don't know whether to spend the extra $250 on the C2 Extreme or just the C2D?
By my math, TheExtreme™ costs 28% more -- for 17% more CPU cycles and ZERO increase in main memory speed. So, unless you have some weird application that's heavily compute-bound (
and can run almost entirely in L2 cache, with minimal main memory activity), you're not going to see anything close to a 17% net speed increase. I'll betcha a nickel that most apps won't see a performance improvement even half that big.
Yeah, I realize that the Extreme includes 2 GB of RAM, but if you're serious about performance, 2 x 1GB is totally worthless. You'll have to yank them
both out to upgrade to 2 x 2GB. And if 2 x 1GB is enough, the Extreme's extra 1 GB has a fair market value of about $40. Big whoop!
Also, IMO, buying any custom (BTO) configuration from Apple is pure insanity. In exchange for paying
outrageous prices (
$700 for
2 GB extra!!!), Mother Apple takes away your return/replace/refund privileges. ...duh!
Yep, the Extreme also has a slightly larger HD, but it's not big enough for serious video work -- so you're still gonna need an external HD or two. But that's OK; it's not such a great idea to put all your bytes on one spindle anyway -- especially when that one spindle is locked up in a stylish glass/aluminum cage.
OTOH, if you're into "Pride Of Ownership," $500 will buy you formidable bragging rights -- but only until the next model comes out.
...a fool and her money are soon courted,
LK