05-13-2009, 06:13 PM

1/ this mac: Buy Apple 20in iMac 2.4Ghz. at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for . (i can get £70 off this as my mate works at argos)

or this one: Apple iMac 20" 2.66GHz with XP Pro, Parallels 4.0 and full installation APIMIN17+A0429185+PARAL16+APSP from MacWarehouse.

2/ is it better to have windows installed via boot camp or have it running in parallels?

(please note i have a brand new copy of windows xp ready at home for when i buy my new mac. I'm using the windows purely for use with the odd non mac compatible game)

Thanks.

05-13-2009, 06:51 PM

First off, neither one of them have any stock on this item. That is unless you can find one in the store. Neither one of them are the current generation model.

That being said, I would think the 2.4 is not a bad price with your friend's discount. It only has 128MB VRAM however, so you're not going to be playing any of the newer 3D games at high frame rates. It also only has 1 GB RAM so you'll need to be upgrading that right away. Personally, if you don't have the funds, the difference between it and the new current low end, I'd recommend saving your money a little longer and get the new one.

Just compare stock configurations between that last gen and the new one:
2.4 vs 2.66 Ghz CPU
1 GB vs 2 GB RAM
128 MB vs 256 MB VRAM
250 GB vs 320 GB hard drive
DDR2 vs DDR3 RAM
iLife '08 vs iLife '09
800 Mhz vs 1066 Mhz bus speed
supports up to 4GB RAM vs supports up to 8GB RAM

And for games, you'll want Windows running in BootCamp.

And the MAcWarehouse one is not even in the running until they cut the price another 15% minimum. Let someone else be the sucker.

05-13-2009, 07:08 PM

are we aloud to pick neither one of them? Bootcamp is better if you are concerned about games. Parallels is better if you are running document apps and such. I agree with bobtomay's last statement. Macmall has better deals imo

05-14-2009, 04:18 PM

Okay the first answer confused me a little. So you are saying these products are not the latest generation of imacs???

Can someone just point me to a good imac deal in the uk? That would be easier lol.http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/mac...lies/Smirk.png

BOBTOMAY- the macwarehouse deal has 2.66 and 320gb so doesn't that make the imac this generation????

05-15-2009, 05:03 PM

Originally Posted by bobtomay

First off, neither one of them have any stock on this item. That is unless you can find one in the store. Neither one of them are the current generation model.

That being said, I would think the 2.4 is not a bad price with your friend's discount. It only has 128MB VRAM however, so you're not going to be playing any of the newer 3D games at high frame rates. It also only has 1 GB RAM so you'll need to be upgrading that right away. Personally, if you don't have the funds, the difference between it and the new current low end, I'd recommend saving your money a little longer and get the new one.

Just compare stock configurations between that last gen and the new one:
2.4 vs 2.66 Ghz CPU
1 GB vs 2 GB RAM
128 MB vs 256 MB VRAM
250 GB vs 320 GB hard drive
DDR2 vs DDR3 RAM
iLife '08 vs iLife '09
800 Mhz vs 1066 Mhz bus speed
supports up to 4GB RAM vs supports up to 8GB RAM

And for games, you'll want Windows running in BootCamp.

And the MAcWarehouse one is not even in the running until they cut the price another 15% minimum. Let someone else be the sucker.

Just one correction:
Both (2008 & 2009) have 1066MHz FSB (System Bus).
Memory Speed is different (800MHz in '08 and 1066MHz in '09)
The the type of Memory is different, too (DDR2 vs. DDR3)
But either the Memory speed or the type aren't really recognizable in the daily work.
The HD 2400XT isn't a gaming card but I feel it's fast enough for the daily work and some home video / photo editing.

Memory itself is fairly cheap. You can get 4Gbyte DDR2 SO-DIMM 800MHz (Apple certified) for about £49.00 (or even less than that).

05-15-2009, 05:11 PM

No, the MacWarehouse is not the current generation.

Check the specs, it has an ATI video card. The current generation uses all nVidia.

It also specs max RAM at 4GB, the current models support up to 8GB.

edit: If you thought the MacWarehouse machine was a good deal, just go to apple.com and buy the new low end iMac from there for about 5% more money.

Everyone with a used Mac thinks they're worth about 15-30% more than they really are. Unless you just happen to fall into a bargain, or want to spend maybe the next couple of months looking for one, it'd be much easier just getting one from apple.

I've been looking at craigslist here local for over 4 months and have not found a single late model that people were selling for a reaonable amount of money. And, no, I'm not going to give someone only 5% under the price of a new one for their now used machine.

05-15-2009, 06:08 PM

Originally Posted by bobtomay

Everyone with a used Mac thinks they're worth about 15-30% more than they really are. ......
I have not found a single late model that people were selling for a reasonable amount of money.

Quoted and emphasized for truth and clarity

05-15-2009, 08:30 PM

I would definitely check the Refurbished section at apple.com/uk.
Refurbished Mac - Apple Store (U.K.)

From time to time they do have pretty good offers for their refurbished HW.
That's where I bought my iMac. You do have the same full warranty and you didn't bought it "used" from someone else.