Mac-osx to win7-64 bit migration

Thanks, Uarte. I appreciate the thoughtful response. I too, consider myself platform agnostic. I have a mixture of PCs, Macs and Linux. I have a four monitor spread (Apple Cinema Displays) and use Synergy to span my mouse and keyboard across them.

Yes, Windows 8, is definitely a work-in-progress. I find Metro nice in concept, but annoying in its current state.

But I think the unique distinction and strong-worded “betrayal” is fitting to Apple and Apple, alone. Because they did something unprecedented in the industry. They provided an end-to-end solution for creative and IT professionals, went out of their way to lock down that solution such that only their hardware could be used, and then proceeded to effectively pull the plug on the entire solution.

It wasn’t just the proprietary workstation-class hardware and its apps that “ended” without warning, it was their server-based solutions, and distributed network products that also ended without warning.

No business owner should be put in the position of having to invest in almost three year old hardware, that worse still, was at a premium price and under-performing from day one, and worse still, at that same premium price years later, and worst still, could have been a complete dead end – we didn’t know until Summer of 2013 that it was not the case!

Three years, in tech industry years, is a very, very long time. It’s tantamount to ending a platform.

It was not just a few months, it was years!

It was an outrageous position that Apple put many of us in. Few business owners in 2012 needing to grow by 10 or more workstation-class seats would have made a decision to not switch, lightly.

I’ll still buy Apple iOS devices and laptops (as bootcamp works very well), but won’t ever again invest in their workstation-class hardware, nor rely on any apps tied to that hardware.

That said, audio software wise, I still continue to hedge my bets in one small way: I won’t buy an audio plugin that’s PC-only. While it’s impossible for the PC hardware industry to “disappear” like Apple’s did, I still like the idea of having an Apple choice and safety net. For example, right now in fact, I have an old Mac Pro set up as a dedicated mastering chain.

Which btw, case-in-point: this perfectly fast enough hardware (a 2006 Mac Pro) will run the plugins I want for the chain (just), but because Apple has arbitrarily and artificially decided not to allow Mavericks to run on it (it does run if you hack around), I can’t install Slate Digital’s VBC because of a bug in the installer.

Should the VBC installer work on an OS three versions behind? Maybe.

But certainly Apple didn’t need to artificially prevent my Mac Pro from running the latest OS when it’s fully capable of doing so. In fact, part of the hack to get it to run (which I don’t have the inclination to try) is to edit a file that has the original “Mac Pro 1,1” identifier “blacklisted”! So frustrating, and very “Apple.”

@Jalcide - I hear you, and I have some friends that took Apple’s actions (or non-actions) as hard as you did following the Final Cut fiasco. But I respectfully disagree with you about the magnitude of the “betrayal” in this case.

I used to to be a Mac user – something I don’t discuss regularly on this or other forums since it’s been such a long time – and at that long-lost time of yet another Apple “betrayal” I said “never again” to Apple. Well, here I am, back on Macs and totally enjoying them… The problem is not that Apple stopped supporting “pro” users. They didn’t. The weren’t about to. The problem was that they were so secretive about their plans that they created a PR problem, that many people interpreted as a sign of waning support for pros.

Now, I won’t disagree that their support on the surface for pros has became ambiguous, but let’s take a look at a few facts:

  1. The Mac Pro line of 2009-2012 was and still is pretty dang powerful. If you picked up an 8-core during that time, your music and audio production needs are still being met for almost any type of project requirements, starting with Nehalem CPUs, which initiated the current generations of CPU awesomeness. Those machines run Mavericks beautifully, and run Cubase, Pro Tools, etc., just great. Unless you need to create massive orchestral templates, they will still be fine, in which case, you’re already looking at VEPro anyway. I’ve personally benchmarked my Mac Pro 8-core against my much more recent Windows 6-core machine, and it is roughly comparable performance (within about 20%) on average latencies. On low latencies, the Windows 6-core machine will of course smoke the Mac 8-core, but for my types of projects, the 8 core Mac is more than adequate and does surprisingly well at low latencies too with RME hardware/drivers. And I own a business, so I am particular about getting my money’s worth. Yes, true that bang for the buck = Windows. However, there’s plenty of bang still in the aging Mac Pro platform for most music/audio guys for extremely large projects, no problem, as long as you went 8-core or higher. And again… there’s VE Pro when more is needed. And BTW, there’s no need to buy the new 2013 Mac Pros, at least for now. I expect in an iteration or two, the prices will come down, and things will change yet again. There is plenty of life left in other Macs (older Mac Pros, or current Macbook Pros, high-end iMacs, etc.) for music production to have to go and drop $3000-$9000 on a new 2013 Mac Pro that is more aligned with the video production pros than audio pros at this point. Although, time will tell…

