2.0 or 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo??

I'm currently using a 2.0 core 2 duo Aluminum iMac, and I have a opportunity to exchange it for a 2.4Hhz Core 2 duo (the only difference, if you have any doubt, is the speed of the processor...), of course, this comes with the disadvantage of paying some extra money... My question is, should I be worried that if I DON'T go along with the exchange I might have some trouble with future releases of Mac OS X? Like some version might run on the 2.4Ghz iMac but not on the 2.0Ghz? Also, how long do you think it'll take for them to release a version that WON'T be able to run on any of these machines?

Oh yeah... and Hi everybody...

I would not worry about missing out on future releases of OS X. Your 2.0 GHz iMac will work well for a very long time.

I would consider this. Looking strictly at CPU speed, the new iMac would be 20% faster at most. Usually you get less than this sort of direct scaling due to other factors: disk I/O, amount of RAM, etc. For the sake of argument, lets assume you get 12% to 15% overall gain.

Is that worth the extra money to you? Consider as well the hassle of moving everything to a new machine. There is also the "devil you know" to consider. If your current iMac is running well and you are happy with it, is it wise to trade over to something else --- "the devil you don't know". Why are you being offered this trade? Are you sure there is nothing wrong with your potential new machine?

Clearly, I would counsel keeping your current machine, but if approximately 15% speed gain is worth it to you, go ahead. My two cents.

Other than processor speed the 2.4 comes with a different graphics card than the 2.0

the 2.0 has a ATI radeon 2400 xt with 128 mb memory and the 2.4 comes with the ATI radeon 2600 pro with 256 mb memory

also has a bigger standard hard drive. 320 instead of 250.

The difference between the two is simply not noticeable in everyday use.

You might knock a few minutes off an hour's video encoding, but that's about it.

The only reason to get the 2.4Ghz is because it comes with a better GPU and a bigger hard drive.

Normally, I recommend the fastest CPU you can afford.

In this case, I'm in agreement with mac57 with one more question.

Do you have intention of playing the latest 3d games? Then I would consider the upgrade, not due to the processor, but the graphics card. (qualification - I have not personally verified this difference.)

Yes, I was actually considering the difference in the graphics cards to... but I have a 360, and I'm fine with it so far, well, to be more precise, my THIRD 360, but I guess the price of repairing it every 2 years or so is less than actually changing my whole computer... that's why my main concern was the processor... but apparently there's not much of a difference... Anyway, how long do you think either of these computers will remain useful?

And, thanks for the responses...

The failure rate of the XBOX 360 was an abysmal 16% at one point.

goyin said:

Anyway, how long do you think either of these computers will remain useful?

Click to expand...

That's a question that really no one can answer. For years processor speeds were doubling every 9-12 months. Four years ago everything came to a screeching halt, both with AMD and Intel, until last year with Intel releasing the CoreDuo's.

We've already seen roughly a 35-50% increase since that time. (Of course they started out with processor speeds most of us wouldn't have put in a new single processor computer for at least 5 years.) But once again it seems, they are going to be reaching that same heat problem. Their only real solution right now is to pack more processors into a computer.

The other question is: "What do you do with your computer?"
My wife is still using a 5 year old Dell with a 2.8Ghz P4. And it does everything she uses a computer for.
At work, we still have 3 people using new computers bought during my first week with the company. All of them 1Ghz processors. We run Outlook, MS Office (primarily excel), and some specialty software on them all day, every day. They are 7 years old now and do everything we need them to do in our work environment.

Whatever you are doing with your computer right now, as long as the hardware doesn't give out on you, it will continue to do those same things and run that same software for as long as you like.

Will any computer run the new OS or software that is introduced in 2 years or 4 years ... no one can really answer that question. And whatever the answer is, it probably won't matter which of those 2 processors you have.

Thanks a lot for the responses... (If anyone's curious), Most things I do have to do with video and audio encoding and reproduction, so I was happy when I noticed a work done in my old P4 running at 2.8Ghz in say, 14 minutes, could be done in around 8 minutes with the Core 2 Duo, I'm also very pleased with the Mac OS X ease of use, stability and, at least so far, no problems with security, viruses, death screens etc (to give ONE example, I installed Vista for the first time in this machine, and it froze like 3 times in two days, with three different apps, supposedly having all the correct drivers and configuration. Something also kind of dramatic happened with the old computer, but I was able to work around most of the problems...) I also plan to work with photoshop, dreamweaver, html and maybe in the distant future, something with python and/or C++... MAYBE some animation too, most likely something basic. I'm becoming more confident that I made a good decision buying this iMac... I'm right..... right?

Man, if you're happy, be happy.

You like your Mac, enjoy it.

You don't need a bunch of people whom you don't even know (that would be us), advise you as to whether you've made the right decision. That, you'll have to decide for yourself. Most of us that hang around here, do so because we like our Mac's, so you're asking an already biased crowd.

Haha you're right... I ask this because I guess most of you already have some experience with your mac, but I guess you're right too... It must be pretty difficult to make a judgement about it since processors are moving pretty fast, the whole industry I guess...
Thanks anyway, and yeah, I'm pretty happy with it, and hopefully I'll continue to be for a long time.

I have a 2.0Ghz iMac with a 250GB Hard Drive and it's awesome! The only thing I have done is upgrade the RAM to 2GB, and I'm not concerned that the machine will be outdated soon - because it won't for a long time! Also I'm on my fourth Xbox 360 - one of them lasted 15 mins before the red rings of death - I kid you not! This one ( touch wood ) has been fine so far...

Yeah, they're both awesome!... I also upgraded it to 2GBs of RAM, since the OS wasn't running smoothly, also I now have found that having 2 makes VMware (and/or parallels) work way better... I'm still a bit disappointed about the Graphics card performance, but I just received my fourth 360 so I don't need that anymore...
Thanks for all the answers, (also for the "moral" support)... I'd like to say again I find Mac OS X WAY better than any windows release, for many reasons.