iMac 2.16 Vs 2.33

[Spanishfly]

What would you suggest? I'm a PC guy but I'm gonna be making the switch over to mac very soon. Yup, Bootcamp was the final straw, lol..Anyhow, I haven't owned in Apple since back in elementary school and I was wondering if someone could help me with a few questions. Right now I've got my mind set on a 20" IMac. I plan on ordering it with the following upgrades..Video Card 256k, and ram 2g. I'm kind of an amateur photographer so I would like the option of being able to run Photoshop on it someday, although not immediately. Second I'm a gamer and play Wow(World of Warcraft) a lot and sports simulators(no graphics just text). My questions are..Is the performance upgrade of going to the 2.33 ghz worth it for what I'll be doing with it? Does anyone know the cache difference between the 2.16 and the 2.33? Also, I've heard the the IMac CPUs are upgradeable, i.e. that I would be able to someday upgrade the CPU myself. Is this true? Thanks in advance!

 

[MinaMACMan]

Spanishfly Welcome to the Forums

About your questions. First I really doubt he part of upgrability on the CPU of the iMac, usually thats a big No No with Macs they don't give u the option to upgrade unless done through them.

But I believe u can upgrae the RAMs urself without voiding warranty (at least thats how it is on MacBooks).

I honestyly think that the difference between 2.16GHz and 2.33GHz might not be worth the money. I recently switched from PC (Thanks God ) and I have the Black MacBook with 2.0GHz and that thing is a Beast, I am running windows through parallels and the system flys and never skipped a beat.

Hope that helps

Mina

 

[surfwax95]

I just bought a 2.16Ghz 20" iMac.

It's a very fast computer and in my personal opinion, it wouldn't be worth it to upgrade the processor. Definitely save the money for, perhaps, an external hard drive or a nice mouse.

 

[Alexis]

Difference of 170Mhz between on Core2 - about 2 or 3% in real terms. You'd be better off having extra memory or beer money!

 

[Digger]

I chose to skip the processor upgrade on our 24" iMac. I bumped the memory to 2 gig and spent the money on the upgraded video card.

 

[jonnycrimson]

I have a 24" 2.33 and love it!

 

[Mantronix]

The price difference is not worth it imo. Get another gig of ram or a wacom pad like I will.

 

[Spanishfly]

Guys thanks so much for all the great feedback. I decided to skip the 2.33ghz upgrade. I suspected that it wasn't worth it and that seems to be the consensus amongst you guys as well. A few hours ago i ordered my 20" 2.13ghz, 2gig mem, and 256k video iMac! Since the shipping is free and my wife is a teacher(discount) I went ahead and added "next day" shipping!
Can't wait! Thanks again for all your help!

 

[MinaMACMan]

Alllrrriiiiigggghhhhttttttt

Congrats man, u will love it.

Cheers

 

[iMacGal]

Too bad you didn't go for the 2.33, but you will still love your iMac. I have the 24" 2.33 with 2 Gigs, and am shocked to find out that you can't just add 1 more Gig... you must buy all 3 gigs at once, even when upgrading.

Also, I paid for the faster shipping too, but was disappointed to find out, once you add a Gig, faster processor, or a better video card, you have to wait for it to be custome built overseas, then shipped. So, that next day shipping we paid extra for, means the day after they have finished building it, they will ship it. It took 9 days to receive mine from the day I ordered.

However, it was well worth the wait! I'll never go back to a PC, and I can still use all my Windows Programs, running them under Parallels (A fantastic software program that allows you to install Windows & use it simultaniously with the Mac. Yes, both at the same time!)

Had one little issue... the Mac side was slower than the Windows side, on all Internet applications, and even the Mac Tec support couldn't help. My cousin finally figured it out. Under Network preferances, he configured the DHCP settings manually (Ip & DNS numbers) and both sides now FLY!

Congrats on your new purchase & enjoy!

 

[mark2c]

Good idea. The Intel T7600 chip set is going for about $ 670.

 

[trpnmonkey41]

I ordered a 20" 2.16ghz, 256 mb video (I'm upgrading the ram to 2gb myself to save like 60-70 bucks) and apple care on sunday night