I think the ONLY thing the new ones have over the old ones hands down is Thunderbolt.

Processors: Right now you don't "need" all quad core. What runs that many processors that you have right now? Lion may change this though.

Ram: The refurb takes up to 16GB of ram at 1333 Mhz DDR3. New ones are exactly teh same.

Hard drives: both come with 1TB, but with new vs refurb, you get the option of the SSD card.

Facetime works on old iMac too.

Agreed John, these machines have had ample oomph for a while now. Heck, my iMac is 4 years old and I have no intention on replacing it any time soon. (especially with my external SSD upgrade)

If I only had thunderbolt on this one…

I know.. and that's why I am damning Apple right now. W/o TB in the mix.. it would be a no brainer.

John.. I was speaking of vid ram being more on the refurb.. albeit wit a slower card.

I am deliberating getting the refurb to save money...soooo... an SSD isn't really an option at this point. If I was going to do an SSD it would be an after market one on my MP at home.
Tempting though... very tempting...
Plus i can always do an external SSD boot later on via TB.


Aaaarrrghhh..

I am leaning towards the new one.

Anyone else have thoughts?
Anyone?
Bueller? Buelller?
Reboot?

Oh I know you were and I forgot to include that in there.

Video card would probably only see real benefits in video editing. Running your photo applications would take more ram than video I think.

So this would replace an existing machine or add to your studio? I"m thinking you said that you have a macbook pro and that's it?

If so, then yeah, a new one would be the way to go.

If you are replacing a mac in your studio, is there anyway you can live off of it for 6 months to a year? Wait until the next one comes out then get this one as a refurb/closing out?

I was checking this out the other day.. Capture One was a 60 MB app and a memory hog 4 years ago at version 3.7.

Then they started adding functionality to it to compete with Aperture and LR. It went to 368 MB app in version 5.
Now it's at 525 MB at version 6.0
I know app size isn't the issue here.. I'm just saying my 3+ year old laptop is ok for capturing... but trying to do much more is causing it to lag.

So.. this iMac wouldn't replace it completely... but I would use the laptop a LOT less... just on location shoots. Use the new iMac for all studio work.

Plus... this laptop is at max 4 GB ram. When I launch C1 and PS and Quark and a few others.. it gets eaten up quickly.

oh, so it's going to be in addition to, not replacing.

Then I would say go for it. Use the laptop for location shooting and the iMac for editing/storage.

LOL.. go for which?

"It," of course ;-)

alternative answer: "yes." ;-D

Sorry, just being a smart-ass today =)

Maybe I should wait.. at least until Lion is part of the package...