You can save a few dollars doing the ram yourself. Depending on the cpu options in each, I'd say it's most likely a negligible difference. The gpu can be a nice bump. The 650m is a respectable bump over the 6750m and 6770m. It's a huge bump over the 6490m. It could make a difference if you play games. USB3 is very nice to have if you plan to use external drives. That is only available on the 2012, because Apple was lazy. It wasn't in all notebooks last year, but it was in a huge percentage at the price range of these machines. Ivy Bridge supposedly runs a little cooler too. It's important to consider total configuration in either case. If you're a student, take advantage of it. If it was me, I'd go for the newer one at $150 difference, but it should be possible to save more than that on a 2011.