  2. Apple was never going to abandon the “Pro” market, although the definition of what “pro” actually means is becoming irrelevant, or at least very blurry with many users. In any case, they were not about to lose their elite cache. They just didn’t handle the PR well as they publicly moved heavily into the consumer market. Many people overreacted, including many of my friends, swearing “never again” and here most of them are, still using Macs. You and a few of my friends decided to stick with Windows, and I absolutely understand that reasoning… having done so myself several years ago… before I started switching back after a long absence. :slight_smile:

  3. Intel CPUs made a huge shift in 2009, and the iterations after that were mainly about power/performance ratio as opposed to just purely performance. So what we saw with CPU iterations was that a quad core of today could be slapped in a powerful laptop that competes with Xeon Mac Pros and Windows workstations of yesteryear. That also applies to iMacs and Mac Minis. The gap that emerged with the aging Mac Pro platform was indeed filled with top-of-the-line iMacs. As much as I hate to admit it, and as much as I hate the word “iMac,” some of my friends started buying these beautiful 27" iMacs and top-of-the-line Macbook Pros with nice current Core-i7 quad cores and could largely do what I could do on my custom Windows workstations. The CPU performance war has basically ended, in my view! There just isn’t a need for most composers/producers to get something more powerful than a current-gen quad core i7, a bucketload of RAM and a big SSD. The shift is almost complete, and most pro audio users can easily go that route and get all the power they need. For the fringe cases of people who actually do need more CPU power, there is VE Pro, which is already part of the workflow of many pros. Yes, the pendulum may shift once again for ever-more-greedy CPU-eating plugins, but for now, the CPU war is not that important, as long as you run a recent Core-i7. For those who want to get very technical, they can easily build a much more powerful Windows machine for less money. But we’re not talking a vast difference for business owners who look at 2-3year price structures and longer-term hardware investments.

So Apple’s slow response on the Mac Pro line really had several things impacting it… Apple’s insane secretiveness, poor PR to “pro” users, Intel’s shift of focus to power/performance CPU design, the fact that CPUs had basically caught up with pro audio needs somewhere in 2009-2010, and ultimately, a shift in the paradigm of computing anyway.

So in my view “betrayal” is too harsh a word. But I do understand the “sting” of it after so much time and money has been invested and people were left wondering what Apple’s real strategy was. This “betrayal” is really a communication problem intersecting with the crossroads of technology trends. Not nearly as dire, at least in retrospect, as many people proclaimed. And keep in mind such levels of “horror” stories can be told over and over again for Avid/Pro Tools users. Talk about platform, strategy, pricing and abandonment issues! :slight_smile: Trust me, I run Pro Tools here too, and rely on it for business. No one, not even Apple, can come close to the drama with Avid, in my view.

In any case, I definitely do agree with you on some points – the most important being that I also no longer buy products that are on one platform only! That’s a great strategy. All the main apps and plugins I use now are cross-platform. That covers that platform base.

But more importantly, I have finally decided that the term “never again” really can’t apply to the technology industries today. This industry – and the the sub-industry of pro audio companies – has so many pressures on it, so many changes that sweep through, so many unpredictable variables, that I’ll “never again” say “never again.” Apple has its share of problems, but so do the other players, and what matters most to me, personally, is just having the right tools to get the job done today. If I could, I’d run my whole studio on Linux and be done with Microsoft AND Apple. However, I tried that many times, and I keep fairly current on Linux developments, as well as run a couple of Linux servers, but it just doesn’t cut it for pro audio work when all the best plugins, DAW apps, etc., only run on Windows and Macs. What little does run well on Linux is just, frankly, not what my clients want… so I’m stuck with Windows or Macs. :frowning: Practicality and working with clients has trumped my higher ideals. :slight_smile:

Anyway, I appreciate your point of view. You need the right tools for your projects and peace of mind, and your current configuration works best for you. Best of luck with that, and may our paths cross again! Here’s to making great music with all these amazing tools! :slight_smile:

I’m not. It’s a total waste of time. There may have been a time when Macs were better suited than Windows PCs for A/V and graphics work. But that was a long, long, long time ago.

Both OS:es have their pros and cons. Arguing which is better is as futile as arguing about which is the most beautiful colour! It’s a personal thing.

