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2.8 Core 2 Extreme Worth It?

A

ADziuk

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2007
4
0
So I am buying a new iMac in the next couple weeks. I want something that will last a long time. I don't really need a 24" monitor, but the 2.8GHz is only avail. on the big model.

My question is, basically it will cost me $600 more to get my hands on a 2.8 Extreme vs. 2.4 Duo. Is it really worth it, or for your average user who isn't crunching huge PS renders every day, is it nominal.

As I said, the only reason I would consider blowing the $$ is that the 2.8 is essentially part of the new line of processors that most of the future revisions will carry from my understanding, and I want to stay up to date as long as possible.(I am currently running 10.4 on a 700/512mb G3 iMac if that gives you any idea of how far I stretch my computers)

Opinions anyone?
 
For your needs, the 2.4GHz model (in either the 20" or 24" flavor) will be more than sufficient. The 2.8GHz model is faster, but saving $600 goes a long ways to making your next Mac purchases even closer. :) :apple:
 
I bought a 24, 2.8 mainly because I wanted the screen size. It's blazing fast. But I have to think the 2.4 is plenty fast if you want a 20 screen. Can't imagine that the .4 increase is worth $600. Have fun with the new iMac. Love mine. Wasn't sure about the glossy, but hasn't been an issue.
 
Oh yeah, and I should mention I want to dual-boot, a LOT. (not my choice, I would do away with Windows if I could.)
 
ADziuk said:
Oh yeah, and I should mention I want to dual-boot, a LOT. (not my choice, I would do away with Windows if I could.)
Click to expand...

2.8GHz won't really give a major difference with dual booting, RAM would, especially if you're using virtualisation
 
mikerol said:
I bought a 24, 2.8 mainly because I wanted the screen size. It's blazing fast. But I have to think the 2.4 is plenty fast if you want a 20 screen. Can't imagine that the .4 increase is worth $600. Have fun with the new iMac. Love mine. Wasn't sure about the glossy, but hasn't been an issue.
Click to expand...

The 24" is also available in 2.4...the price difference between the two is $250...of course, if you go with the 20", you can have the same internal stuff for less money (and a smaller screen). I personally LOVE my 24"...

As for the 2.8, I opted for it because I do a lot of encoding, and it is blazingly fast. The 2.4 is more than fast enough for most needs as well (hell, the last iMacs at 2.16/2.33 were).
 
Depends on how often you plan to upgrade...

Because I usually have a current model Mac at work I tend to drag my feet at home when upgrading. I didn't even buy a Mac for home until the first PowerPC model, the 6100 "pizza box" arrived on the scene in 1994 at the same time I got onto the Internet. By the tiime I switched to digital photography in 2001 it was underpowered with way to little storage so I upgraded to a G4 AGP 400Mhz tower. It was fine until I started shooting RAW with a 8MP camera and had to switch to OS X to use the RAW conversion application. But I didn't want to upgrade again to a $5,000 Mac G5 tower system but didn't want an iMac either. Faced with that dilemma I even considered switching to the "dark" side since I am agnostic with regard to OS because nowadays there's not a bit of difference once you are inside the applications. Fortunately the new iMacs hit the market at a perfect time for me, just after I returned from a vacations with over 600 RAW file to edit. I didn't even know there was a new model out when I decided to buy I just was fed up with the slow performance on the G4.

OldNew.jpg


Learning from my past experince of how performance degrades over time as applications get more power hungry I opted to get the top of the line, the 2.8Mhz 24" model with 2GB RAM. It's blazingly fast even when playing iTunes, ripping a CD and running both Photoshop, Canon DPP, Safari and Mail all at the same time. With the screen set at 1920 x 1200 there is finally room for everything on the screen. It is warp speed compared to my old G4 and much faster than my G5 tower at work.

So for me its been about six years between upgrades and interestingly each of the systems has wound up costing me about the same amount of money, $2,500. I see the iMac as having the possiblity of lasting even longer which is why I opted for the high end.
 
ADziuk said:
So I am buying a new iMac in the next couple weeks. I want something that will last a long time. I don't really need a 24" monitor, but the 2.8GHz is only avail. on the big model.

My question is, basically it will cost me $600 more to get my hands on a 2.8 Extreme vs. 2.4 Duo. Is it really worth it, or for your average user who isn't crunching huge PS renders every day, is it nominal.

As I said, the only reason I would consider blowing the $$ is that the 2.8 is essentially part of the new line of processors that most of the future revisions will carry from my understanding, and I want to stay up to date as long as possible.(I am currently running 10.4 on a 700/512mb G3 iMac if that gives you any idea of how far I stretch my computers)

Opinions anyone?
Click to expand...

Don't buy what you don't need but if you just want the 2.8 Ghz processor then get the 24" but if that's just too big then don't allow the processor step up to help to make the wrong buying decision.
The Intel processors in any Mac fly and I mean they fly so if you want the 2.8 Ghz buy it for the "future proof" reason since you said you wanted to keep it for a long time. Computers are worse than cars, they depreciate the moment you open the box because Apple will upgrade them in 6 months.
 
ADziuk said:
So I am buying a new iMac in the next couple weeks. I want something that will last a long time. I don't really need a 24" monitor, but the 2.8GHz is only avail. on the big model.

My question is, basically it will cost me $600 more to get my hands on a 2.8 Extreme vs. 2.4 Duo. Is it really worth it, or for your average user who isn't crunching huge PS renders every day, is it nominal.

As I said, the only reason I would consider blowing the $$ is that the 2.8 is essentially part of the new line of processors that most of the future revisions will carry from my understanding, and I want to stay up to date as long as possible.(I am currently running 10.4 on a 700/512mb G3 iMac if that gives you any idea of how far I stretch my computers)

Opinions anyone?
Click to expand...


Remember nothing in electronics last long time. I would save 600 cause my opinion is that. Only a few months later we will see the prices getting lower as apple usually does it. Get the 2.4 Duo, spend 600 at nights :p
 
I went for the 2.8 fully loaded exactly because I planned to hold onto this for at least 3 years and hopefully more.

I figured that 20" 2.4 would have been about right now but have been really happy with the choice to go big. Front row really makes the 24" work and for me this has really added the WOW factor to the purchase.

If money is really tight enjoy the 20" as it will be just great, but if you can stretch to the full monty and 24" will not look silly big in its allocated house space then go for it... you will love it :)
 
I doesn't necessarily need to be a $600 upgrade.

You can upgrade the stock 24" with the 2.8 extreme for $250 and forgo the bigger hard drive and extra memory.

Since I am using 2TB of external storage I went this route and used the savings to buy 4GB of RAM from newegg for $230.

Having said that, I think the base model is the best value for average use tasks (I've never found my dual 2.0 Macbook to be lacking). My only issue with the base iMac is the 20" LCD panel. I tweaked it for over 1/2 hour in the store and could never really make it look 'right' to me. Friends of mine with me at the time thought it looked fine so it is definitely a personal call. The 24" panel looks great to me out of the box.

I have run a few personal benchmark tests and on identical files, I can encode h.264 about twice as fast on the 2.8 C2D (~38-44fps) vs my 2.0 CD Macbook (~18-23fps). The 2.0 C2D processor should be a little faster.
 
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