I was able to return a previous 'used' unit to Amazon and have been on my old computer since.
Current Price for the 2.4 Ghz Model (Very good, used through Amazon Warehouse, not 3rd party): 1396. I've had great luck with the warehouse route, so this would be the top price I'd be paying. Comes with the full year of apple care. They could lower it another $100 in a couple days, don't know if I want to take the chance.
Current Price for the Base 2.3 Ghz Model w/student Discount: 1846+ maybe 80 more off if I sell the included gift card somewhere.
GPU and CPU are a nice update, but geekbench measures the speed of these two configurations pretty closely, plus the 2.4 ghz has a full 1gb of GPU ram. My ideal is to do that on the current top-model, but I don't want to spend that much right now, so retina is also out of the question, for a number of other reasons. I play games through steam, but I'm limited to 1440X900 on my external monitor anyway. I connect the computer to the 36" for HD playback.
The big selling point of the new one under this scenario is USB 3.0. I can abide by FW 800 for data for now, so is it worth waiting for cheaper TB hubs w/3.0 to come out after Belkin tests the waters?
Current Price for the 2.4 Ghz Model (Very good, used through Amazon Warehouse, not 3rd party): 1396. I've had great luck with the warehouse route, so this would be the top price I'd be paying. Comes with the full year of apple care. They could lower it another $100 in a couple days, don't know if I want to take the chance.
Current Price for the Base 2.3 Ghz Model w/student Discount: 1846+ maybe 80 more off if I sell the included gift card somewhere.
GPU and CPU are a nice update, but geekbench measures the speed of these two configurations pretty closely, plus the 2.4 ghz has a full 1gb of GPU ram. My ideal is to do that on the current top-model, but I don't want to spend that much right now, so retina is also out of the question, for a number of other reasons. I play games through steam, but I'm limited to 1440X900 on my external monitor anyway. I connect the computer to the 36" for HD playback.
The big selling point of the new one under this scenario is USB 3.0. I can abide by FW 800 for data for now, so is it worth waiting for cheaper TB hubs w/3.0 to come out after Belkin tests the waters?
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