The only truth is: Use the OS you feel most comfortable with.

Only be aware that switching OS takes quite a bit of time and effort, so make sure you take the plunge for the right reasons. Is the other OS really “better” or does the grass just look greener on the other side of the fence?

Well, well, well…I guess people will continue this futile argument a hundred years from now. Think about how much time will be wasted. Time that could’ve been put to much better use, making music.

Merry Christmas! :smiley:

Best Regards
Freddie

Yeah well each to their own.
I used windows since 1992ish right up until April this year.
I have parallels for Windows 8. Windows 8 is horrible. It’s disgusting
(I even have an XBOX One and if thats not crystal clear proof of microsoft completely dropping the ball I don’t know what is.)

Windows 7 is a lot better, but after using it for 3-4 years it was depressing.
I don’t miss all the problems with Windows and the constant threat of disaster , the fact you need to buy all these 3rd party programs to do simple things like capture desktop video etc etc.
I also think Cubase runs better on Mac, but that might just be me.
I love how I can turn on my CC121 or even my UR28m while in a cubase session and have it recognised. In Windows you have to restart Cubase. Little things like that…
Also the ability to do hybrid sound card devices is legendary, inputs from your interface and outputs of another interface…if you so please.

I honestly can’t think of any benefit Windows has over Mac.
Yeah…i like this green grass! :smiley:

Hi Freddie, as always, an enthusiastic statement (EDIT: referring to a controversial post which Freddie deleted), which I enjoyed reading. Naturally, I respectfully disagree with you on many of your points, but not for the obvious reasons.

  1. In 5-6 years, according to many predictions by people who know a lot more about it than you or I do, the personal computer as we currently know it will radically change – that applies to both Windows and Macs. A “desktop” operating system of today will be obsolete.

  2. However, even those experts can’t predict too well what the replacement of current personal computers will look like, although if current predictions hold, it may look something like a cross between an iPad, Kinect/PrimeSense device, Oculus Rift and/or Google Glass. Those same people predicting a radical shift in the industry also completely missed the iPad, Kinect, Oculus Rift and Google Glass! So who really has the answers? I suspect no one in this forum. :slight_smile:

  3. How DAWs will fit into that new paradigm is anyone’s guess this far out, but the overall PC picture will be very different than what we have today.

  4. #1, #2 and #3 are essentially irrelevant to people who need to make music right now, today, this minute, in 2013. Because your version of 2019 is a long, long, long way away… an eternity in tech land. Current DAW users need to use the best tools available today to help them get their projects done today.

  5. Both Windows and Mac platforms run Cubase beautifully today, and I can vouch for that personally. You can get great, professional hardware that run both platforms, so that is not an issue. The choice of platform is a personal preference issue now, no fanboyism is needed on either side… and the performance wars are over, Freddie. You may have missed the memo. A “typical” Windows machine and a “typical” Mac running the same software will produce the same results in the hands of the same person, and performance is no longer a primary issue. Sure, Windows will always win the bang-for-buck equation, and no one is going to argue that you can get a certain % more plugins running on the same cost of Windows machine, but so what? Even a cheap Mac Mini, as humble as some people might think it is, can work miracles in the right hands… including with Cubase. There is no need to bash either platform now.

  6. In 5-6 years not only will the entire personal computer landscape change, but so will the DAW software landscape change. I can guarantee that the only DAW developers left standing in 5-6 years will be the ones who are embracing the coming paradigm shifts. The ones that will come out on top will likely be making bold bets and taking some risky moves, and more importantly, they will be AGILE to the coming changes. That’s actually why I think Steinberg will still be standing… they’ve been doing well on mobile and now getting into gesture recognition. That’s where UI stuff is headed, according to many predictions, and they’re already allocating resources to experiment in those areas. Even if those areas don’t pan out, they have invested in and are aware of the coming technologies and trying to be agile. I hope they keep it up. Or Cubase will become the next Opcode Vision.

  7. Whatever happens in the future will involve a LOT of change for everyone, not just Mac users, so the best advice someone can give to users in the “here and now” is not to jump on or dump on Windows or Mac, etc… but rather to build a platform-independent workflow and make sure you have a solid strategy to archive older projects/content to a lowest-common-denominator (such as wav stems), so that in 5, 6, 10 years you can still access your projects to some degree or another.

  8. In the end, what matters most is the music you are making now. Who could have predicted the rapid rise and fall of recent tech trends? The same holds for music technology. But let’s not engage in platform bashing. We all use Cubase here, and we all know it’s an incredible DAW.

