2.4GHz vs. 2.53GHz 15" Mac Book Pro. Worth the extra money?

I'm going to be buying the new 15" mac book pro soon, and I was wondering, will i notice a big difference in the 2.53GHz MBP, over the 2.4GHz. If I were to get the base model, I would upgrade to 4GB of ram, the 2.53 already has 4GB, a bigger HDD, and some other upgrades. Is it worth the extra $600.00? Or should I get the base model, with the 4GB?, and maybe buy an external drive or an extra battery. any suggestions?

well the extra money isn't merely just the cpu bump but also an increase on the dedicated ram for the 9600M GT, from 256mb to 512mb.

i'm not too sure if it is worth it or not to buy your own 2x2gb ddr3 ram though. they are probably not cheap but something you want to check out.

Also the 2.53GHz has bigger L2 cache.

Laptop suck as you can't upgrade. Get the best you can and it will be faster and last longer. I bought the 2.53 and it is very fast.

I agree, I bought the 2.53 Pro because of the upgraded cache and graphics on it. There are also minor upgrades, like a 320GB HDD from a 250GB HDD and with the 2.53 MBP customized from apple, you can upgrade to a 7200RPM hard disk drive speed.

Considering i have done that with all of my previous notebook PC's, I wanted to be sure that I would be able to use this machine and for it to be acceptable for a few years so I can put Apple Care on it.

By the way, the MBP 2.53 is my first Mac, and since I am taking baby steps into the MacWorld, I would like to experience and learn what everyone is praising Mac about. I am actually happy that I don't have a crashing Windows.