sooner though. Is it worth an extra $500 to push your next new Mac purchase back a year or two? Maybe, you decide. But if all I had were an extra $500 to put into it, I'd fix it up with an internal SSD (solid state drive) to run the OS & programs and keep your samples and such on an external firewire drive.
G'luck