EDIT: This post was in response to Freddie’s post which he deleted.

Well said, it’s just plain childish and unprofessional.

I really appreciate the input from the other members who have chimed in here, very interesting perspectives on the age old Mac/Windows debate. Nice to know I’m not the only one in the industry who recently moved over to Mac!

I did not migrate or anything, but for the last couple of weeks Ive been torn between going either all Mac or all PC.
This debate showed me that such a radical decision might be uncalled for, it comes down to personal taste and preference and whats the best working environment for you - the goal is the same I think - creating epic songs :smiley:

However, you have to prefer one of these systems, currently I for example run my DAW on my custom built PC, recently updated to Windows 8.1, which I find fresh and nice. For other tasks I use my MacBook Pro (plus iPad and iPhone). I realised in order to do serious scoring work it is a good idea to have at least 2 computer setup, so I can’t really decide between waiting for new Mac Pro or building again killer PC machine (either way will use VEP5)…

Nevertheless, this debate is interesting as there are many opinions and many of them come from experienced users, but when you reading it, it all comes down to that particular story and reasons that led someone to change the platform or try sth new - that and how do you like to work, in which environment.

+1

Advice that applies to either platform, but mostly PC as there tends to be more OS-level optimization work (including removing background services, malware, etc.):

While you’re tweaking the PC to achieve its low-latency / performance holy grail, do yourself a favor and get an audio interface that enjoys a full 2048 buffer size. This will give you some wiggle room, when a mix gets demanding.

Not all audio interface drivers go that high, so you’ll have to do some digging. For example: Focusrite drivers do 2048; MOTU drivers max out at 1024.

For some of my mixdowns with lots of live buss effects, a 2048 setting allowed me to work without resorting to printing entire buss stems.

Also, on the Mac vs PC thing: while emotions, opinions and loyalties can run high, the discussion is interesting and useful to me (and surely others) who are open-minded about using both platforms – it’s sort of self-adjusting, that way.

I think this discussion thread, for future forum-searching posterity, deserves one key point of balance in Apple’s favor; from someone (me) who’s been advocating the PC choice for bang-for-buck reasons: I’ll admit that Apple is not charging more for the actual hardware components, themselves – just the opposite.

Spec’d out and assembled from scratch, one would have to spend a considerable amount more: Apple’s $9,599.00 configuration would be $14,309.89 if home-built as a PC! Pretty awesome of Apple to do this. Apple's new Mac Pro a better value than the sum of its parts | AppleInsider

One might even take this as a sign Apple’s willing to absorb some costs, in some areas, in an attempt to ensure the Mac Pro creative professional pipeline has a secure future. In a way, perhaps somewhat of an olive branch to those who stayed true to Apple during their Mac Pro hiatus. And, as a way to attract or win over those who didn’t.

I’ll confess, this knowledge does soften my view of “never again” with an Apple workstation-class purchase.

That said, I just can’t get past the raw physics advantage of upgrading a motherboard and CPU around other perfectly good, albeit older, parts.

For example, the benchmarks of my rack-mounted PC’s $300.00 CPU upgrade and its 14646 Geekbench score vs a new, cheapest configuration Mac Pro of 2999.00 and its 14207 Geekbench score, speaks for itself. This is the kind of bang-for-buck, painless, sustainable path I wanna be on.

But, for someone wanting to buy new hardware each time, for whatever reasons, holy smokes is the Mac Pro “cheap” for its parts. Apple has to be losing money on them.

The Mac Pros are a very good “new computer” value, for sure.

One comment that been bugging me the last day or so is when someone said Desktops are going away and that Macs will also go away.
This just isn’t true.
The way I see it is that us lot, the people who care about computers and the stuff they do, all bought a computer to do our thing at the beginning of this 10-20 year technology boom.
The casual web browser customer also bought a PC, just to get online and shop and connect with people when the internet came along.
Now the casual web browsing customer is quite rightly buying a tablet and whats left over is us, the hardcore.
Naturally the desktop market will deflate but there will ALWAYS be a need for a desktop class PC/Mac/Computer/Workstation/Studio/Rig.

In my view…People like are Apple are always going to be safe. I mean look at the specs of that Mac Pro.
PC hardware manufacturers are also safe and will continue.
People who farm out average cheap PC’s like HP (Hp still in business?) Samsung, Asus, Acer etc etc are going to take a huge hit in that particular market due to Jenny Jones deciding to email and do household accounts on her iPad Air.

