Mac Pro or powerful PC?

myztmuzic · Post by **myztmuzic** » Wed May 09, 2007 10:36 am

What would you choose - and why?

Only PCs have been in my daw all my life, never touched a Mac yet (yes, I know). But I'm in serious doubt here now; should I go for the Mac Pro or a powerful PC? I've listed what I have to choose from below, I can cancel my PC-order a couple of days more -if I'm convinced to switch to Mac. My progs (Live 6.x with Operator/Sampler, Reason 3.x, Stylus RMX 1.5, Native Instr. most common synths/samplers/ROMplers, UAD-1 Powered Plugs (PCI) and my interface is a Firestation from Presonus on mLAN2 (FW). Some other softsynths and different VST and VSTi, midi-board: Oxygen8 (usb) and Yamaha EX5 (mLAN2). I think most of this will work on a Mac as well as a PC.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong - any comments are very welcome!!!

The options:

Mac Pro:

1 NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB («single-link»-DVI/«dual-link»-DVI)
1 Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse
2 Dual-Core Intel Xeon-CPUs - 2,66 GHz
1 Serial ATA 500 GB, 7200 rpm - 3 Gb/s
1 Country kit
1 Mac OS X (UK)
1 16x SuperDrive-station
2 GB (4 x 512 MB)
1 Serial ATA - 250 GB, 7200 rpm - 3 Gb/s

Price: EUR 3308,14/USD 4479,2

PC:

1.00 MSI 975X Platinum PowerUP Ed., I975X,
Socket-775, ATX, GbLAN, ViiV, PCI-Ex16
1.00 Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.67GHz Socket
LGA775, 4MB, BOXED w/fan
2.00 Kingston DDR2 HyperX PC9600 2048MB CL5,
Kit w/two matched HyperX 1GB DDR2
1.00 MSI GeForce 8600GT 256MB GDDR3,
PCI-Express, 2xDVI-I, Tv-Out, Heatpipe
3.00 Western Digital Raptor X 150GB SATA
16MB 10000RPM
1.00 Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB SATA2
16MB 7200RPM
1.00 Chieftec Mesh Medium Tower Silver
w/USB/Firewire 400W PSU ATX 2.0,24/20pin
1.00 Microsoft Windows XP Prof. X64 UK OEM
1.00 Samsung DVD-burner SH-S183A SATA
Black OEM

Price: EUR 2771,98/USD 3753,24

Expensive stuff, so I'm a bit too nervous to take the final step..at least until I get some comments on this.

Cheers;
Jo

mechcon · Post by **mechcon** » Wed May 09, 2007 11:31 am

Vista isn't 100% yet with Audio from what I gather, and XP 64bit is terrible from what Ive read in here...

You're paying more for the mac pro because of it's processor, much faster than a core2duo in many ways.

Mind you that pc is a damn good spec and a half. It's all about taking the plunge and having a go at a pretty damn good OS (not saying it's better, but it's damn good), otherwise its a flip of a coin I reckon. Granted that all your vst's and audio software is available for the mac (which obviously Live is)

nobbystylus · Post by **nobbystylus** » Wed May 09, 2007 1:18 pm

The Mac Pro i use cost me £1449 as a refurb, plus an extra 250gb drive (£60) and an additional memory (£300), at around £1800, i've got the 2 x 2.66 DUO. And it is a monster.... go Mac pro and you won't regret it...

ewistrand · Post by **ewistrand** » Wed May 09, 2007 2:38 pm

I'd go the Windows route, sans the x64 version.

1) upgrades to the hardware's much cheaper than with a Mac
2) Windows is quite a bit more user-configurable
3) 64 bit with Windows still isn't ready for prime time as far as drivers and the like goes.

By the way, NI doesn't officially support 64 bit OSes, and there have been reports of issues using NI plugins with a x64 OS. Your mileage may vary...

ew

mechcon · Post by **mechcon** » Thu May 10, 2007 8:14 am

Also to keep in mind, that osx can natively run 32bit and 64bit applications without any worry/emulation.

