Which is the better low-cost 24" Alum refurb'd iMac and why?

OK, I admit I don't pay enough attention. I have a couple year old 24" White iMac with 2.4GHz processor and 500Gb drive, and I'm thinking of "upgrading" to an Alum iMac for no particular reason. So I've been looking at the refurbs in the Apple store. Right now I've got a choice between
1) 2.66GHz, 4G, 640G HD, Nvidia GEForce 9400 w/256 for $1299, and
2) 2.93GHz, 4G, 640G HD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 256MB memory for 1549, and
3) 3.06GHz, 2G, 500G HD, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS with 512MB memory for 1599,
all more or less in budget. Are there significant differences and are they mostly to do with the vid card?
Any opinions? Buy the most expensive one you can afford? There used to be an older 2.8GHz model that many said was better than the 2.66GHz model here, so are there sig differences? Sould I just keep the white one for the present and wait?
Mired in Doubt

Pier Rodelon wrote:
One poster remarked that the 2.8 GHz model unlikely to be noticeably faster than my present 2.4GHz with 3G ram. If that also holds true for the 2.93 and 3.06 I might just sit still and wait a bit, since my machine has operated flawlessly since I bought it on eBay 2 years ago.
As a side-question, what is the projected schedule of new iMac releases, and where can I find a history of all releases?
Again, many thanks for the help.
All the choices you refer to, including the 2.8 GHz that I mentioned, won't have significant speed differences. You already have an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and the difference between 2.4, 2.6, 2.8, 2.9, and 3.06 is only an issue of seconds, not minutes. If you were moving up from PowerPC to Intel, then yes, a new Mac would provide a huge increase in speed.
If you want to know the history of all Macs, download the free Mactracker program.
http://mactracker.dreamhosters.com/
It provides details of every Mac model made, including the introduction and discontinue dates. Macs lasted a lot longer in the old days: Mac IIci introduced September 1989 and discontinued February 1993. The shortest lived Mac would be the original Power Mac G4 from August 1999 to October 1999. The iMacs have typically run the course of a year before a new model is released. Complete design changes have been around a two to four year period, or sometimes longer.

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Actually, two things surprise me in your statement and one is simply incorrect:
As for Broadcast quality..... a little station called CNN - you might have heard about them bought 250 of them from Panasonic about a year ago.
First, that CNN would buy JVC cameras not from JVC, but from Panasonic.
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