It seems like you’re contradicting yourself. First you say that a $300 CPU upgrade gives you the same level of geekbench score as a brand new MacPro (and I’m sure it’s true), and then you say the latter is a “good value”? Seriously? $2,000 just to upgrade the RAM to 64gb. Good value? You’re joking, right? And, of course, you just can’t use third-party RAM. Like you can’t use a third-party GPU (and yes there are better models than what Apple offers) or even a third-party drive. If any other maker had put the current MacPro on the market, all the tech “journalists” would have chastised it as complete madness, because basically it’s an iPad, as you’d have to accept it as it is, without the possibility to change anything. This is something a professional can’t accept.

You can build a PC that trounces the $9,000 dustbin in every department for about $4,000.

After the Jalcide’s post I was waiting for your reply…
Did you read the article he linked? Apparently you didn’t. The article just says that if you try to assembly a PC with the same hardware as the top of the line Mac Pro you will end up spending the 50% more than what Apple charges you. Do you have arguments to prove they are wrong? I bet you don’t.

You just keep writing the same things…and most of them are wrong such as:

  • you just can’t use third-party RAM —> False
  • or even a third-party drive —> False
  • basically it’s an iPad (…) without the possibility to change anything —> False

So, where is the 16-core MacPro?

You do realize that this beast costs LESS than the “magic dustbin”. don’t you? And you do realize that a 16-core E5 outperforms a 12-core E5, don’t you?

BTW, that article is ludicrous and wildly inaccurate.

“If you’re curious, a maxed-out 2013 Mac Pro, complete with a 12-core processor, 64GB of RAM, 1TB of flash storage, and dual FirePro D700 GPUs, will set you back a cool $9599.”

I don’t see dual W9000’s mentioned anywhere (except in that ridiculous article.) The $9.5k MacPro comes with dual D700’s. And two D700’s cost WAY LESS than $7,000. In fact, a tad over $2,000, for TWO cards. Needless to say, there are BETTER options than the D700 for PC’s. With the MacPro, you’re stuck with whatever Apple decides it’s best for you. So, no 16-cores and no top-of-the-line GPU’s. And it’ll still cost you more…

Exactly. A colleague recently ordered a 6-core unit with stock Ram because 3rd party Ram is already available online for a fraction of the cost. Plus, his existing 3rd party drives will be used via T-bolt and USB. To compare it with an iPod is just silly :laughing: . The latest benchmarks are awesome, and when you really dig into the Mac Pro, it’s a beast. Not for everyone obviously, but a nice machine nonetheless. Certain people will have already made up their minds, so there’s no point in trying to prove anything to them. For everyone else though, it will be cool to hear about experiences with the Mac Pro in order to make an educated judgment call.

I said a good “new computer” value. It’s not a contradiction because we’re only talking about someone in the market for buying a new computer each time. Specifically, a PC with those exact parts would be significantly more expensive than the price Apple has marked them at. It appears to be a strategic move on Apple’s part. Are any other large, PC-oriented OEM’s offering similar cost savings on a full, new computer? Probably, I have not checked. That would be an interesting nugget to add to the dialog.

Btw, this is all very timely for me as I’m building a new DAW. One thing I’ve been trying to find is how tightly does the Geekbench score correlate to real-time audio effects. Since the largest part of the score is FPU (floating-point) and that’s what most plugins want, it should be close. I’ve found this to be true, but have found some interesting and troubling (to me) results. If it proves to be true, the Mac Pro may be looking even more attractive. More to come, but some results are putting into question the usefulness of that Geekbench score. Right now, I’ve got an old, cheap PC from around 2010 I’m wanting to re-purpose for audio, at a 8059 Geekbench score running less plugins than a much older (2006) Mac Pro with a 5700 Geekbench score. Same plugins, same DAW (Reaper) and same Focusrite Pro 40 audio interface.

I think it’s not so much CPU as an ASIO vs Core Audio thing, which makes it even stranger because ASIO usually does better at lower latencies (lower buffer sizes) than OS X Core Audio (as documented over at Dawbench), but here in this high latency situation (2048 buffer size) the Mac Pro is winning in this specific case. I don’t get it. I has to be some setting, somewhere I’m not seeing. Or the fact the PC is an AMD Phenom II processor. But CPU utilization is only 15%, while the RT (real-time) meter in Reaper show 99% (and audio crackles), so it doesn’t seem CPU-related. Anyway, more to come on this odd result.