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Thu May 10, 2007 8:39 am

mechcon wrote:Also to keep in mind, that osx can natively run 32bit and 64bit applications without any worry/emulation.

Yeah but thats starting to become a running joke.
As a dual g5 owner, i've been running 64-bit forever. (just like amd owners)
But the whole world is still on 32-bit.

There's been a 64-bit windows but besides sonar, is there anything else actually taking use of 64-bit?

Live 6 blew a second life into the dual machine. I wonder if leopard will do the same.

myztmuzic · Post by **myztmuzic** » Fri May 11, 2007 12:13 pm

That's it, I just canceled my PC-order. I'm too confused to buy a PC now, so I think it's time to save up some more money to get a 2.66 or 3Ghz duo Mac Pro with enough ram and fast enough disks.

But nobbystylus, how on earth did u get a Mac Pro 2.66 duo THAT cheap?? It's almost half the price:

nobbystylus wrote:The Mac Pro i use cost me £1449 as a refurb, plus an extra 250gb drive (£60) and an additional memory (£300), at around £1800, i've got the 2 x 2.66 DUO. And it is a monster.... go Mac pro and you won't regret it...

Anyway, thanx for good answers and replies, now I'm gonna stay with my "old" HT until I've got enough money to get a nice Mac Pro

Thanxx;
Jo

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Fri May 11, 2007 12:46 pm

Also know that you're paying for the case...

Not just the looks, but also the functionality:

http://www.apple.com/macpro/design.html

No screws needed, you just plug stuff in. That's what a workstation should be like!

nobbystylus · Post by **nobbystylus** » Fri May 11, 2007 8:47 pm

Got it from the UK apple Store as an apple refurb..

it was meant to be a 1 gb machine but it came with 2gb by accident... so i put another 2gb (4gb is the sweet spot i think) .. its great... i don't use it for music much, its for video, and it deals with everything effortlessly.. i installed Live demo on it just to test it out and it was almost laughable how little CPU it used on a project i was doing...

Its hugely upgradeable with standard SATA Hard Drives (you can get 4 in this thing), and the GPU options are pretty darn good...

what's not to like?

myztmuzic wrote:That's it, I just canceled my PC-order. I'm too confused to buy a PC now, so I think it's time to save up some more money to get a 2.66 or 3Ghz duo Mac Pro with enough ram and fast enough disks.

But nobbystylus, how on earth did u get a Mac Pro 2.66 duo THAT cheap?? It's almost half the price:

nobbystylus wrote:The Mac Pro i use cost me £1449 as a refurb, plus an extra 250gb drive (£60) and an additional memory (£300), at around £1800, i've got the 2 x 2.66 DUO. And it is a monster.... go Mac pro and you won't regret it...
Anyway, thanx for good answers and replies, now I'm gonna stay with my "old" HT until I've got enough money to get a nice Mac Pro

Thanxx;
Jo

tomz.biz · Post by **tomz.biz** » Fri May 11, 2007 11:07 pm

as a user of both i highly recommend osx. a far superior OS - less user configurable cos you don't need to configure it. it works.

shaneblyth · Post by **shaneblyth** » Sat May 12, 2007 10:04 pm

I would try and keep your options open on what OS you want to run and because of that would consider the Mac Install Bootcamp and boot eiher OSX or any version of Windows you want or even Linux.
This way you can do what you like in the future. After all all the new Macs are really PC's so they run any OS .. yes they can run in emulation too if you want. I switched to a Mac a year ago after 2o plus years of PC's and have XP, Vista and OSX on my macbook pro. I dont touch the Windows OS's these days hardly as I dont need to but I like to have the option.. it is true you can have your cake and eat it too.

ayahuasca · Post by **ayahuasca** » Mon May 28, 2007 7:17 pm

mac seem to be expensive in norway but then again you folks have cashola.
get a macpro, they rock. i have the machine you list and it's great. windoz seems to always have problemas, the pro's I know who use windows (2! out of say 3 dozen)
re-install their system like every 2 months! If you can order from this U.S. try this guy at apple, x 1-800-409-5381, ext 2448, chris. he'll give educational discounts without checking! very cool.