I know how much "faster" on paper the 1.8Ghz is over the 1.6Ghz, but does the performance increase justify the price increase?
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1.6Ghz vs. 1.8Ghz - which to buy???
- Thread starter Grimace
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The biggest things in it's favor is...
More Memory 2x as much.
20% Faster Memory
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PCI-X
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The bigger HD and the 12.5% increase in MHz probably wouldn't be silly-exciting to many people for the $400.
But the extra 4 slots of memory space and the PCI-X cards may mean something to you as time drags on. And may definitely be worth the extra $400 over the next 3 years.
More Memory 2x as much.
20% Faster Memory
&
PCI-X
---
The bigger HD and the 12.5% increase in MHz probably wouldn't be silly-exciting to many people for the $400.
But the extra 4 slots of memory space and the PCI-X cards may mean something to you as time drags on. And may definitely be worth the extra $400 over the next 3 years.
As a rule of thumb the low-end Apple products tend to come with shortcomings that the mid- and high-end product do not. While today's technology does not show off those differences, in 3 or 4 years, the technology and programming will have developed to the point where the 1.6 will be obsolete and the 1.8 will still have a few years left, simply by virtue orf minor design differences. So if you plan on having it for a while, it would probably be best to drop the extra couple hundred (if you can afford to.) Otherwise, if you plan on buying a new computer in a year or two, go ahead and get the 1.6.
I'm going with the 1.8 for the above mentioned reasons. I feel that over the next 3 to 5 years, the 1.8 has more growth potential. Also, if I'm going to have a box that big on my desk, I want it to have as much on the inside as it can hold. 
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. The PCI-X slots hadn't even entered my mind for some reason. The faster memory is probably worth it too. Now if we only had someone who could compare the Dual 2ghz with the 1.8...