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Old refurb 24" or the new Entry level 24"?

F

FoxHoundADAM

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 9, 2008
211
14
Oklahoma
I'd like a little advice from your Mac users. I'm switching over from my 8 year old PC to an iMac. I was a little underwhelmed with the update but hey at least it's here. Thing is I'm not so sure the new iMacs are worth ir, I can get a refurb 24" for $1,200 with some decent specs:

24-inch glossy widescreen display
2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory
320GB hard drive
8x Superdrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memoryy
Built-in iSight camera
Apple remote (which has been removed from the new iMacs FYI)

Or I can buy the "upgraded" model for $1,500:

24-inch : 2.66GHz
2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB memory
640GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
Built-in iSight camera

I suppose I could shoot for the $1,800 24" iMac but that's getting towards the upper end of my budget. I know I'm getting more memory and HDD space but the processor is a downgrade on the low end 24" and is the graphics card really any better?

Any input? Just trying to make a good decision. I have the money but I don't want to waste it either.
 
For what it's wort, I plan on doing a little gaming on the machine but not much. However I plan on doing some video and photo work quite often.
 
b.rangelov said:
The extra RAM and HDD space are not worth the extra money. And the ATI HD 2600 PRO is faster than the nVidia 9400.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html

I'm really disappointed. The new DDR3 RAM costs more, but doesn't really bring more performance. And for the bigger harddrives, you can buy an external one that has 1 TB for about 100$.

I would buy the refurb and upgrade to 4 GB ram.
Click to expand...

Thanks, although to upgrade to the 4 GB of ram I'll need to do it myself as they don't offer any upgrade options on the refurbs. Which I guess will be even cheaper for me.
 
FoxHoundADAM said:
How does the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB card hold up to the NVIDIA 9400?
Click to expand...

The ATI HD 2600 is faster than the nVidia 9400. But still not the right choice if you want to play games. You should google for some benchmarks.

The HD 2600 is placed between the nVidia 8600M GS and 8600M GT. And the 8600 GT was in the old MacBook Pros.
 
FoxHoundADAM said:
Thanks, although to upgrade to the 4 GB of ram I'll need to do it myself as they don't offer any upgrade options on the refurbs. Which I guess will be even cheaper for me.
Click to expand...

Adding RAM can be done by a 9 year old. It is very easy. All you need to do is remove the screws on the underside of the iMAC, pull on the tabs, the RAM is removed and replaced with your new RAM.

Buy the RAM from macsales.com and cash in the RAM you took out.
 
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