Just wanted to throw a note out there about the new Mac Pro that was just released this morning.  What a dream machine this could be!

[url]http://www.apple.com/macpro/[/url]

Those are some crazy specs!

Apple is a better ";bargain"; at the high end when you have 8-cores because those high-end Xeons are pricey even if you build one yourself.  But if you want quad core, you can build a very fast PC for under $1k that's faster than the $2300 Mac Pro. 

You can also get 1 TB drives for $270 vs. $400 from Apple, or a 500 GB for $100 vs. $250 from Apple.  You can also add 2 GB of DDR2 ECC RAM for $99, vs. $500 from Apple.  (newegg.com has a Mac section)

I also prefer OS X over Windows, but it's not worth over $1,000 to me when I'd be using the same programs anyways. 

You would hope.  BTW, what's VLD, Charlie?  :)

It seems to me like the machine didn't change dramtically, the main difference is that the default specs are now a little more beefed up. If you don't need 8-cores, you can drop the price by 500 bucks by going with the 2.8ghz quad-core processor. I have 2 duel core 2.66 ghz processors and I almost never use more than 25% of any core running sibelus/vdl etc. When running 3d games, I";ll use around 25-50% of each core. I've heard that Logic will assign various effects to specific cores now, but I can' speak for the performance gain since I only have one machine to work with :)

The biggest and most exciting part of this new release is the availabliltiy of the Nvidia 8800gt 512mb video card. This is now taking the place of the Radeon x1900. This is good news for anyone doing 3D work/gaming because the x1900 series has a long history of malfunctioning,overheating, and displaying weird triangle and artifacts on screen. In fact, I got my Mac Pro 4 weeks ago and my x1900 is already malfunctioning. I wonder if Applecare will hook me up with the new nvidia card :)

Not that has a notation component...  if you don't care about that, Sonar, Reaper... 

yea I have and use Cubase SX3 and its pretty sweet... i was just wondering if there was anything else out there worth looking into...

[quote author=palosjr link=topic=2223.msg11557#msg11557 date=1199847056]
This thing is awesome!!! but i have to agree with drumcat... i have always been a PC person... but i like some of the productivity things that a mac can do... speaking of which, i was at the apple store the other day and played with logic studio pro... anyone know of anything comparable to that for PC?
[/quote]

I have Cubase 4.1 showing up this week...  I'm going to give it a shot at a major notation project.  I'll be posting on here my results.  I'm very comfortable with sequencers, so if the notation is worthwhile, it's going to be my main tool.  Just like some of the Apple guys are doing with Logic.

The good thing about Cubase though is it's cross-platform.

[quote author=palosjr link=topic=2223.msg11557#msg11557 date=1199847056]
This thing is awesome!!! but i have to agree with drumcat... i have always been a PC person... but i like some of the productivity things that a mac can do... speaking of which, i was at the apple store the other day and played with logic studio pro... anyone know of anything comparable to that for PC?
[/quote]

The only thing that compares is Cubase, in as far as being a true sequencer with notation... 

I like shiny macs too.  If I could run OSX legally, I would, believe me.  But Apple is too infatuated with selling hardware.  If OSX was available for non-Apple hardware, even at a premium, I'd buy it.  Today.  I would dual boot until I got all my software to be mac software.  But good ol' apple gives me no choice.

That MacPro is a $3000 computer with a $1500 dongle in it.

This thing is awesome!!! but i have to agree with drumcat... i have always been a PC person... but i like some of the productivity things that a mac can do... speaking of which, i was at the apple store the other day and played with logic studio pro... anyone know of anything comparable to that for PC?

You can build one now for about half the price...  like I did.

They're called ";PCs";.

whoa...that's awesome!  Maybe we could all chip in a get one to share...I got dibs on the first month!  HAHA.