Ok..now that the freezing issues seems to be behind us for the most part... I am going to get a new I-Mac. Trying to decide between the 24" 2.4 and 2.8. How noticable would the extra processor speed be? The extra HD space is not all that important to me, my 3 yr old G5x2 160gb is still only 2/3 full, as for the ram I figure I can add more later (and cheaper). I checked a few web sites and could not find any benchmarks. Thanks in advance for any advice or opinions. Ed
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2.4 vs. 2.8.....
- Thread starter edward-k
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The 2.4 seems to be the better value. Now that this is done and the new OS is out I'll be getting mine but its a tough choice. 24" seems to much.
Every little bit counts for me, 400mhz is quite a lot actually, when it comes to video encoding and number crunching.
If you have something that's entirely CPU limited, then the 2.8 should get you a ~17% boost over the 2.4. That's under ideal circumstances and you're unlikely to notice such a difference in normal uses -- probably only during video renders that peg all the cores or something like that.
So, based upon your comments regarding not caring about the HD and effectively not caring about the RAM at this time, we'll remove those from the "value" calculation. Thus, you're looking at paying 28% more ($1799 vs $2299) for a 17% better machine (2.4GHz vs. 2.8GHz).
IMO, it's not worth it. Of course, yeah, you get some extra hardware with the higher model, but like you said, that's not important to you, so you're only considering the CPU speed increase for the money.
Mike
So, based upon your comments regarding not caring about the HD and effectively not caring about the RAM at this time, we'll remove those from the "value" calculation. Thus, you're looking at paying 28% more ($1799 vs $2299) for a 17% better machine (2.4GHz vs. 2.8GHz).
IMO, it's not worth it. Of course, yeah, you get some extra hardware with the higher model, but like you said, that's not important to you, so you're only considering the CPU speed increase for the money.
Mike
Just a rough comparison: MacWorld's "Speedmark" benchmarks -- overall
performance for a mixed bag of applications on various Apple platforms:
ALU .... 2.80 GHz ... 304
ALU .... 2.40 GHz ... 277
C2D .... 2.33 GHz ... 266
ALU .... 2.00 GHz ... 253
C2D .... 2.16 GHz ... 245
C2D .... 2.00 GHz ... 232
mini .... 2.00 GHz ... 210
C2D .... 1.83 GHz ... 202
mini .... 1.83 GHz ... 195
I agree with micsaund; a 17% increase in CPU speed doesn't justify a 28%
price bump, unless you'll be running extremely CPU-intensive applications,
and those apps are exceedingly rare.
The benchmark above shows a 10% performance boost -- and I suspect that's
more than you'll see in a 'typical' application mix. A faster CPU doesn't speed up
memory access or disk I/O, so data-intensive apps will benefit the least.
... calculating Pi to a bazillion digits will benefit the most,
LK
Given that you don't care about HD space, if you built-to-order the 24" 2.4GHz and upgrade to 2.8GHz, it's just 14% more for a 17% increase in CPU speed. Only you can decide if it's a good value or not.
I was in the same boat. As soon as the freeze was fixed I ordered from the Apple Corporate Discount Store (similar to Edu. pricing). I got the base model with the 2.8GHz because the RAM and HDD can both be user upgraded but the proc cannot, though the HDD upgrade requires the LCD to be removed should you ever consider that. It came out to ~$1980 with the wireless mouse and keyboard.
One thing I do alot of is DVD/Video compression for my iPhone and Zune. I always want new content on there for my work trips and using Handbrake to copy a DVD pegs both cores to the max for ~45 minutes per movie. That factored into my decision, my Vista Core 2 Duo 2.13 is noticeably slower. I don't know if I'll actually keep this thing until its obsolete or not but it is faster now (if only slightly) and when I upgrade, the faster processor should warrant a higher resale.
Good luck! Oh, and the $33 for the faster shipping option paid off for me, I got my machine 3 days after it left China (I'm in Florida).
my advice
Buy what you can reasonably afford. If you can afford more buy the more if not get the less; but get a Mac.
Buy what you can reasonably afford. If you can afford more buy the more if not get the less; but get a Mac.
RAW processing 2.4 or 2.8?
I've read all the above and I'm new to this forum. So this is a question, not an answer. I'm in the same boat trying to decide between 2.4 and 2.8 (I will upgrade ram in either case). I do a lot of RAW processing, but can't quite go to the MacPro. Everyoune I ask has a different opinion about the worthiness of the extra .4Ghz. I run CS3 and do mostly large photo work at a prosumer level, and I'm converting from PC (just because I can). I could see the price difference as another camera lens...worth it or not?
Scott
I've read all the above and I'm new to this forum. So this is a question, not an answer. I'm in the same boat trying to decide between 2.4 and 2.8 (I will upgrade ram in either case). I do a lot of RAW processing, but can't quite go to the MacPro. Everyoune I ask has a different opinion about the worthiness of the extra .4Ghz. I run CS3 and do mostly large photo work at a prosumer level, and I'm converting from PC (just because I can). I could see the price difference as another camera lens...worth it or not?
Scott
hummm
Personally I am not aware of anyone who regretted getting more CPU power, but I know a lot who regretted not doing it. I hope this helps..
Personally I am not aware of anyone who regretted getting more CPU power, but I know a lot who regretted not doing it. I hope this helps..
Just to clarify, in reality you are getting an 800mhz bump in speed. If it's worth it to you really depends on how you use the computer. It may not feel snappier than the 2.4 when simply opening a web page, but if you work with lots of programs open at the same time, you will more than likely notice a difference. I now wish that I would have gotten the 2.8. But if you're just surfing the web and such, it probably wouldn't be worth it IMO, unless you have the $$ to burn.
Though I haven't used the 2.8, I can say that overclocking my PC's 2.4ghz C2C to 2.8 made a noticable difference.
I will say this though, My Alu 20" 2.4 is my first Mac, and I do LOVE the thing!
Though I haven't used the 2.8, I can say that overclocking my PC's 2.4ghz C2C to 2.8 made a noticable difference.
I will say this though, My Alu 20" 2.4 is my first Mac, and I do LOVE the thing!
All's well that ends well
So....thanks all for the wise advise...went with the 2.8 and I write you here in love and transfixed...have yet to do any work, but I am one of those users with many apps running at the same time and, you know, even if there's no difference, at least I won't worry about it now. My 100mb files that took 3 mins to generate a thimbnail, I can view in second so...happily in love newbie.
So....thanks all for the wise advise...went with the 2.8 and I write you here in love and transfixed...have yet to do any work, but I am one of those users with many apps running at the same time and, you know, even if there's no difference, at least I won't worry about it now. My 100mb files that took 3 mins to generate a thimbnail, I can view in second so...happily in love newbie.
Extra CPU speed will not be noticable.
You'd feel more of an improvement by spending the difference in $$ by getting a 150GB WD Raptor drive and making that the boot, then place the drive that came in the unit as a secondary drive in an enclosure.
You'd feel more of an improvement by spending the difference in $$ by getting a 150GB WD Raptor drive and making that the boot, then place the drive that came in the unit as a secondary drive in an enclosure.