The bigger difference will be in appearance. The 5500 is much nicer. I'd suggest looking at the windows and opt for sash reinforcement,superspacer and consider glass options or get more quotes on other brands such as Polaris,Soft-lite, Okna,Affinity, Vtyex.

$1,500 on the total project?

While I appreciate keeping track of the expenses and staying within a budget, did you run the numbers on what that $1,500 amounts to if amortized over a 30 year loan?

At the end of the day, get what you are going to love looking at (within reason).

thanks for the replies. If we only had 1 $1,500 place to cut, this would not even be an issue. We have lots of $1,500 places that we are needing to trim down cost. Does anyone know off hand if the Simonton 5500 series is as efficient/durable as the Integrity all fibrex? If the Marvin is that much more efficient then we will get our money back over time but if it takes 10 years & the windows will need replacing in 10 years then it's a wash. Thoughts?

The Marvin won't gain you anything in performance,the Simonton 5500 is a good mid grade choice. The Marvin looks cheap and the Simonton is a pretty nice looking window IMO, I prefer it over many in a full framed window and is a better choice than the lower end Sunrise.If you are not going to look at other vinyls you certainly could do worse but sometimes there are better options at a lower price.

The Simonton won't require replacing in 10 years by any stretch.

As Todd said, if you are going vinyl, I would look at some other options as well.

What other options would you suggest? I live in North Mississippi. I contacted Okna & they don't service our area. Sunrise is WAY out of budget. Thanks for the replies.

Soft-Lite would the the next in terms of vinyl.

Thanks for the suggestion. I just checked the website. The dealer locator goes out to 100 miles. There is not a Soft-Lite dealer w/in 100 miles of our area. I think that for now, I will stay with the Simonton 5500 series w/nail fin for new construction. It seems to be the best bang for the buck in our area.

Good advice above. Simonton is a fine choice if you don't have the access to the other brands mentioned. Definitely no sacrifice in performance from the Integrity, infact the Simonton should be superior in that regard.

Expand your options. All of the above leak profuse amounts of air.