Refurbished Offerings

[osxabsd]

Looking the refurbished offerings (from the Canadian Education Store) it appears that the older systems have the relatively same price as the newer systems. I cite an example here with Mac Pros, but I see the same issue with Mac Book Pros. Look at these offerings as of 20101103.

Refurbished Mac Pro 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

One 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" processor
6GB (3x2GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC memory
1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200 rpm
Two 18x SuperDrives (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 512MB GDDR5 memory
$2,989.00


Refurbished Mac Pro 2.4GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon

Two 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Westmere" processor
6GB (6 x 1GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC memory
1TB Serial ATA 7200 rpm
18x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB GDDR5 memory
$2,999.00

Refurbished Mac Pro 2.26GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon

Two 2.26GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" processors
6GB (6x1GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC memory
640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200 rpm
18x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB GDDR3 memory
$3,099.00

Why would someone buy the "Refurbished Mac Pro 2.26GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon" or the "Refurbished Mac Pro 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon", when they could get the "Refurbished Mac Pro 2.4GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon", which seems to be the better deal? Perhaps I do not understand the value of the first and third with respect to the second, because I do not understand the performance that the technology provides. It just seems to me that the second option is the better deal. (Two processors and 1G of video card memory)

 

[dissolve]

You're right about comparing the two 8-core machines. There is a similar oddity with the base quad cores (both go for $2,119 in the US). I think it's because Apple figures out refurb prices based on a percentage. Eventually, they may decrease the price on the older ones because I can't imagine who's buying them. The only instance I could see is if only a 2009 were available and someone didn't know better.

But, it's more difficult to compare the 2.93 quad to the 2.4 octo. There are many applications that can't take advantage of that many cores, making the faster clocked quad a better buy. I still think it's overpriced in the refurb site though. Probably makes more sense to get a 2010 2.8 quad than that 2009 model.