i5 v i7 processor for Affinity Photo - difference

[Jaffa]

I am helping a friend choose the specs for a new desktop PC.  He and I (+ eight others) have started using Affinity.  The Affinity Photo will be the most demanding of his programs.  He does not do multi-tasking.    We are not professionals, just keen amateurs.  My belief is that an i5 quad core processor will be fine for what his needs, together with 8 Gig DDDR 4 RAM and SSD.  He does tend to hold onto his PC for 5/6 years so needs to be somewhat future proofed.

My question is - what would an i7 processor enable him to do that an i5 would not in Affinity Photo ?

Edited July 22, 2017 by Jim Air
To add the word desktop

[toltec]

Which i5 and which i7?  There are i5 processors that are faster than many i7 processors. A laptop i7 processor is much slower than desktop i7 due to power saving features.

 

There is an up to date list here, along with speed ratings (benchmark test)   https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

 

However processor speed (like size) isn't everything. The whole computer architecture makes a difference, motherboard, memory, hard disk, hard disk controller and so on.

 

By coincidence, I have a fairly new Acer PC with an i7 (7700) 8gb of RAM and an SSD. I also have an elderly i3 (system 7) with only 4gb of ram which is (in theory) more than 6 times slower. Both run Affinity fine although it loads MUCH faster on the i7, almost certainly because of the SSD drive. I am happy with the performance of Photo on the i3 when it is loaded (most of the time). Photo is not as demanding as a video editor or some games for 99% of what it does,

 

I'm sure the i5 would give good service for 5 to 10 years and as you say "fine for his needs".

[anon1]

as soon as you have a quad core CPU you have a solid build 

SSD and 8GB RAM is totally reasonable 

 

here are some performance comparison numbers for you to take a look at yourself 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/32907-affinity-photo-performance-comparison-data-sheet/?p=159980

 

cheers

 

PS:

"My question is - what would an i7 processor enable him to do that an i5 would not in Affinity Photo ?"

nothing - even a dual core would enable him to do the same things, just not as quickly 

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, MBd said:

PS:

"My question is - what would an i7 processor enable him to do that an i5 would not in Affinity Photo ?"

no - even a dual core would enable him to do the same things, just not as quickly 

 

I think the answer to the question is "nothing" rather than "no". 

[R C-R]

Judging by the entries in MBd's benchmark thread, I think that for CPU choice considerations alone, the three most important things in descending order of importance are:

1. Number of cores

2. Clock speed (GHz)

3. Architecture (i5, i7, etc.)

 

However, the benchmark tests only some of the things Affinity Photo can do, so for other things the relative importance of these three factors might be different, although I suspect the number of cores will almost always remain the most important one.