You can always get the better video card later.
Go for the 2.5's!!!

Voodoo are you studying at college or university? If yes become an ADC student member, pay once 100US Dollar for the first year, and order a complete system of your choice for 20percent less

All in all I wouldn't go for the NVidia card - well she is probably the fastest but also the loudest. I would stick with a cheaper and quieter Radeon 9800 XT because in most games the cards aren't the limits the CPU is still the bottleneck. The AI nowadays stresses the CPU to death while the GPU is still idling around

Hope that helps,

Mauti

When I got my Rev A I looked at 2 options:

1) A 1.8 with a good card more ram and such.

or

2) A 2.0 off the shelf.

I chose the dual 2 cause it can all be upgraded. Thus my Dual 2.5 recommendation to you.

Civic the Liquid cooling doesn't matter. That's a point but it's just a prototype for the next generation. You'd suppose it's quieter but I wouldn't be on it. It's a greta misconception that my Dual 2 is loud. It's quieter than my fan-less iMac G3. Besides the Dual 2.5 doesn't require the liquid cooling anymore than my G5 needs 9 fans for cooling. It's a fact the G5 2.5 90nm runs as cool as the 1.8 130nm.

It's simple, what would you rather have, better graphics or better cpu performance?
I would personally go for the dual 2.5 and upgrade the graphics card later(9600 pro is awsome). then just upgrade to the next ATi card that comes out (will probably be better than the 6800).

well then why not wait for another year and buy the 3.5 Ghz model ? The thing with computer technology is, you'll never be up to date. So as soon as you need a new machine, get one, unless there is news that a new model model be released in the next week or so.

You know what funny thing is? All these people that pre-ordered there 2.5's in early june are still waiting for there orders to come in. I am going to strut, yes I said strut, into the apple store, throw down 3gee's and walk out in 5 minutes with a new stock 2.5.

PWN'ED[/size]

The benefit of ordering directly from apple is you can get an educational discount of 10% =D

So, the Dual 2.5, 250 GB HD, Nvidia GeForce Ultra DDL vid card, rings in at a few hundred under 3000.  I went over getting 2 GB of RAM from Macsolutions.com (thanks for mentioning that site GS).  

But yes, i am still waiting for it...and i am sad....the RAM got here two weeks ago, and i just sit here looking at it with a tear in my eye =(

So when are they supposed to ship anyhow?

Congratulations Voodoo to your new Mac - I think you will have a lot of fun with it  

Bye,

Mauti