Okay, I've decided on buying a refurb iMac. i won't be using the thing for any super-intensive work. I am considering a 20", but wonder if I will be sorry I didn't go for a 24" in the long run. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
The next issue is whether I should go with one with the 800mhz front side bus or one with the 1066mhz front side bus. I know that the latter is technically faster than the other, but is the performance difference so important that I need to base my decision on it? The lower mhz systems usually come with bigger hard drives, but I'm not sure I care all the much.
I've decided that I will not buy a processor slower than a 2.4 just to give myself a minimum life expectancy cushion. I would prefer 2.8 or more, but that is going to add a couple hundred dollars to the bottom line.
The graphics card issue worries me some, I don't think I want the ATI 2400, but I think the 2600 would be okay. The 8800 would be even better. Since most of the refurbs have 2600's, is that enough? Especially given that Snow Leopard is coming soon. I could just wait for the 9400 based refurbs to start showing up in the store, but that could be a couple of months. I'm not particularly in a hurry.
Memory is not an issue, I can upgrade that myself.
Just to further confuse the situation how about a new mini vs. a refurb iMac? I don't want an old one (even discounted). I have a 19" flat screen monitor lying around somewhere that I could hook it up do.
Can you help me with your opinions? I've got a early 2008 Black MacBook 2.4 as my primary computer now (I'm a law student and like that it is smaller than the late 2007 2.4 15" MBP my wife has). Thanks in advance.
The next issue is whether I should go with one with the 800mhz front side bus or one with the 1066mhz front side bus. I know that the latter is technically faster than the other, but is the performance difference so important that I need to base my decision on it? The lower mhz systems usually come with bigger hard drives, but I'm not sure I care all the much.
I've decided that I will not buy a processor slower than a 2.4 just to give myself a minimum life expectancy cushion. I would prefer 2.8 or more, but that is going to add a couple hundred dollars to the bottom line.
The graphics card issue worries me some, I don't think I want the ATI 2400, but I think the 2600 would be okay. The 8800 would be even better. Since most of the refurbs have 2600's, is that enough? Especially given that Snow Leopard is coming soon. I could just wait for the 9400 based refurbs to start showing up in the store, but that could be a couple of months. I'm not particularly in a hurry.
Memory is not an issue, I can upgrade that myself.
Just to further confuse the situation how about a new mini vs. a refurb iMac? I don't want an old one (even discounted). I have a 19" flat screen monitor lying around somewhere that I could hook it up do.
Can you help me with your opinions? I've got a early 2008 Black MacBook 2.4 as my primary computer now (I'm a law student and like that it is smaller than the late 2007 2.4 15" MBP my wife has). Thanks in advance.
