Late 2009 iMac 3.06Ghz vs. 3.33GHz

1. I would say NO. But look at some data: http://www.macrumors.com/2009/11/14/core-i7-based-27-imac-benchmarks-show-signif icant-improvements/
And more data at http://marketingtactics.com/Speedmark/ While the exact comparison you seek is not there, you should be able to extrapolate. More data at http://www.primatelabs.ca/blog/

2. Don't spend $200 with Apple to get up to 8GB of memory. Spend 1/2 of that at http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/iMac/DDR321.527

3. Buy your AppleCare from a cheaper store such as http://www.smalldog.com/applecare and save $30 USD.

4. Buy your Mac from an online reseller such http://www.macmall.com/n/Imac/macNavLinks-macNavLinks.224 and save another $50.

The difference in speed is really minimal about 8% this is assuming they each are configured identically. One way you can save money is by NOT purchasing the additional 4 GB of RAM from Apple, you can save by purchasing from OWC or Crucial, both brands are highly recommended in this forum.

No where do you mention how you will be using the machine so it's hard to determine if you would notice any difference. If you will be using the machine for basic tasks like Internet surfing, email, word processing, small spreadsheets & home finance save the money. If you plan on using it for 3D gaming, or music production or anything that is computing intensive then save up a little longer and spend the extra money or even better upgrade to a i5 or i7 processor.

Hope this helps.

Roger

You should be happy with either one, when you say movie encoding can you explain a little more what you mean?

Here are recent Geekbench2 results for the iMac with the Core 2 Duo at 3.06 and 3.33 GHz. Just mouse over the dots to see the detailed results for these tests that stress the CPU and memory. Applications may not see the same performance differences because of their use of resources beyond simply the memory and CPU. Still a guideline of the raw power which does seem to be in the neighbourhood of 8 to 10% as you might expect from comparing the processor frequencies.

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/chart/184415

Then yes it will be about 8% faster, however if you can save longer and wait for the i7 that would really process things much faster. I use Handbrake to encode movies for my iPhone and find they take at least an hour each which is pretty slow. While I don't do that often when I do I try to do it before I get ready for bed but if my system were faster I think that time would be dramatically reduced.