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NEW 24 2.8 VS 3.0 Worth the cost increase?

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Dorfdad

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 26, 2007
481
55
Im looking to get the new Imac 24" with the Nvidia 8800GTS video card.

Im caught between the 2.8 and the 3.0 not sure about the performace vs Price for the 3.0 over the 2.8 with the same specs.

Im coming from Last years 2.4 Aluminum iMac. I want to upgrade for the Video card alone the 2600 is a horrible card for gaming the Nvidia makes me happy :)

So is the 300.00 worth the price? or just put that in the RAM 2 to 4 on the 2.8?
 
For gaming, you will notice very little difference between the 2.8 and the 3.06. As many have noted on these forums recently, most games these days are more GPU-limited, rather than CPU-limited.

I would say that the cost does not justify the speed increase, UNLESS you have access to one of apple's discounts. With the student discount, the price difference on the Canadian store drops to $158 +tax, which is more reasonable for the 0.26 Ghz and 180 GB upgrades.
 
No I do not have access to discounts is there anywhere or any online specials that might help reduce the cost?

Im shy of Amazon.com as I have heard they sometime ship refurbs as new..Plus a pain to return if you must.
 
Dorfdad said:
No I do not have access to discounts is there anywhere or any online specials that might help reduce the cost?

Im shy of Amazon.com as I have heard they sometime ship refurbs as new..Plus a pain to return if you must.
Click to expand...

I agree with getting the 2.8 model. The higher processors are kinda there for staying power in my opinion. Getting 3.06 means your computer will stick around for one more update before it's completely obsolete. That's just my opinion.

You can go to www.macsales.com www.macmall.com www.powermax.com to see if they have any discounts on the new models. Or you can try the refurb store at Apple.com to see if someone returned a new iMac, but get it while it's hot.
 
Digital Skunk said:
I agree with getting the 2.8 model. The higher processors are kinda there for staying power in my opinion. Getting 3.06 means your computer will stick around for one more update before it's completely obsolete. That's just my opinion.
Click to expand...

I wrestled with this very same dilemma myself and decided to get the 2.8 GHz with the nVidia 8800 GS and 500 GB. Will be upgrading to 4GB of RAM from a 3rd party. I qualify for the student discount and with the student discount, the upgrade on processor alone is $180. The price difference between a comparably equipped 2.8 GHz model and the base 3.06 GHz model meant that the $180 difference accounted for around 8.5% of the increase in cost. Coincidentally, 3.06 is (on paper, I realize in practice this isn't always the case in actual performance) is ~8.5% increase in power. So Apple is pricing this (with the student discount) that you aren't getting bang for your buck (more percentage power for every 1% in cost) but you aren't getting ripped off either.

So what it boiled down to for me was that I don't plan on doing much (if any) video encoding while I might play the occasional game. Plus the 2.8 GHz should (in theory) run cooler and with less power so there are savings on your electric bill in the long run. I felt like the $180 savings could be used on the cost of tax and memory from a 3rd party.

YMMV.
 
In tasks where you wait for the Mac to finish something (rendering video, encoding audio/video, huge Photoshop calculations, etc.), you will notice a small improvement (the aforementioned 8.5% at best, but in practice less than that). If you are doing a lot of these things, the CPU upgrade will be a reasonable choice. If not, the only difference you might notice will be a hotter case and/or higher fan noise, and of course a higher electricity bill, as the 2.8GHz CPU uses 35W and the 3.06GHz CPU uses 55W.

There are benchmarks on barefeats.com between the old 2.4GHz and 2.8GHz iMacs, which reflect what I said above. And when playing games there was only a difference of 1 or 2 frames (as games depend much more on the GPU).

Better invest the money in 4GB RAM, from which you really will notice a difference!

I myself ordered the 2.8GHz model with the NVIDIA card upgrade. Should arrive this week!
 
what sucks is you have to special order the 2.8 with the Nvidia card. I can not seem to find anyone who has them in stock ready to ship.

I like using the apple store or best buy simply for return issues if needed. Having to speical order a 2.8 might push me to the 3.06 as they are stock.

Sucks for me though I do not want to pay the extra
 
Enuratique said:
....
Click to expand...

Tell me about it. The increase in speed from a 2.5 penryn to a 2.6 wasn't even noticeable in encoding. Users that have a 2.6 Merom might be inclined to say that the new Penryns aren't that much of an update (MBP that is) because they still top out at 2.6 GHz. They spent the extra $300 for staying power, not pure performance.

Dorfdad said:
like using the apple store or best buy simply for return issues if needed. Having to speical order a 2.8 might push me to the 3.06 as they are stock.
Click to expand...

And I think this is what Apple wants. Not merely the fact that it's just easier to go to the Apple Store ask for a stock machine and walk out with it, then come back with any problems, but ALSO the fact that you can't return a BTO machine that easier (and I heard murmuring that you can't do it at all).

I could be wrong, so feel free to correct me on that.

I ended up getting my fiancee a stock 2.8GHz iMac (first gen) because it wouldn't take two extra weeks to get the BTO one, and I got the stock 17" MBP Penryn online and it still took 4 month for it to reach my dealer. It would have taken even longer if I got anything updated.
 
From my experience, if you order 2.8 with Geforce then your iMac is considered CTO, thus if something goes wrong it is unlikely you will be able to get a whole new computer, or upgrade to a better iMac because it is CTO.

At least that what happens in New Zealand. So for me I will just spend for a standard model
 
Dorfdad said:
No I do not have access to discounts is there anywhere or any online specials that might help reduce the cost?

Im shy of Amazon.com as I have heard they sometime ship refurbs as new..Plus a pain to return if you must.
Click to expand...

Amazon is a great place to buy. They do not ship refurbs. They also have the best return policy of any Mac seller you going to find. You can return it for 30 days and get a full refund, something wrong with it, they'll give you a free return label and everything.

However, you can't get that video card you want on Amazon, so just go with Apple or whatnot.
 
Of course it ain't worth it. The 3.06 ghz is just about bragging rights because they always charge more per ghz for the fastest cpu although people made good points that there is some advantage to getting a machine that's not build to order.
 
3.06 is CTO

Kittychan said:
From what I know is that the stock 3.06 with geforce is not considered CTO as they have that iMac in stock whereas if you ordered 2.8 with Geforce they will need to build it for you.
Click to expand...

I bought one and it was considered built to order even though the website does not appear to be anything but stock when ordering.
 
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