I’ve got a very specific mastering chain that I want a dedicated computer to run. Right now that old Mac Pro is running it, but I want to add a couple things to it, and it’s at its limit. I then want to re-purpose the Mac Pro as a dedicated box for other work-related things, so it’s a good move for me that will make the most of old hardware.

I was thinking the 2010 PC would surely run this chain, plus my new additions, if the 2006 Mac Pro did … sigh. This whole VST Performance meter / RT Performance meter / ASIO / Core Audio stuff is a very frustrating area of mystery.

We need you Dawbench guy, where are you? :cry: :laughing:

Hilarious projection. I PROVED you that the MacPro does NOT come with the W9000 GPU’s as indicated by that cult website (and I proved it by quoting another cult website, one a bit more honest…) but with a couple of more humble D700’s, and therefore the entire article is based on a lie. But you don’t care, because you have already accepted a LIE, that Apple products are actually cheaper than their competition. And no amount of truth can EVER wake you up. Instead, what you do is insult me. Because of course you’re in no position to actually debate me.

Is anybody paying attention here?

I already proved you that the article is based on a LIE. The 9.5k MacPro does NOT come with two W9000 GPU’s but with two D700’s, which don’t cost $7,000 but in fact around $2,000.

In case you missed it the first time, here it is, again:

“If you’re curious, a maxed-out 2013 Mac Pro, complete with a 12-core processor, 64GB of RAM, 1TB of flash storage, and dual FirePro D700 GPUs, will set you back a cool $9599.”

Also the other components are based on RETAIL prices and guess what, outside of Apple fairy land, there is COMPETITION and NOBODY buys at retail price. On the CPU only I can easily save $300-400.


AND NOW, LET’S DO SOME REAL INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM.

MacPro

6-core Xeon E5-1650 v2
16 gb
d500
OCZ 256gb SSD

$3,999

Let’s see how the parts REALLY cost:

6-core Xeon E5-1650 v2 $583 (retail price. You can get a SIMILAR CPU on the market for about $150 less. That particular model isn’t very popular.)

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013091401_Intel_Xeon_E5-1600_v2_and_E5-2600_v2_CPUs_launched.html

16gb RAM (best on the market) $179

The D500 GPU is specifically made for the MacPro, so you cannot buy it separately for a PC. But AMD sells one with roughly the same features, and it costs $1,098.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814105006

OCZ 256gb SSD $214.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227967

ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS mobo $539.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131817

Case $50
PSU $80

Grand total: $2,744.98

That’s a whopping $1254.02 LESS than the cost of the 6-core MacPro. Of course the more expensive MacPro you pick, the more it will cost compared to a similarly-equipped PC.

Some good points, but we can’t compare vanilla, non-customized D700’s, because Apple has bumped up their specs. That’s why the reviewer chose an off-the-shelf card with specs as closely matched as possible.

“Driving the displays in our hypothetical rig are two AMD FirePro W9000 GPUs at $3,399.99 each. They match the Mac Pro’s cards on spec with 6GB of GDDR5 memory and 264Gbps memory bandwidth, though it is difficult to say exactly how well they mimic Apple’s heavily customized units.”

As for the two other high-priced components, I was only able to find the 12-core E5-2697 about two hundred bucks cheaper than the article’s 2749.99, at 2531.98. You said, “300-400” so let’s go with that number.

The cheapest (and the site looked sketchy) I could find for the OCZ 960G was around 1700.00, much cheaper than the article’s 3000.00. So you’re right about the retail prices being cherry picked in that article.

But, unless those customized D700’s suck, compared to the W9000’s, the around 2k savings we might get still does not negate the 4710.00 saving the article purports. It appears that there is still a two thousand dollars, give or take, savings.

It seems the benchmarks of those customized D700’s will tell the full story.

Yup, you’re right. For sure, the lower-end Mac Pros can be home-built cheaper.

This is why I’m doing it. :mrgreen:

Here it is, $300 less, after a mere 30-second search:

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?p=E52697V2BX&c=fr&pid=a2d5cc1de4ac28e9b6dd89755e2fce94adc918a29c24a66bd20249f3e27e251b&gclid=CL6pjYzqzrsCFSWCQgodOHcAag

Also consider that all this stuff is pretty new, and in just a matter of months, prices will fall (but ESPECIALLY on the GPU’s…) Except for Apple hardware, of course, whose prices NEVER follow the market. Which means the MacPro will become even more ridiculously expensive.