New or refurbished Imac?

Hi Guys,

I'm looking to buy my first Mac and was looking at the IMac, mainly for music production. I can't really spend more than £1000 and was wondering what your suggestions were on these options...
Either I buy the new IMac with the following specs:

21.5-inch: 2.5GHz
2.5GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
1920 x 1080 resolution
4GB (two 2GB) memory
500GB hard drive1
AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 512MB

or a refurbished iMac 21.5-inch 3.06GHz Intel Core i3 processor which is a bit cheaper:

Originally released July 2010
21.5-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display
4GB memory
500GB hard drive
8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics with 256MB memory
Built-in iSight camera

Which would offer best performance and experience? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

MUCH better graphics hardware on the new model...and it has a quad-core processor.

- Nick

Yeah, if you want to save some bucks on the refurb...it might be best to wait until some of the new ones get listed as refurbs (who knows how long that will take - I typically see a 4-7 month turnaround). Those new iMacs are monsters.

That is if you can wait, of course. If you must buy now, the consensus around here is: buy the best machine you can afford at the time you need the computer.

I'm kind of in the same boat. I'm looking at a refurb quad core i5 2.66 27" that's only $1,350 including tax and shipping. I'd really like to get the current gen 2.7 sandybridge beast, but I don't think I can justify the extra $350+ since I don't think I would really take advantage of all that beastlyness. I think I'd rather spend the $350 on more RAM and maybe even install a SSD, which should bring up performance quite a bit on its own.

Best thing to do is look at what you use your computer for and will use it for over the next 2 years at least. If you don't see yourself doing anything really wild, then go for the less expensive option. I really wanted to go all out and buy a new iMac, but after taking a good hard look at my needs and what I can do with the extra $$, I just don't think it's reasonable. Your situation may be different, of course.