Which iMac processor for school work, programming, and arcgis

I apologize, I know with the release of the new iMac there have been a bunch of threads on this, but I am having a hard time deciding on which new 2017 27 inch imac to buy. I will be going with 512gb SSD, but which processor should I get? I want to learn how to code, primarily python for the next year before I move into other languages and will be using my computer for school work as well. I will also be learning stata, machine learning, java, and matlab. I will also be using ArcGis and similar programs. Will the i5 work for these purposes or will the i7 be a better investment? I plan on keeping my iMac for at least five years. Thank you!!

The old rule of computer purchasing is "Buy as much computer as you can afford."

Usually I'm not the biggest fan of CPU upgrades (normally the high extra cost exceeds the speed benefit gained). But in this case the 27" iMac with the 4.2ghz i7 CPU upgrade...the CPU benchmark scores are 42+% better than the base model 2017 i5 27" iMac. And the i7 upgrade only costs $200-$300 extra. That speed increase is a real bargain!

If you afford to purchase the i7...go for it.

- Nick

Welcome to our forums.

Go for the i7. MatLab will make good use of the i7 and it sounds like you're into programming; the i7 is best for both. It means spending more $$ but if you intend to do what you state above and wish to keep the machine for 5 years, then the i7 is the better investment. Don't spend extra dollars on additional memory as you can add that yourself later on much less than what Apple will charge. There is one thing though that I highly recommend... buy Apple Care and extend your warranty and support to three years.

chscag said:

There is one thing though that I highly recommend... buy Apple Care and extend your warranty and support to three years.

Click to expand...

+1 to that. Especially if someone intends on keeping it for 5+ years.

- Nick

Libra08 said:

Will the i5 work for these purposes or will the i7 be a better investment?

Click to expand...

My son graduated from U.C. Davis last December with a degree in Software Engineering. All through college, and even now, he has used a Macbook Air with an (older) i5 processor. I've asked him several times if his computer was fast enough for his programming work, and he has consistently told me that it was more than fast enough.

The secret that you don't hear is that unless you are doing something that is extraordinarily processor intensive (3D animation, video editing, Photoshop graphics using a lot of plug-ins, etc.) personal computers, including just about all Macs, have been way faster than anyone needs for about a decade. You can pick any Macintosh currently sold as new and it will be more than fast enough for your needs. In fact, you can pick just about any Macintosh sold in roughly the last decade and it will be plenty fast. (Heck, I have a 9-year old iMac in my office that has been meticulously maintained, and it's almost imperceptibly slower than a brand-new 27-inch iMac I have sitting nearby.)

Choosing your Macintosh based on which processor it has, all other things being equal, unless you have a particular articulable use-case that requires it, is an anachronism.

(Which is not to say that any given Mac can't be running slow. It's just that this is due to a lack of routine maintenance, not due to one's processor not being fast enough. I'm sure that a bunch of folks will now jump in and say that their Mac is running as slow as molasses. But in every one of those cases, this is not an immutable situation.)

Get a "fast enough" processor, but more importantly get enough RAM (8GB minimum, 16GB ideally, more is better)..

Even the most basic MBA will handle all that you need to do with it, albeit slowly. So the trick here is to find a nice compromise so that you can run the tools/debuggers/IDEs you need along with the actual language. As someone in the software industry, I've been doing a lot of work in Python recently and web development in general and doing it all on an 2016 MBP 2.7 Ghz i7 with 16GB of memory..

$200-$300 upcharge for a 42+% increase in CPU performance is a pretty good deal. Could potentially extend the useful life of a computer...and make it more attractive at resell time.

Certainly agree...16gig of RAM is a nice place to be these days. And easily user upgradeable with the 27" iMac.

- Nick

Thanks so much for the help everyone! I decided to go for the i7 but with the 575 GPU Hopefully I won't regret going with the 575 instead of the 580.