which used iMac to buy?

[annaj]

Hey!!
I've been waiting for these new iMacs to come out for months, and now that they have - I'm disappointed! So, I've decided to stop waiting to buy a desktop, and I'm probably going to buy a used iMac, but I wanted some advice.

I've found two people on craigslist who are selling iMacs for $1000.
They are two different models - on from mid '07, the other from early '08,
but the '07 model was the top of the line, while the 08 was the bottom of the line:

'07
2.4 Ghz
800MHz FSB
1GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300),
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB


'08
2.4 Ghz
1066MHz FSB
1GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM
ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB of GDDR3 memory

So, some components are better in one, while others are better in the other. Should I go for the faster FSB & memory, but slower VRAM? Or the slower FSB & memory, but faster VRAM?

I'll be using it for basics like business & productivity software, plus I play some games (girly gamees - sims and the like; not heavy action games, but still with fairly detailed graphics), I watch quite a bit of HD video in .mkv, .mov, and .mp4 format, and I also do a lot of video conversion with handbrake and visualHUB in order to get those encoded videos.

of course, my other option would be to just go ahead and get the lowest current model - but that is $1349 CDN with my student discount, but I'm not sure if the better specs would really be worth it.

Sorry for the long msg; I tried to search the web on information regarding the different components, but I just don't understand enough about how they work together to be able to figure out which combination is better - at least not in the little time I have before these used iMacs are sold!

any help would be appreciated - thanks!!

 

[321estrellas]

I can't advise you spec-wise, but another thing you may want to consider is if either machine has AppleCare installed or not. If the '08 model was purchased after March, hopefully you can still put AppleCare in that machine before the 1-year runs out.

...I'm noticing my buying advise always points to AppleCare. I guess I think it's just that important!

 

[annaj]

I can't advise you spec-wise, but another thing you may want to consider is if either machine has AppleCare installed or not. If the '08 model was purchased after March, hopefully you can still put AppleCare in that machine before the 1-year runs out.

...I'm noticing my buying advise always points to AppleCare. I guess I think it's just that important!

that's actually a really good point. I've gotten appleCare on all of my new purchases from mac. Though now that I think of it, I've never had to use it ever. Then again - I normally re-sell all of mine after a few years in order to upgrade, because I'm just like that....

The '07 one does have applecare though, the '08 doesn't mention, so I assume not.

to make matters worse though, I just found a refurbished iMac direct from apple, so I'd still have a 1yr warranty + I could still purchase applecare;
$1200
2.66GHz
1066MHz FSB
2GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM;
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB