Google "advantages of hyper-threading" and see if the reasons apply to you. The i5 lacks hyper-threading. If my applications could take advantage of hyper-threading, I'd go with i7 in your situation unless budget was a major consideration.
On the other hand, you may do something that can take advantage of hyper-threading only 2 hours a month--in which case maybe it isn't worth the premium. At 2 hours a day or 2 hours a week, maybe it is worthwhile. Purely a personal decision.
re hyperthreading - I did a Cinebench test on an old i7 930 (8GB 3.8GHz) with HT on and off recently. The results surprised me. I found HT only gave about 26% boost (I expected more). Results were 6.47 and 5.13 respectively. I know most people don't use Cinema 4D, but Cinebench is considered a good benchmark for video render software that uses all threads. See snip (cpu would show all cores @ 100% during render test) - your mileage may vary, as they say
I always check in Resource Monitor > CPU tab. The graphs on the right side show you very well which cores are busy.
A top I5 will still do the job greatly...Whichever is cheaper, And most cost effective then go for that one!
I agree, unless you want to encode videos day and night. There the i7 really makes a difference.
I have made a test encoding a video on my i5 (laptop) versus my i7 (desktop). There is a significant difference. It should be said though that a top desktop i5 would be faster than my laptop i5.
if you are like any normal person, you may wish you got the I7. in my experience, I sometimes opt for the practical and I regret not getting the faster hardware. sounds like you're gonna do the install. if so, what thermal paste you gonna use? anyway...keep us posted
jim
Quote