A little help here and advise

[AL2TEACH]

is needed in helping me choose which iMac to get. My usage is average stuff with little video editing and no intensive programs like games or photoshop and the likes.
I love my cube but the 1.2 GHz with a 100 bus speed and FX 5200 graphics card is showing, lol. I've narrowed it down to one of these three iMacs.

24'' glossy widescreen display
1920x1200 resolution
2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (Penryn); 6MB shared L2 cache; 1066MHz frontside bus
2GB of 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; supports up to 4GB
320GB SATA 7200-rpm hard drive from MacMall

or from Apple, the same as above but with the 8800 graphics card. Apple doesn't say if this machine has the 1066MHz bus.

or


Refurbished iMac 24-inch 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme
24-inch glossy widescreen display
2GB memory
500GB hard drive
8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
I assume this doesn't have the 1066 MHz bus.

I'm going to assume that the machines are the same except for the graphics card. But is there really any difference in the bus speeds?

thanks all for your help.

 

[czachorski]

If you're use is for average stuff, I would take the price savings of the refurb, and not worry about the bus speed. That refurb 24" 2.8 Ghz is a very fast, great machine, that will more than meet your stated needs.

Plus, sometimes, refurbs come with free added "bonuses", which are HD or RAM upgrades made during the original purchase.

 

[AL2TEACH]

thanks a ton.

 

[macabouttobe]

I second that recommendation. I have the same config as the refurb (3meg ram - I ordered from apple with 1 meg and added a 2meg stick) and it will be plenty for what you are doing, with headroom to do more or at least will last very long.

I have done some heavy video editing (home movie stuff) using final express 2 and am extremely satisfied with the result.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Given you don't game, I'd say go for the refurb 2.8. However, if you have an Amex card and plan to keep it for a long time (~4 years), it might be better to buy it new with Applecare and reap the benefit of 4 years protection (Applecare+1 extra year under Amex's Buyer's Assurance Plan, which doesn't apply to refurbs).

 

[AL2TEACH]

wow, I need an Amer Xpress card. I went with the 2nd choice in my list since I plan to keep it as long as this cube and it seemed to be a little more bang for the buck. It might be here Friday and I'm hoping this migration program will transfer the itunes, settings and prefs of some programs.