The new iMac is a thing of beauty, that is reason enough for me to want one. (prices £950 - £3100)

Tech specs here

The thing is I still don't really get this multi-core thing. Is it worth me saving up to get a four core machine? My current machine does all that I want at the moment but I don't know what stuff four cores would allow that one or two doesn't.

I don't think I have ever maxed out the two cores of my 3.06Ghz core 2 Duo iMac.

I may be ripping my dvd library soon to hard drive I guess that will use a lot of processor power, but will it use all four cores?

Any insights from geeky types welcome.

CC

I imagine a quadcore Mac is the same proposition as a quad core PC. It's only useful if software is written to take advantage of it.

If you keep your Mac longer than an "equivalent" PC user (which I'm guessing you do, given they don't break or need upgrading on the whole) then software will be along at some point. That said, it seems to me given recent discussions here and elsewhere, that Macs are there to do what you need them to, not serve as geek wet dreams on their tech specs. PCs have always been about raw power more than Macs, as Macs can perform the same tasks on seemingly "lesser" hardware, due to optimisation.

In short, no, you don't need it now. But you may want it in the future. On that basis, if your current machine does everything you need, why change?

It's worth bearing in mind the Grand Central tech that Apple are folding into the OS with 10.6 - Clicky.

Basically, this means that the OS can make much better use of multicore chips than 10.5.
So, for you, you'd see all four cores not being saturated with work, but in a more even handed manner.

You have answered your own question. If its doing everything you want it to do and your not hankering over better performance then theres nothing wrong with putting some money aside but do it at your lesuire.

Multiple cores essentially mean you can do multiple things at the same time (as long as the application has been written to do that), whereas with single core machines, they do lots of things very fast. The more cores you have (in theory) the more you can do at the same time.

I've ripped a few of my DVD's on my Mac Pro using a combination of ripit and Handbrake, and it was super fast, about 20 minutes to copy the DVD to my hard drive, and about 30 minutes to rip the movie out of the DVD image...Take the same process on my MacBook and it takes the same 20 minutes for copying the DVD, but about four hours to rip the movie out of it...

That is not too bad at all.

Techno-lust is a terrible thing for the pocket.

Apple have generally had multiple cores in their machines for longer than most other manufacturers - the G4/G5 machines were often multiple processors, so there is a longer history of writing professional software for Macs which use multiple processor cores.

Grand Central takes this a step further.

But if the software you generally use doesn't need to multiple cores, then you won't really benefit from a slower processor with more cores... In that case, I'd stick with your current machine until it becomes too slow / breaks and you need to replace it anyway, by then the hardware will be another generation or two advanced.

I'm looking at buying one, because of the screen, but processor wise, my current 1st generation 24" iMac is more than enough for most things - although 8GB and quad cores / 8 threads of a Core i7 iMac would make virtualisation a lot more fluid...

Yes my credit card is going to suffer.

I have to say it's rare that I can justify a tech purchase*, so I usually just don't bother - books and music are my downfall

* I find so much tech is just an incremental improvement for me personally over what came before, or just a gadget for gadget's sake...

Books and CD's were my addiction. I had at one point more than 10 000 books and several thousand CD's. When I added up the value of the books I was stunned to find it was more than £1 million.


Yes but I have not replaced my machines for 4 years and I will probably be buying in more than a years time. So I think that every five years is not that excessive.