I’m thinking of buying a new iMac (non-retina). For an extra $200.00 is it worth getting the i7 over the i5 for game development with Unity?
3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz
3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
You need the fastest CPU money can buy for game development imo. Faster compilation and faster baking means more iteration.
The i7’s benefit is it will automatically overclock itself a little, has a much larger cache (repetitive tasks are done faster) and has 8 threads.
i5 probably is equal to i7 for gaming and general tasks, but will pull ahead noticeably for rendering and intensive calculation. If that $200 can be spent toward a 500gb samsung evo SSD then that’s probably the better productivity boost if you’ve not got an SSD.
hippo is right. faster is always bester
I think generally, you will find it doesnt matter, but for some of those intensive baking operations it will come in handy.
I opted for the i5 on mine under the presumption that it would be handy to have a machine closer to the average for testing performance. Also: I am poor. My philosophy tends to be that buying medium-performance machines more frequently pays off better in overall performance over time than one suped-up rig in a blue moon (if this is a choice you have to make). An affordable iMac in 2-3 years is going to be way more powerful than your i7 today. Let’s not forget these machines can’t be upgraded very far.
That’s never worked out for anyone. But saving some bucks never hurt 
It’s worked out okay for me, but I’m not doing anything too hardcore with the machine.
Thanks guys.
@hippocoder The i5 also has turbo boost (will overclock itself). As for the SSD. I was thinking of getting the 3TB Fusion Drive. Isn’t that lot better than a standard Serial ATA Drive? Also 500GB isn’t enough for me and the next step up is a 1TB Flash drive, an extra $850.00. Way too much.
I second getting an SSD.
A must have for Unity development.
The Fusion Drive is a hybrid. It combines a multi-terabyte magnetic drive with a 128GB SSD. It works by transferring files between the HDD and SSD portions based on access frequency and free space. As long as you keep your most frequently accessed files within ~128GB, the drive achieves more speed than a traditional HDD. The more you go beyond that size though the more the speed degrades.
AnandTech’s benchmarks, linked below, show that it is approximately 40% faster than a traditional HDD but a full SSD is even faster. My recommendation would be to go with an ~512GB SSD and buy an HDD as a secondary drive to hold all your less accessed programs and files. Unless your frequently accessed files is within the ~128GB, you’ll probably want better.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6679/a-month-with-apples-fusion-drive/6
I use a 128gb SSD and a 3tb hybrid. The hybrid only has 8 or 16gb of SSD, but it still leaves the mechanical drive in the computer next to it in its dust (though, of course, having an SSD for the system drive could have a large impact on that - the impression comes from the fact that after the system is all loaded, games installed on the hybrid drive load far faster than the other computer).
I have a Samsung 850 pro and it’s outta this world.
I have never had a processor that was not an i7. I cannot imagine life without one. If you must, save up that money to get that i7. With game development, it is very likely you will have a lot of applications open and you need that speed to efficiently handle those tasks.
you may as well have said “I haven’t been using computers very long”, because that’s all I heard 
Fast CPU is definitely worth the money by the way. I agree with you there. And so is a SSD.
What are you guys all doing that you need such a beastly CPU to function? I have one and I love it, but I was getting by without qualms on a Q8200 until just a year ago, and there’s a Q6600 next to me right now that’s still kicking on quite well. And my MacBook Pro is of a similar vintage…
Faster baking and compiling for business use. As a hobbyist I’ve been satisfied with lower-end CPUs such as my current Phenom II X4 965. Paying $80 for a CPU was far better for me than a couple hundred.
Haha I got into computer science almost 5 years ago!
Yep, that’s almost the maximum possible for the I7
I’m just teasing you, I’ve been programming since 1983 
What do you use your computer for? How complex are your Unity projects? Do you develop high quality art or play lots of games (what games)?
Just my personal opinion, i7 is a huge overkill for most people, the same with 16+ GB of ram… The i5 CPU:s are typically adequate unless you render lots of videos etc… YouTube got lots of excellent videos that explain the main differences between an i5 and a i7. Watch and consider what fits your usage habits the best.
I personally recommend SSD drives, I got one as my main harddrive (for OS, programs and games) and it probably saves me many hours per year because it killed boot times, delays when starting programs and other tasks that do intensive read/write operations on my harddrive.
It is a good idea though to complement one of these with a normal, secondary harddrive for all your project files, pictures, videos etc.
Just don’t overspend on RAM and consider carefull which graphics card you need.
I guess you don’t do too much enlighten or baking or compiling of larger projects - that sort of thing really chews through processors. I wonder though if you’re just numb to the pain of all those little bits of waiting 
Well, if you want to get serious, why not build a separate, dedicated computer for that stuff 