do i get a mac pro or build a custom machine for my home office/studio
I am using the machine for ableton live, programming and pen testing. I will be running virtual machines, mainly fedora, ubuntu, backtrack and xp. With the mac pro il have to limit myself to two screens. with the pc I can have 3 separate displays plus a tv display and a duplicate running aswell.
I will also have to upgrade the memory in the mac pro so will be about 2200 heres the link to it
its not that In want to tinker its just I feel I get better value for money from the PC. I use a macbook pros as my daily laptops now. one for music stuff and the other for work and study. I really don’t know way to do
PCs are definitely a better value and you get more hardware for your money, on the other hand mac pros are really nice and for production I would rather have a mac with slightly lower specs on paper since it seems like you get much more performance.
I have a macbook pro for DJing and an older PC core 2 duo desktop for production. I couldn’t justify the cost of upgrading to a mac pro but I definitely wish I just had a mac and kept it consistent. It would make things a lot simpler and the mac is just more robust (seems some VSTs an audio stuff crash the PC occasionally and Maschine sometimes glitches out and drains all cpu at once and cripples the system).
Personally I would get the mac it’s not worth the hassle of switching between the two and there are definitely things I miss from OSX on my desktop for production- actually quite a few things. It just seems like a lot of crap on the PC for audio is kind of ghetto workarounds- example having to use MIDI yoke for a lot of controller stuff (which is an ancient legacy PC app from like windows 98 era). I still haven’t gotten Lemur to work right with my PC and it is fine on the mac. Drivers and hardware support for audio stuff seem better on the mac too and there are some mac only apps I miss on the PC for audio.
well mb support 128 gig of ram, and I can’t see processors getting any better in reality until they launch the carbon chips, but they will suck every last drop of blood out of silicon before they do that, I think I’m gina go pc, and I can’t see myself switching to login any time soon
Decide which machine for pen testing based on what you want to use as your VM host. PCs run ESX(i) really well…as in, Win Vista performed (subjectively) better under ESXi than running native…I don’t know if that’s still the case with 7 or 8.
So, do that…then use your MBP for production. How many screens do you really need? 'cuz the MBP gives you at least 2, and there are ways to get more.
There is no reason to use a Mac Pro for production unless you’re buying Avid HD cards, which Ableton and Maschine can’t use. An iMac is awesome, and if they don’t have overheating issues, Mac Minis are pretty awesome. But a Mac Pro just isn’t necessary unless you’re actually going to be plugging stuff into the motherboard.
well the way I want my studio id like 3 next to each other, then another on the other side of the room next to another screen duplicating my middle screen from the other side. so a fair few i like a visual environment
I’d take a look at the 27" iMacs. For around the same price as that Mac Pro (with upgraded RAM), you can get a 3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 Processor and 16GB of RAM. You can also plug two additional monitors into the new iMacs.
yea had a look at the imac need the thunderbolt monitors for tripple screens. and there like 800 each. alot to throw down on a monitor. can get same size ips screens for around 450
You can use any monitor. Just connect a Mini-DisplayPort to DVI adapter at the end of your Thunderbolt chains (or right into the iMac if you don’t have any other Thunderbolt devices). They cost $30 for single-link dvi (up to 1900x1200) and $1000 for dual-link dvi. Charging Essentials - Mac Accessories - Apple
Thunderbolt to DVI won’t do what he wants because neither Apple nor anyone else has released a Thunderbolt device (other than expensive RAID devices) that actually allows thunderbolt daisy chaining…which is fucking stupid.