Need Buying Advice in NYC for a Quad, Paying with Cash!!!!!

The quad: you're probably buying new, not likely
to find a refurb.

You might be able to find a used or refurb display;
that's your best bet for saving money. Otherwise
the quad and the display will break your budget.

Get your RAM from J&R; it runs about $150 per
1-GB DIMM. Their "2 GB DIMM" is actually two
1 GB DIMMS sold together, so don't be misled
by the seemingly superlow price on that front.

Well a Quad deal has certain risks, either it's refurbished, something is wrong and someone on ebay is dumping it, or it's stolen.

You can get a Quad at a cheaper price if you get it from a mail order comapny that doesn't have a physical store in your state sometimes, (no sales tax) but you might have to pay or shipping.

Then there is AppleCare, you really want this as it will cover your expensive investment for up to three years.

So perhaps it's best to get the Quad and AppleCare from a Apple Store, therefore if it's a dud it's a easy exchange. Then just go skimpy on the monitor until you save up for one.

This way you get a reliable machine, the rest is extras and you can upgade as you go.

There's no compelling reason to get AppleCare immediately, just don't forget to buy it before the one year warranty expires. It's not hard to find AppleCare discounted 15-25% off the suggested price of $249.

$150 for a 1G stick mentioned above is about 90% higher than necessary. Corsair Value Select from Newegg works well, about $80 per gig.

Best deal all-around is probably to order from a place online, with $200 rebate, cheap shipping, and no sales tax. For example, Amazon.com. The cheap and excellent Dell 24" goes for about $900. Add it up, you get to about $4500. Settling for a 20" Dell screen brings things down another $450.

To fit that budget, with an Apple display (they're very pretty), you'd need to get the 20"

So far, it's been great, but I haven't done anything very serious yet. Just installing software, tinkering, setting things up.

Yes, Logic uses four cores - but it doesn't use them nearly to the max. Most I've been able to force is about 200% utilization, or two CPU's maxed. There's a workaround, involves running a local copy of Logic Node, which can get about 50% more. Regardless, I'd say it's still the best system for running Logic you can get.