Is it worth an extra £100+ for 2.4ghz over 2.0ghz?

[will0407]

I'm almost definately going to get an imac (i currently have a blackbook hooked up to a formac 20", but hate unplugging everything if i want to sit somewhere else in the house with it)

I just wanted some opinions on whether its worth spending over £100 extra for the extra .4Ghz?

I'd definately spend an extra £40 and get another 1GB RAM from crucial whichever model I bought, and probably upgrade the HD from 250GB to 320GB (only £30ish with education discount) if I got the lower spec.

However, I could also get a 2GB stick of RAM for about £90ish, so should I spend the extra on the processor or the ram, or just buy 1GB RAM and get the 2.0GHz model with a 320GB HD.

I know nothing about graphics cards so any advice with regards to that would also be good

(I'll use it mainly for surfing web, photo editing and a little bit of video editing)

On a side note- when I phoned apple UK just now, the guy said the price MAY go up when they release leopard, although I don't think I believe him

 

[jhkingsr]

I'm almost definately going to get an imac (i currently have a blackbook hooked up to a formac 20", but hate unplugging everything if i want to sit somewhere else in the house with it)

If unplugging is the issue, this may be a less expensive solution. BookEndz

 

[flopticalcube]

If you go for the iMac, the extra money on the mid-range 20" also buys you a bigger hard drive and a much better graphics card. The 2600 is substantially faster than the 2400 in the lower priced model. I would say its the better buy.

 

[mrgreen4242]

I'm almost definately going to get an imac (i currently have a blackbook hooked up to a formac 20", but hate unplugging everything if i want to sit somewhere else in the house with it)

I just wanted some opinions on whether its worth spending over £100 extra for the extra .4Ghz?

I'd definately spend an extra £40 and get another 1GB RAM from crucial whichever model I bought, and probably upgrade the HD from 250GB to 320GB (only £30ish with education discount) if I got the lower spec.

However, I could also get a 2GB stick of RAM for about £90ish, so should I spend the extra on the processor or the ram, or just buy 1GB RAM and get the 2.0GHz model with a 320GB HD.

I know nothing about graphics cards so any advice with regards to that would also be good

(I'll use it mainly for surfing web, photo editing and a little bit of video editing)

On a side note- when I phoned apple UK just now, the guy said the price MAY go up when they release leopard, although I don't think I believe him

I've had this debate with myself a few times the last month as I'm getting a new iMac in a few days as well. Here's how I figure it: you can add RAM anytime, and 1gb will get you buy with minimal trouble for awhile. You can add an external HDD anytime for not a ton of money (it's typically cheaper per gig to add an external drive than it is to pay Apple for an upgrade). You can't, however, easily upgrade your CPU or the GPU; you're stuck with those for the life of the machine. So, if the choice is between RAM/HDD space and CPU/GPU power, take the latter everytime. In a few years you'll be happy you did, since you were able to toss in a couple of 2gb RAM modules and add a 1tb FW HDD and extend the life of your machine another year or two for much, much less than it would cost to get a whole new one.

 

[will0407]

I really like the look of that bookendz dock, but cheapest I can find it is about £120, which seems like too much for me.

With regards to buying the mac- I' planning on waiting for leopard to come out, so i'll try and save up some extra cash to pay the extra for the faster CPU before leopards released. If needs be, I can always use some of my student loan/overdraft, after all, that's what it's there for isn't it??!!

EDIT: My brother just went to the apple store in london to get an MPB cos his PB packed up yesterday. He got 15& off and applecare for £60, so if I got £15% off the imac, it would make it £806 (for the top spec 20" model)